I throw this at the screen too, and it sticks very well. I may never be able to unstick it. What won’t stick is my counter-argument. What was that again? I can’t remember. All I can hear in my mind when I try to grasp it is the sound of my own whining.

It’s not fair

He wrote about me and I never said he could

He was watching me the whole time while pretending not to recognise me

He made me look stupid

He can’t write about me without asking

I sound like a child. My entire academic career—all my training taught me not to think about literature in these terms. It taught me to reject this mindset. I can’t bring myself to throw any of it at the screen. It is gibberish.

This has been a useful exercise. It has taught me to look more closely at this feeling of grievance I have been carrying around for nearly two years.What is at the base of it? Is it anything more than hurt feelings? John Coetzee hurt my feelings and I want him to apologise. Is that all there is to it? Yes . . . yes, it appears so.

I feel peaceful. How wrong I’ve been all this time. Writers don’t owe anyone anything. They don’t have to account for the words they put on a page or the order in which they put them. I have been trying to insert myself into the Coetzee Overnight Success narrative when the truth is, I don’t belong there. I am not part of his story, and I have allowed him to be part of mine for too long.

This is what it feels like to be free.

I go out with Eugene on Saturday night. I wear skinny jeans with ballet flats and a sparkly top with spaghetti straps. It’s the first time I’ve been out without my “I was raped” armour in two years. Men look at me and I look right back at them. It’s wonderful to have my sexual confidence back.

The comedy show is hilarious. There is one guy who makes rape jokes throughout his set. It is edgy and ironic and self-reflexive. It is meant to show that rape jokes are never funny (except his, of course). I don’t get triggered. The jokes wash over me. I laugh at some of them.

Eugene and I eat deep-fried tofu strips with sweet-and-sour sauce, and they are delicious. I look with pity at the table next to us. They are eating chicken nuggets and buffalo wings. They feast on the flesh of animals raised in misery and slain in anger. Who decides that the humble fowl is of less intrinsic worth than the human being? Or the ant, for that matter? And what about the humble protozoan? The simple eukaryote?