The Anti-Heroes

Chapter Twenty-One （ACTION） EMILY

Chapter Twenty-One

(A CTION ) E MILY

Not only is Jeremy apparently alive and well, he’s currently working for a multinational food and beverage consortium. And he’s not from Melbourne. He’s not even Australian . Where did he get the accent? Did he just watch a bunch of old Mel Gibson movies to get into character?

How is this real?

And what bizarre twist of fate got me to click on that profile? Of the hundreds of notifications I get every year, why was I so lucky to have decided that was the one I’d click in the hopes of forwarding my professional development? If I saw this same thing happen on a TV show, I’d be pissed, like it was almost too convenient.

To say I feel like a fool is the understatement of the century.

Now that I have all the pieces in front of me, it’s maddeningly easy to piece it all together, and I feel like the biggest patsy. He was a plant. Jeremy was a plant. He infiltrated our group. I’d heard of this happening in other volunteer organizations. College friends in activist political groups told me they always had to be vigilant because people would pretend to be these enthusiastic volunteers, dressing and acting the part, all while feeding information back to law enforcement or opposing entities.

Jeremy has to be the reason it often felt like someone was one step ahead of us, why the arrests increased after he came on board and events went off the rails more frequently. But I never thought anyone would spy on us for profit, sabotage our plans, all to benefit some faceless corporation’s shareholders.

How does any person with a soul decide, Fuck the rain forest; what really matters is this quarter’s earnings report ?

All the pieces are coming together. The Australian consulate didn’t have information on him because he didn’t exist . That’s why I couldn’t find any Melbourne family. Because he didn’t exist . The police weren’t helpful, because they were likely paid not to be inquisitive. Not that it matters. Because he didn’t exist .

BlueLove didn’t have additional information on him, because he was a total fabrication. There was never an actual gunshot, because he was working with the guys posing as guerillas. That’s why my escape was almost too seamless. Did they go back to the campfire and laugh at me as I ran for my life through the jungle that night, bereft over my loss? Was I just a big joke? An obstacle to neutralize?

Mission accomplished.

I have been stuck in time for ten years, mourning the ghost of someone who spent every moment we were together lying to my face, ripping out my heart, and sending me off to a new life I didn’t want.

My fury is profound and I have all this energy coursing through me, but I don’t know what to do with it. I’m awake most of the night, going down the rabbit hole of who Jeremy, wait, “Norman” is. His name is fucking Norman . How did I not see through him? What signs did I miss or ignore? Did he ever try to tell me? Maybe I was just so in love that I chose not to see? Suddenly I’m reliving some memories that were more deeply buried.

“This was a mistake.”

I can’t help it—I laugh at him. “Didn’t feel like a mistake to me. Either time.”

There’s an intensity that comes along with the job, and hookups are frequent and no strings attached. At the end of the day, when you’re amped on adrenaline and endorphins, you need to channel that passion into something. The energy of our group breeds a kind of closeness, the kind that develops at summer camp, with couples constantly aligning and realigning, regardless of history.

Jeremy has just joined our merry band here in Tennessee, where we’re protesting (possibly sabotaging) the expansion of a pipeline. I was attracted to him from the beginning, but he did this weird hard-to-get thing, and I have to admit, it made me more determined to win him over. It’s like he actively tried to avoid entanglement.

Whatever his initial reticence was, he eventually got past it. (I am just that charming.) Last night was incredible. We separated from the group, setting up camp on a high bluff, where the only witness was the majesty of the starry night sky.

“Listen, shit happens. I’m not looking for anything serious. So unless you’re secretly married or something, this is no big deal,” I assure him.

“I don’t want to break your heart,” he says, and he sounds so sincere that I laugh again.

“That tells me you think very highly of yourself,” I reply, then I climb back in the sleeping bag and show him exactly what a mistake this isn’t.

Special Projects.

That’s what he calls his time sabotaging our work at BlueLove on his profile. The single most significant event in my life wasn’t caused by a bullet, but rather a bullet point on a two-page résumé. His end date on the special project is two weeks after the day I thought he’d been killed. Isn’t it so professional that he gave them adequate notice? Good for him, what a pro.

Again, thanks so much for the “suggested contact,” LinkedIn.

What would I have done if I’d actually heard from him after the fact? Why didn’t he reach out and apologize? Would I have forgiven him after my initial shock? No, that doesn’t sound like me. I may well have caused him grievous bodily harm. He was probably terrified that I might find out.

What do I do now?

What’s my next step?

How do I move forward, now that I know everything I believed in was a lie?

