Getting to the bottom of all of this has been the worst time of my entire life. My hospitalization was intensive and people were so skeptical of the story I was told that I was hallucinating. This was fascinating to me given that I was clear about the fact that I’d lived in DC for 10 years and the intelligence community is massive. This story is very rare and unique, but not for this place. There are hundreds of thousands of people who work for the government in one way or another, and one way people work for the government is gathering foreign intelligence.

Being shown into this world was exhilarating and frightening for both Aada and me, because she was scared of my imagination and didn’t realize how she fed it. She ramped up what she did for a living and then told me I couldn’t talk about it anymore. The very last time, I called her out on the carpet. She’d told me that I couldn’t talk with her about why it was so important that I drop Jonna Mendez as a friend. We weren’t that close, anyway, so what did she care?

That worked for a few years, but Aada got more and more anxious as they went by. I finally told her that it was over between Jonna and me, a pity because I valued having a writer in my corner. I also could have gotten a job recommendation if I’d played my cards right. But because Aada told me to run, I did.

I thought I was protecting the path, and it was my job to make sure they never crossed over. I didn’t question Aada in the slightest because it wasn’t worth all her distress. But again, that only worked for a few years. Blocking Jonna on Facebook and not going to the spy museum anymore was all painful, and has to be water under the bridge because I don’t want to carry it.

Because it is certainly water under the bridge to Aada. She cannot undo it, she can only apologize and move on as well. She has apologized for it, and I’ve accepted it. That’s enough. But what I will not forget is the mountain of bullshit she laid on me in addition to that apology.

It started with “why are you still contacting me” and just went downhill from there.

So, I’ve stopped contacting her. I’ve rewired myself so that she’s not the first person that pops into my mind when I need to talk. You are. All of the energy that I spent writing to her is time that I could have spent perfecting my craft…. Except wait. Beautiful lines that I’ve repeated here came out of those letters, so I didn’t lose any ground.

I’m just sad that we spent so much time fighting about my blog rather than working together. But of course we couldn’t work together on it because she’d submarined a collaboration from the start. She doesn’t actually do what she told me she did, so the collaboration would be my own research and a secondhand account.

I know that I’m good enough to be a research assistant to someone like Jonna, but she’s already got people for that and she’s not hiring (I checked). I was convinced I was living the sequel to Argo. My reality cracked. It sounds nuts because it was. But me thinking I was carrying the sequel to Argo didn’t just mean witty banter.

Tony: I should have brought some books for prison. Jack: Oh, they’ll kill you long before prison.

My imagination spun out. Jonna Mendez was my touchstone because she kept me from believing spy movie magic, and taught me to get interested in what humans could actually accomplish instead.

She told me wonderful tales in books I inhaled, singing a song only I could hear. Because it’s hard to be in danger. It’s harder to know your person is. I would never presume to get answers to any of those questions more than she’s published.

We’ve talked a few times at the museum, but I’ve been too embarrassed about all this to show my face recently.

And then Aada cut me off from her because she thought we were getting too close. I thought it had to do with some rule about Jonna being out and Aada not. It never in a billion years occurred to me that Aada was trying to protect me from finding out they’d never met.

I made so many assumptions that it’s not funny, and Aada never shied away from my characterizations of her. That’s why her lie is so hard to get over. Everything I’ve written for the last 12 years has centered on a toxic relationship and the only thing I have to say for myself is that I don’t constantly have to wonder if I’m the only one to blame for the end of what was at times a very healthy, if unusual kinship.

Time wore on. Things escalated and we wouldn’t talk, then something would jog the other to respond. We couldn’t really stay away from each other because we’d made such an impression on each other early on.

Talking became habit, and a good one. But the level to which we isolated was too much, too fast. She scared me and I had no support system for it, because the way she swore me to secrecy was also bullshit.

It felt like pressure in my chest, the holding of this information when I didn’t have anyone to confide in. She’d alienated me from having Dana in that role, and flipped out when I chose one other person, Michael, to hear everything. I just didn’t know that Michael could dry my tears of frustration.

