DNC

From a very young age Janet loved to write. In an interview with Janet she told us “I often found myself reading my own stories over and over again. We didn’t have a lot of money, so I couldn’t just go out and buy the new Harry Potter book all my friends at school were talking about. So I’d just write my own Harry Potter.”

Janet had a very hard childhood. Her father was very abusive, often flying into fits of rage and destroying the house. “He never hit me or my mother, although he came close on more than one occasion. He knew if he did that would be the last straw, and no matter how mad he got he never wanted mom to leave.” Janet’s mother Hillary was the exact opposite. She was loving and nurturing and would make sure Janet always had pens and paper to write her stories

“On my tenth birthday we went out to my favorite pizza spot. My mom had gotten me a my very first book i didnt write myself. I don’t even remember the title because Daddy took it and stormed off with my mom imidiately. I already knew what was coming. Daddy would yell. Mom would cry and apologize even though she did nothing wrong, but Daddy always hated when we would use his money, and in the end nothing would change. But, this time it was different.”

According to Janet’s aunt Cheiry, she was using the restroom when she heard Hillary and her husband walk in. He screamed at her so loud Cheiry felt like the stall was going to collapse. She had trouble recalling details at the time of the interview, but she claims to remember hims saying “I work 60 hours fucking week and all I ask you dont waste MY fucking money on useless shit like this!” Hillary didn’t make a sound. Cheiry peered through the bathroom stall just in time to see Hillary turn away from her husbands raised fist. he held it for a minute, before scoffing and leaving the restroom.

Janet however, knew none of this at the time. “I was still young, so I didn’t really understand what was happening. All I remember is going to sleep in my bed, and waking up at Aunt Cheiry’s. I never saw him again after that.” It took a lot of convincing, but eventually Cheiry managed to convince Hillary to divorce her husband. It was a very long court case, but due to a chain of pranks in that pizza shop, the owner had placed security cameras in the bathroom. This led to a seperate lawsuit, however it helped Hillary win full custody.

The next few years of Janet’s life were rather caotic. She moved to the Netherlands when she was 12 to get as far away from her father as possible. It was hard at first because her and her mother didn’t speak any dutch. They mostly relied on their aunt to communicate. School was especially complicated for Janet. With only one close friend named Susie, she quickly became the target of bullying.

“Kids are mean, you know? They somehow found out I didn’t have a dad and rumors started to spread. I don’t think they would have said it if they knew the truth, but they kept saying my mom cheated on him. Susie almost killed a kid who asked her if it was true. I was thankful at the time, but that only made the rumors worse.”

Janet faced many mental health problems as a result of the bullying. Her mother would always listen whenever Janet needed it, but it still wasn’t enough. Janet was later diagnosed with depression, which in a way helped Janet a lot. Now she could put a name to these feelings, and she could get medication for it.

Shortly after Janet turned 16, she tried her hardest to get a job, but the problem was not many places wanted to hire a 16 year old with very little job experience and severe mental health problems. She was rejected from every single job she aplied for, except one. Novabank Incorporated.

From the moment Janet walked into the building she new something was off. Nobody seemed happy. They were all just tirelessly working away and everyone completely ignored her when she asked where the interview room was.

Despite this, she went along with the interview process, and ended up landing the job. She was too excited to question exactly how she got it. “In hindsight, that should have been a huge red flag. I was not even a little qualified to work for a bank. The only thing I could have had going for me is I was attractive. I wish I would have just fucking thought for a second. None of this would have happened.”

Things were slow for a while. The whole office had a weird vibe. nobody talked very often and for the first few days nobody said a word to her. That is, until she met Steffen.

“I thought he was really nice at first. He bought me a soda and, well he was the only person who ever talked to me. I even remember thinking he was really cute at the time. And he never did anything to mefor a while. but as I got older, he started flirting more and more. The real red flag came when I tried to tell him I’m a lesbian. He just laughed, like I was joking, then changed the subject. I tried to avoid him after that.”

Unfortunately for Janet, simply ignoring him wasn’t enough. On Janet’s 18th birthday the team decided to have a small party. We were asked by Janet to not go in to too much detail. Steffen cornered her in the women’s restroom and forced himself on her. When it was over, Janet didn’t move for the entire rest of the party.

She didn’t go into work the following morning, or the day after that. “I was just waiting too be fired. I knew I couldn’t go back in there. Not after all that.” Janet decided she coun’t stay in The Netherlands any longer. The second she graduated highschool, she moved away. She couldn’t go back to the United States, ghost of her father still haunted her down there. So she moved to England. She thought she might find what she was looking for there.

Unfortunately, the memories still haunted her. She kept moving from place to place, but every time she just kept feeling more and more empty. As Novabank countinued to grow Janet felt that whole in her chest grow deeper and deeper, until she couldn’t take it anymore.

Janet tried to kill herself. Fotunately, she didn’t have a lot of money at the time, and the cheap ceiling fan in her apartment gave way very quickly. After that, everything just started to click