Invisible Girl: A Novel

Seventeen-year-old Saffyre Maddox lives with her uncle Aaron after the death of her parents. Saffyre feels tormented by her past, specifically something that happened when she was 10 years old—an event that causes Saffyre to self-harm. To process her trauma, she’s consistently seen a psychiatrist named Roan Fours since she was 12 years old.

Cate’s daughter Georgia calls her while walking to their rental home because a man is following her. Cate encourages Georgia to stay on the phone with her until she gets home. When Georgia arrives at the rental, Cate sees a man in the shadows across the street. Cate warns Georgia to be aware of her surroundings, until their home is finished with renovations and they can return to their own neighborhood.

Cate tells her husband Roan about Georgia’s experience with their neighbor. Roan shows Cate a news story describing the sexual assault of a woman near their house—the third report of a sexual attack in the area that month.

When Georgia and her friend Tilly get home from school, Georgia tells Cate that their neighbor across the street is the man who followed her. Georgia’s younger brother Josh arrives home and gives Cate a hug—something he does unselfconsciously even though he is now a teenager.

Tilly rushes into the Fours’ house and tells Cate that a man touched her. Cate calls the police, who arrive with Tilly’s mother, Elona. Cate reports the strange behavior of their neighbor across the street, in case he had anything to do with Tilly’s assault. Cate calls to ask about Tilly, but Tilly tells Cate that she made up the incident. Tilly assures her she was not assaulted, and apologizes to Cate for wasting her time. Cate thinks that Tilly is lying about making up the assault, but she does not know why.

On a walk, Cate sees a poster of the local newspaper that discusses the sexual attack of a woman during the daytime. The poster makes Cate wonder if the sexual attacks are related to what happened to Tilly. When Roan gets home, Cate feels the tension between them. Cate asks Georgia if she thinks that Tilly could lie about something as serious as sexual assault. Georgia says that Tilly lies about a lot of things.

Cate thinks back to the previous year when she and Roan almost separated. Cate feels regret over the situation, believing it was her fault. She became so obsessed with the idea that Roan was cheating on her that she went through Roan’s personal emails, texts, and even his patient files. She found a picture of a girl he was seeing named Saffyre. Cate convinced herself that Roan was having an affair with Saffyre. When Roan told Cate he thought his secretary went through his patient’s files and that he was going to report and fire her, Cate confessed. Roan felt repulsed by Cate’s actions, claiming he was not having an affair with Saffyre, he was simply overworked. Cate and Roan went on a vacation to work on their problems, but things were different between them after Cate broke Roan’s trust.

Cate remembers how she went to Saffyre’s school when she thought Roan was having an affair with her and watched Saffyre interact with the other teenagers. She read in Saffyre’s file that she had self-harmed since she was 10, but the way the other teenagers interacted with Saffyre made it seem like she was a popular girl. After they moved into the Hampshire house, Cate saw Saffyre again coming out of a grocery store with an older man. She watched the two of them walk down the street into an apartment building. Cate stood outside the building, until she realized that she was stalking Saffyre, and she left hurriedly, feeling ashamed. 

Roan and Cate exchange Valentine’s Day cards. Roan’s card implies that he is sorry for hurting her and he asks if she wants to get dinner that evening and try to mend their relationship. Cate agrees, but feels confused by Roan’s apology because she believes herself to have been in the wrong. However, she knows that she did not make up the changes in Roan’s attitude and behavior that led her to believe he was cheating on her. Cate gets the mail and sees a large envelope addressed to Roan. She resists the urge to open the envelope and leaves it with the rest of the mail. Cate drops off a form for Georgia at school and sees Roan across the street. She wonders what he is doing out of his office. She thinks about him meeting someone younger than her for lunch on Valentine’s Day, but she resists the paranoid thoughts and keeps walking.

When Roan gets home, he freezes when he sees the unopened envelope addressed to him, but he doesn’t open it. He tells Cate he’s going for a run before their date. After he leaves, Georgia opens Roan’s letter and Cate gets angry at her. Georgia says it is their business if someone is sending Roan Valentine’s Day cards. Cate puts it in a drawer without looking at it, telling Georgia that it is Roan’s business, not theirs. At the pub, Cate and Roan have a wonderful evening, and Cate forgets about the envelope.

Saffyre has a flashback to her first sessions with Roan in which she confessed that she feared that everyone she loved would die since she had already experienced the passing of her mother. Later, Saffyre saw Roan and his family move into a temporary rental near their house when she was walking through the neighborhood. She memorized the number of the house, but she never told Roan that she knew where he lived. In their session, Roan tells her that she no longer needs treatment. This scares Saffyre because she has never revealed to him what happened to her when she was 10 years old. A few sessions later, Roan signs Saffyre off and ends their clinical relationship.

After a few weeks of not meeting with Roan, Saffyre feels herself regressing. She goes to his office and stands outside. She sees Roan come outside with a young woman, and they smoke a cigarette together.

Owen Pick teaches computer science to teenagers at Ealing Tertiary College. The principal, Jed, calls Owen in for a meeting and Owen feels surprised when he sees Holly, the HR representative, has been asked to join them. Jed and Holly ask Owen if he attended the student Christmas party. When he confirms that he did, Holly tells Owen that two female students say that he spoke to them about his sexual orientation and that he touched them inappropriately. Jed tells Owen that there have been complaints about Owen’s treatment of female students in class, with several students accusing him of sexism. Owen denies the allegations. Jed tells Owen that they will need to launch an investigation and that he will be suspended from his position until they have cleared everything up. Owen walks home to where he lives with his Aunt Tessie.