Surely neither did she, and has been afraid. She needn’t worry. No one has eyes on any of us. It’s just a screwball comedy in the end.

I have to keep reminding myself of it when I think I’m going to cry again. Eventually, I’ll run out of tears. The shock will wear off. And at that point I will know for sure that I have reached a new normal… One that doesn’t include anything but keeping my head down and hoping for success later on in life.

I do want to develop a script, but unless I get experienced screenwriters on my team, it’s going to be very slow going. I want Elliot Page to play me, and as I was telling Michael, “it’s not hard to play me. I just type fast.” I do not know Elliot Page, nor do I presume that he’d like to read my script. I just think he’s the most like me in terms of adorkable and action figure.

The action figure is the me of my imagination, where I go around fixing the whole world. I hope that I am not complacent in real life, that people do get a lot out of reading me because it makes them examine their own lives. I feel that I am best served by using my skills as a writer to convey feelings, whether I’m writing fact or fiction.

The victory lap in this is a story that’s compelling, and that’s all I’ve ever wanted my life to be. My career being so varied has allowed me to wander and attract people, painting them with words and yet not trying to, as Aada would say, “paint my feelings as fact,” but tell my story in a way that lets you into my world for the time we have together.

I have a voice, and writing my story all along has made all the difference. There’s no subterfuge because I’ve been writing what’s been happening in the moment. I just need to go back and look.

There’s a reason she wasn’t present when my mother died, and it wasn’t because I was a bad person. She was protecting something, and until now I didn’t know what.

The first is that if Aada was in any kind of operations, I would have had to sign an NDA by now. I would have been questioned on how I knew this person and my connection to them.

I thought it was kind of sweet that I was this punk ass cook and she’d been an “M” for a long time.

Well, someone was. Just not her.

I have to keep reminding myself because the repetition of it is what keeps me from going back in time. I read these entries, too, sometimes like I’m my own best stalker girlfriend, because I’m analyzing my thoughts to see if they sound sane or not.

I’ve doubted my sanity for a long time, and it’s time to stop. It no longer serves me because my intuition is restored.

The mystery is solved.

Let’s get back in the van.

I have been assured that I can hurt no one professionally, so here is what really happened to me. Aada stole a story, and ran when she got caught.

I know who she stole the story from, and she doesn’t like me any more than Aada right now… But I’m hoping that will change.

I wish I could talk to Dana as tears roll down my cheeks, talking to her about this stolen story and how sorry I am that it affected me so much I thought I needed to leave her.

Aada has been living a lie, but I haven’t.

I’m really lucky that I have more than one fan. Because I wouldn’t have known the answers to these questions if I’d never had an opportunity to ask one about the other.

I hope that Mummo knows I’ve been crazy about her for years.

And that’s the real end of the story I thought I’d never get. I’ve been in love with someone else’s story, and I would bet my life’s savings that I’m one of the only ones who know it.

I am clear-eyed about Aada’s reaction when I caught her in a lie. It’s always the details that sink a liar.

I can guess who is really friends with whom by now.

Maybe after all this, Mummo will forgive me, too. That part is just not up to me. It’s my best wish for the future.

And if I could wish for one more thing, it’s for Aada’s people to surround her with love and affection because we’ve really been through something. It’s just not the journey I thought we would take.

My car finally arrived about 7:00 PM last night, which was just enough time for me to drive it around and get both a power train and a low tire pressure warning. I was paranoid about both, so I was in line at Koons Ford by 7:30 this morning.

$97 later, I’m sitting pretty. I had the oil changed and everything checked out, so all my fluids are topped off and my tires are at full capacity. I paid more than I would have paid at Jiffy Lube, but Riker told me to go someplace better. I don’t think he cares, just…. Better.

After I finished at Ford, I wandered around my neighborhood for a car wash. My dad and I did a little bit of detailing, like putting vinyl protectant into the dash, but I couldn’t avoid spoiling my “girl.” We went for the ultra wash, the Lord Baltimore, which came with free Rain-X and air freshener.