I want to pull up to the split-level ranch I’ve tracked him to in Nashville (Jeremy! A ranch house! Nashville, not the outback!) and scream at him, pummel him until my fists bleed, sack him like I’m legendary Bear Richard Dent. But how would that be satisfying? What would that change? Jeremy’s not real. He was never real. The love of my life was just a contractor, an actor playing a role, trying to get close enough to stop me from doing what I knew was right.

If there’s one shred of grace here, it’s that I’m in a different place because of Fearless Inc. If I’d found out sooner, I don’t know how I would have reacted. I hesitate to imagine. But Fearless has reminded me of who I am and who I can be. Regardless of Jeremy’s motives and subterfuge, I was real and I was true. I loved who I was and the good I accomplished. He can’t take that from me. It’s mine. My history is mine. I earned it.

All I can do is let him know that I found him out, let him live with the guilt of betraying me. Of being Judas for thirty pieces of silver. I wonder if he even feels guilty?

I do the most civil thing I can imagine. I message him on LinkedIn with a single question: How did this happen on my watch?

That’s it. That’s my whole being extrapolated into a single question, and the answer won’t make one whit of difference.

Almost immediately, my phone pings with a notification. I hold my breath as I read it. Of course, it’s not Jeremy/Norman. It’s too quick. It’s from Miles:

Here’s the heads-up and you didn’t hear it from me. The chancellor is monitoring your class today. Good luck. I am rooting for you. Show them how much you deserve to be here, I know you can. Miles.

My first inclination is to respond “Don’t sign your texts, Miles,” but I realize that he’s the one who’s always been on my team. Miles is the one who’s been there. He’s been the one coordinating his outfits with my cat, not Jeremy. And I never gave him a chance, not fully, because of a fucking ghost.

Yes.

This is exactly what I need.

To find out the last ten years of my life have been a lie, followed immediately by trying to teach a pack of uninterested Gen Zers why it’s important that the world doesn’t burn, all while my future career hangs in the balance. No pressure there.

I gaze out at the sea of young faces, as well as the chancellor’s. She’s tucked discreetly at the back of the hall, as though I wouldn’t notice her. My water table lecture is going nowhere fast, and not a single person in the room is engaged.

Fuck it.

Fuck it all.

I drop my notes. “Do you guys understand what it means when I say that CO 2 levels are rising?” I ask. “You hear it, but do you understand it?”

Taylor raises her hand. Of course she does. “That the levels of CO 2 are rising?”

I can hear the aggravation in my own voice. “You just restated the question, Taylor. So yes, but no. What it means is, the collective global temperature is going up. Do you have any idea why people like me are trying to limit global warming to less than two degrees Celsius by 2100? Do you? Do you get why this specific language is written into the Paris Climate Agreement?”

No one says anything. “What are two degrees, right? What harm can two degrees do? Well, let me tell you something. Two degrees is a big deal. It’s a big fucking deal.”

Did I just say “big fucking deal” in front of the chancellor? Uh oh. Yet I can’t pump the brakes. I’ve unleashed something and now it’s rolling downhill, snowballing.

“When the temperature jumps from one-point-five degrees to two, that increases everything we don’t want by a third. Okay? All the stuff that makes us miserable? One-third more. That means heat waves? They’d be a third longer. Huge storms? They’d be a third more intense. Flooding? One-third more. The sea level? It’d be that much higher and, spoiler alert, those coral reefs you think are so pretty to snorkel past on vacation are going to degrade and die, and so will the aquatic life that depends on them. We have only 44 percent of our coral reefs left. We’ve already blown through 56 percent. Fifty-six percent. More than half. Poof. Forever.”

The room is dead silent, but for the first time, I may actually have everyone’s attention. Not a single person is looking at their phone.

“What isn’t explicitly clear about that degree jump is that it can mean as much as a ten-degree difference in certain climates. Do you know what happens next? Crops that are already growing at their heat threshold will not persevere . Breadbasket crops like soy and corn will not persevere . Dead. Gone. Sayonara. And don’t even start me on the pests and the bacteria that will thrive under more extreme heat, because you do not want to know more about that shit show. It’s already happening—look at how malaria’s popped up again in Florida.”

I pace back and forth and every eye is on me.

“Understand this: your life as you know it will not be the same. The grain that makes the beer that you swill at parties? Will not persevere. Road trips? Spring breaks? Cavendish bananas in your smoothies? Or how about staples like coffee and chocolate and avocadoes? No more brunch. Clean, pure water when you turn on the tap? Over. It’s all going to be game over.”

At this point, I’m fairly sure I’m shouting. Can’t stop, won’t stop.

