Page 129 of Peak Cruelty

Let the pattern show itself.Then act.

I keep a second spreadsheet labeled: Future.

Not because I expect to get the one I thought I’d have.

Maybe exactly for that reason.

Maybe because now I have to build a different one.

Not for me.

For someone else.Someone like I used to be.

If she ever finds this, I want her to have a head start.

I believe in prep.

I believe in evidence.

I believe in letting people dig their own graves—and handing them a better shovel when they start using a spoon.

The names grow.

The columns grow.

I don’t ask if this is the right way.

There is no right way.Only right now.

I’m not trying to be a savior.I’m not trying to be Vance.

But someone has to do the work.

They call it coincidence, when men like him go missing.

When women like her lose their jobs.

When the carefully curated performance slips and there’s no one left clapping.

Let them call it that.

Let them believe it was luck.That the world caught up to them all on its own.

I won’t correct them.

Because that’s the trick, isn’t it?

They don’t see the hand behind the curtain.

And I don’t need them to.

Let them call it coincidence.

I call it craft.

64

Marlowe

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