Perfect Fifths_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [72]
A feminist is any woman who tells the truth about her life.
—Virginia Woolf
Jessica could tell Sunny that the worst part about Couchsurfemi-nist/Manda’s loopily vitriolic rebuke was not how it bordered on slander but how it was totally justified and almost entirely true in essence, if not in actuality. For example, Couchsurfeminist/Manda neglected to mention that her time in the heterosexual monogamous paradigm ended immediately after Len innocently walked in and interrupted a Sapphic entanglement in Manda’s dorm room. This shocking betrayal and convenient omission had as much to do with their breakup—if not more—than any lingering feelings Len had for Jessica. Jessica had been tempted, for the briefest of moments, to assign herself a screen name and defend herself against Couchsurfeminist’s accusations:
NotThePornStar commented: How dare YOU of all people make such libelous smears about other people’s promiscuity? You who taste-tested half the dicks in Pineville before deciding that vagina was the only meat on your menu.
What kind of example would that set? This was precisely the kind of debased public grievance-airing that Jessica tried to persuade the Girls to keep offline and private, best left for black-and-white-speckled composition notebooks. (In fact, Jessica begged a certain commenter screen-named SunnyDaze not to launch a counterattack to defend her mentor’s honor, then overpraised said teen for being so worldly and mature beyond her years when she grudgingly agreed.) What’s more, was Couchsurfeminist/Manda so far off the mark in her scathing summarization? Hadn’t Jessica callously disregarded Len’s feelings for her—and, to a lesser degree, Manda’s feelings for Len—over the years?
As much as Jessica hated to admit it, Couchsurfeminist/Manda was right in that regard, and it didn’t even matter if she portrayed herself as an innocent victim. After reading that post, Jessica understood that Manda truly believed Len could have been the Great Love of Her Life, just as she truly believed Jessica was the sole reason why it hadn’t turned out that way. After all, as Jessica told Sunny and all the Girls in the program: