Bad Fiction – Rebecca Sarah Ley (1)

Isn’t it amazing? That all the men would get down and kiss her feet if she asked them to. Jo would scoff at that. People couldn’t conceive of desire that had no place for men. They couldn’t even imagine it. They couldn’t believe that if the most handsome men wanted you, you could possibly want a woman. And a young one at that. But she had been beautiful at that age, hadn’t they noticed? People told Jo she was striking.

All they meant was that she was living in that window of time when your face always looked as ripe as a peach, and your body as smooth as an apple, but you were innocent to the power that gave you. The good thing about marrying your professor was the prestige that came with it. She’d seen it happen to other women, just like her. With male professors mostly. They’d pick you out, leave their partner for you, and you’d be ordained. Everyone would gasp and wouldn’t say: it’s because she’s the most charming, the most beautiful.

No, they would all whisper about how it must mean you were the most intellectually gifted. So, she had the beauty and Sofie gave her the smarts. Now she thought those people knew nothing. When she was with Sofie, she used to think about winning the lottery. She spent hours planning how she’d spend the money and where she’d live. She felt better and safer in this imagining. She used to tell Sofie about it: the library room she’d have; the pink wallpaper, the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.

That conversation became a permanent fixture in their repertoire, especially on a bad day. It amazed Jo that even though Sofie ­seemingly had everything, she could empathise with the idea of wanting more. In fact, she was more forthcoming about the things she wanted than Jo had been. Sofie might have a house, but lots of people she knew had better ones. If she won the lottery, she’d buy a Modernist ­spectacle with glass walls and a swimming pool.

Neither of them ever played the lottery, but that was almost the point. If Jo had been so inclined, she might have made some crass remark about winning the lottery by being with Sofie. But she knew Sofie would have hated that, and part of the fun was imagining things that would never come to be.

Jo often longed to call Sofie up during a period of silence and ask her if she remembered some moment like this from their lives together that would play in her head on repeat. She longed to have her feelings validated by the one person who always refused to do it. Wasn’t that what love was about?

First published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2026 Copyright © Rebecca Sarah Ley 2026 Jacket design by Toby James/HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd Jacket photographs © Georgia Garnett/Arcangel Images Rebecca Sarah Ley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Without limiting the exclusive rights of any author, contributor or the publisher of this publication, any unauthorised use of this publication to train generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies is expressly prohibited. HarperCollins also exercise their rights under Article 4(3) of the Digital Single Market Directive 2019/790 and expressly reserve this publication from the text and data mining exception. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008713058 eBook Edition © February 2026 ISBN: 9780008713072 Version: 2026-01-20 1kitap1.com/en Note to Readers This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings: Change of font size and line height Change of background and font colours Change of font Change justification Text to speech Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008713058 Certain portions of text this ebook are set in a specific font type to make it easier to distinguish between the different types of content in the book.

It may not be possible to change the font for these pieces of text. 1kitap1.com/en Dedication For Theo 1kitap1.com/en Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Note to Readers Dedication The first phase One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight The second phase One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine The third phase One Two Three Four Five Acknowledgments About the Publisher 1kitap1.com/en The first phase 1kitap1.com/en Posted by aw0mbofonesown AITA for telling my male friends their stories of sexual harassment don’t count?

I was at the pub last weekend with a group of friends and by the end of the night, I was the only woman left. I don’t know how the topic came up, but suddenly the group started sharing their stories of when they’ve been preyed upon by women (in a sort of, ‘it happens to us too’ way).

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: c49b3831eebbf93a
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 2,618,373 bytes (2.497 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9780008713058, 9780008713072
• Pages: 202
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 355.44 minutes
• Total Words: 71,089
• Total Characters: 380,695
• Average Words per Page: 351.93
• Average Characters per Page: 1884.63

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