I thought they were going to spray it in the car, but no. Now I am the proud owner of a little tree to hang from my rearview mirror, scented in “Black Ice.” I’m going to save it for next month, because I got a really nice air freshener at the Auto Zone in Bastrop.

I need to check my bank balance before I go, but the last thing I want to get for my Fusion is floor mats. The boys had a lot of vacuuming to do, so I’m pretty sure I want all-weather. Depending on how expensive the rubber mats are, I might get one for the trunk as well. I’d like everything to look tidy and organized. I’ve been religious about taking out the trash every time I get out of it, and this is like a whole new thing for me.

I think, perhaps, I finally have a serious case of “pride of ownership.” It really is a good looking car with very few defects given its life that haven’t been corrected. The mechanics are all solid, but there are a few scratches and a rip in the back seat.

I haven’t decided what to do with the rip in the back seat, because I’m not a fan of seat covers. I think I’ll just leave it as is, because of course I won’t be looking at it all that often.

The woman at the check-out counter (at Ford) had a large basket of lollipops at her station. I said, “which ones are the best out of all these?” She said, “I don’t put those out” and handed me one from inside her desk. Strawberry Kiwi with Tootsie in the middle. The woman has taste.

I also grabbed a banana Tootsie pop because those are the hardest to find. As it gets closer to Halloween, I’ll be buying a lot of them.

This afternoon has been kind of quiet, except that there are guys working behind my wall in the living room. They just knocked a painting down from all the vibrations and I nearly jumped out of my skin, thinking I was being burgled again.

Yes, I really need to move.

After my heart rate returned to normal, I started thinking about how I’d like to get some decorations for my car down the road. A rainbow and bi flags, or instead of stickers, doing rainbow or bi flag colors on the approach lights. I think the bi flag would be less busy, but I’m not overly concerned. I can be the pride parade all by myself.

“Being the pride parade all by myself” is actually an old Margaret Cho joke, but I hope she doesn’t mind since we’re besties (she’s read one article).

It’s funny, sometimes I felt like the “pride parade all by myself” with Aada because she knew a lot about queer culture, but not all of it. She’d occasionally get something wrong to hilarious results, and I will miss that so much. My little cis, straight girl trying to learn all she can as quickly as possible.

But fortunately or unfortunately, Aada has queer people to take my place.

Tara made me cry when she read one of my entries and said, “I’m sorry about Aada.” It was so simple and so sweet that it’s just one of the many times tears have rolled down my face. Some days, this situation feels really simple. We are two people that have love for each other, or did. We both hurt each other more than we meant. We both acted out. We both manipulated each other, with Aada insisting that she never did such a thing.

“Your game is that you don’t play any games.”

That was how I dealt with that, and it resonated. She apologized for her behavior.

She confused me because sometimes she did not take responsibility for anything, and sometimes she made me feel like the most loved person on earth. I don’t know how to reconcile all of that, especially since she walked away saying that I was the only manipulator. If that’s what makes her feel better about ditching working on this relationship, I’m all for it. She can use her anger to separate from me entirely without ever once reaching into my heart and trying to understand.

But I know she’s not always like that. It’s how she runs when she’s really not thinking. When she’s dialed in, her empathy is unmatched. Getting her when she has enough bandwidth to be dialed in is most of the problem, and I contacted her too much to make her feel comfortable. Everything was rushed.

I think that’s why now I’m not bothering to email her- that writing here is the least offensive way to resolve all this if she’s curious, and if she’s not, it’s just my therapy.

You don’t get better on one hour a week, and my writing is responsible for a lot of the reason I move through emotions quickly, waffling between “what I think and what I think.” My best solution for this is distraction, because I cannot go backwards unless Aada consents.

Why do I think we should make up?

One of our longest running jokes is that she works at a car wash. Eight or 10 years ago, I joked with her that my car looked gorgeous. She said, “I accept tips.”

I used PayPal to send her $2.00. A few minutes later, I get an e-mail:

“Dead.”

I have a feeling it’ll be a hundred years before I see her wash and wax package, but it’s ok. It won’t stand up to Lord Baltimore, even though historically the next Big Gulp’s on me.