“If this feels like life or death, that’s because it is . There’s an analogy about what happens when you microwave a bag of popcorn. During that first minute? You don’t see anything happening, even though it is. The heat has gotten inside the kernel, and the steam is roiling beneath the surface, creating a chemical change. But you don’t see, hear, or smell it, so it doesn’t seem real. That’s why society at large has ignored climate change for so long—it wasn’t immediately evident. Right now, this change doesn’t seem real to so many of you, because if it did, you would preserve every resource you encounter. You get a beautiful day here in February and you’re all celebrating like it’s a gift or an anomaly rather than the direct result of greenhouse gases. You laugh when I talk about the possibility of a coastline in Las Vegas. It isn’t funny. Every uninformed decision you make pushes us closer to the brink, every piece of fast fashion you buy, every aluminum can you toss in the trash, because you think to yourself, It’s one tiny thing, what’s the difference? The difference is we are on the second minute of the crisis right now, okay? Those kernels are about to blow, and once they do, we cannot go back . The corn can never go back into the hull. This is where end-stage capitalism has gotten us.”

A student raises his hand and I gesture for him to speak. “Ma’am, I’m from Texas. Are you telling me that it’s possible that it’s gonna get hotter there in the summer? It can’t. Our ranch won’t survive.”

They’re starting to get it.

“It can get hotter and it will get hotter if we don’t make changes. All those wildfires that we’re seeing? Those aren’t accidents . They are a by-product of how we live. This is what happens. We are seeing the end result of not caring enough to protect this planet. All those animals we loved seeing at the zoo when we were kids? We’re going to lose them as the warming sea melts the glaciers from underneath. We’ve already lost five hundred species in the past hundred years. Tasmanian tigers? Gone. Japanese sea lions? Gone. West African black rhinos? Gone. In a hundred years from now, we’re not going to see krill or blue whales or ringed seals, because their habitats are being destroyed. Game over.”

A girl wearing a pretty smocked blouse that showcases the whale tattoo on her forearm pulls a Kleenex out of her backpack and dabs at her eyes. Oh shit, I made her cry. Making students cry cannot reflect well on me, but they need to hear this. I’m going down swinging—chancellor, eat your heart out.

“We’re going to see more drought. Do you understand me? Our storms will be more severe. Those cheesy blockbuster environmental disaster movies are going to be documentaries in a hundred years. Do you hate inequity? Well, buckle up, buttercups, because it’s only going to get worse. The poor are going to get poorer and they’re going to be displaced. The wealthy—the ones who are making money off all the chaos—they’re going to get wealthier.”

Everything I haven’t said in the ten years since I left the rain forest is spilling out.

“Here’s what I don’t get: Why aren’t all of you rioting in the streets, yelling, ‘Not on my watch!’? You are our last, best hope! Our future depends on you! Yet so many of you are blithely wading into a shitstorm wearing your Shein sundresses, playing your Animal Crossing , and making your TikToks, and you have no concept of what’s to come. I am sick to death of people not taking action. Sick. To. Death. I hope you come out of here today with your eyes open. Every cause you support is important, but none of them will matter if we don’t have a habitable planet anymore. This is it—this should be your apex priority. I hope you spend the rest of the day furious with me for bursting your little bubble. And I hope that spurs you to do something . Because you are capable and the only thing stopping you is you.”

I look into the lecture hall and see the chancellor’s face, her mouth open in a perfect O. Dozens of phones are out now, recording me and my rant.

So . . . that’s it.

I have probably cratered my career at this university. I can’t imagine the chancellor will look fondly on my casual use of profanity, or all the yelling, or any bad PR that comes of the video content. I will absolutely not earn bonus points for making a couple of students cry. Yet, for the first time, I feel like I’m getting through to these kids, and that is what’s most important, so I press on.

Consequences be damned; I am making a difference, so I keep on.

At the end of class, a few dozen kids linger by the front table. They seem reticent to leave, and many of them have questions about doing more. I did it—I got them to hear me. Finally.

This may well be everything I ever wanted.

I worked with BlueLove because I hoped to change the planet, but I realize now I was just one person. What if my real purpose is inspiring the hundreds of kids I teach every quarter to go out and do the same? What if that’s why so many encouraged me to go into teaching? I could make my reach exponential.

If I’m not fired first.

I wish I’d realized sooner that I have been exactly where I should be, that there’s not something better on the horizon.

Taylor approaches me and says, “Professor Doctor, I want to volunteer for Planet BlueLove?”

I’m so thrown that I must clarify. “Is that a question?”

She looks at me like I’m the fool here. “No.”