The second Facebook page had, surprisingly, been created by a teenage boy called Lee Joo Seen. In the “about” section, Joo Seen declared that he was sickened by the locker room culture of teenage boys who thought nothing of making crude sexual jokes about female schoolmates they barely knew or female celebrities who happened to be currently in the limelight. He personally felt that these boys were guilty of verbalised, imagined assault on the targeted females and ought to be called out. It was Jessica’s tale of courage that had inspired him to create a Facebook page he called “Stop the Bruising”. Joo Seen posted a photo of his school’s basketball team training on the court and tagged an audio clip of what he claimed was a re-enactment of their locker room banter. He invited readers to share their thoughts via comments, and vowed that he would eventually send the offenders a link to this page. It was Joo Seen’s hope that the public shaming would lead to their reflection and a change of behaviour.

In comparison, the newest page, “We Love Jessica”, was nothing more than a group of tweens coming together to share their adoration for her. They took photos of their soft toys and handicraft work, and dedicated them to Jessica, the bravest rape survivor they had ever seen. Jessica cringed at their reference to her as a “rape survivor” but could not deny how good it felt to learn that she was an idol to countless tween girls.

“We have to get The Straits Times to interview you.”

Jessica stared at Andreae in horror. “Please don’t do that.”

“Why not?” Andreae argued. “It will drive traffic to the ‘J Bruise’ website. We ought to ride on the momentum.”

“What if they ask me about my supposed rape—the one that did not happen—in case you’ve forgotten?”

Andreae stuck out her tongue. That inconvenient truth had indeed slipped her mind.

As it turned out, a reporter from The Straits Times did eventually contact Jessica to request an interview. They were going to run an article about an incident that happened one year ago. There had been an unprecedented train breakdown that left 750,000 commuters stranded during rush hour. Amidst the pandemonium, an expatriate by the name of Anton Cassidy had been caught on video verbally abusing a hearing-impaired technician. The video clip also caught the silhouette of a young lady who courageously defended the victim from the bully. The identity of the young lady had remained a mystery until two days ago, when the technician stepped forward and claimed that he now knew who his saviour was; it was Jessica Tan Jia Lin, the J Bruise girl.