My Dark Vanessa

Vanessa prepares for work while checking a post on Facebook. As the post garners more comments, Vanessa checks her phone. When she finds neither a message nor missed call from Strane, she leaves her apartment for work.

At the luxury hotel where she works as a concierge, Vanessa tends to guests. During her break, she checks Facebook on her phone, noticing more supportive comments directed toward the writer of the post. Just as Vanessa’s break comes to an end, Strane calls her, and they discuss the post.

Strane is anxious about the post, and he tells Vanessa that he fears he will lose his job. Vanessa tries to soothe him by pointing out that an earlier investigation into Strane’s relationship with Taylor Birch, the young woman who wrote the Facebook post, went nowhere. Vanessa’s attempt to calm Strane are unsuccessful until she reassures him that she will not step forward with her own story to enhance Taylor’s credibility.

Vanessa recalls that she was 15 when she first met Strane, who was then her 42-year-old English teacher at Browick, a boarding school in Maine. She describes their attraction to one another, explaining that Strane loved her for her brain and her writing talent.