My chatbot boyfriend stood on the left side of the screen, making casual gestures meant to make him seem real – one hand raised, then lowered – but the jumpiness of the animation made him seem more fake. I told myself to keep an open mind, the way I do with real-life dates. Modern romance was so unforgiving. One false move, and unmatch, block, mute. Dating could feel doomed: So many choices, so few second chances.

Another scandal was brewing, and it would become the fight of her career. She would stand accused of attempting to cover up a sexual assault and get suspended from her sport. Even the subreddit page for Cheer turned on her—thousands of strangers once united by fandom now unanimous in their scorn. “Monica is absolutely disgusting,” read a typical comment. “She knows this s— is going on and keeps it hush hush for trophies.”

“A hero’s journey” is about launching outward, but it’s also about circling back. People talk less about that part: The return. You trace your orbit of derring-do till you land in the place where you started with more wisdom, more bruises and, if you’re like me, more credit card debt. But it strikes me as nuts I didn’t write about Dallas for so long. Consider the legends: Mark Cuban, George W. Bush, Jerry Freaking Jones.

The trial was about defamation, a legal gray zone where a person’s right to express an opinion clashes against another person’s right to protect their reputation. But even careful witnesses wouldn’t learn much about defamation over the next six weeks. The trial was a study of abuse: physical, sexual, emotional, virtual. More specifically it was about mutual abuse, if you believe such a thing exists, and I do, because I’ve seen it: between lovers, between fans and celebrities, between the media and the people who consume it.

I always wanted to be a mother. I was a girl, a very girly one, who swooned for pink and glitter, much to the confusion of my earth-tone mom. “You used to carry your dolly with you wherever you went,” my mother likes to tell me, in the sing-song tone that drifts into her voice when she talks about my toddlerhood. Pictures of my brother at four show him skidding across dirt, kicking a ball, posing as a fireman, but there I am, pushing a baby stroller with a Raggedy Ann inside like a goddamn gender cliche.

“We’re looking for an all-American, sexy girl,” choreographer Texie Waterman once told a local news station, taking a bite out of that word, “sexy.” And this internal contradiction—of being good but also a bit bad, of being innocent but also a bit dangerous—became an essential part of their brand, and their explosion.