Invisible Girl: A Novel

Owen becomes agitated the more he thinks about his suspension, obsessing about the fact that he has never had a girlfriend. He reads the posts on YourLoss’s website in which he describes himself as an incel, resentfully outlining his belief that women are not going on dates with certain men because they want to punish them.

Jed and Holly call Owen into the office for another meeting. Holly tells Owen that several people at the Christmas party corroborate the girl’s story about Owen’s behavior. Holly gives Owen a pamphlet about a sexual harassment seminar and says that if he attends the seminar and implements what he has learned into his work life, then he can stay at the college. Owen decides to quit, rather than going to the seminar. Afterwards, Owen calls his dad, Ricky, and admits he quit his job because of sexual misconduct allegations. Owen and Ricky commiserate on the issue of political correctness in the workplace. Before he hangs up, Ricky asks Owen if the allegations are true, but Owen promises that they are not.

At home, Owen opens YourLoss’s blog and starts chatting with him online. He tells YourLoss what happened at the college, which YourLoss thinks is ridiculous. YourLoss says that his name is Bryn and gives Owen his email address, telling him he has a proposition for him.

Owen meets Bryn at a pub. Bryn tells Owen that there is a conspiracy in the world against men like them. He says that he and Owen should be able to find girlfriends, but the media is trying to weed people like them out of the gene pool, so they brainwash women to hate them. He tells Owen that he is launching a revolution against the world, and wants to recruit Owen to help him fight. Bryn gives Owen the date-rape drug Rohypnol and insinuates that Owen should use it on women. Bryn tells Owen to think about his offer before leaving the pub. At home, Owen thinks about Bryn’s words and wonders how he got involved with someone so hateful and violent. He thinks about how Bryn encourages rape because of how much he hates women, and Owen knows that even with all his anger and loneliness, sexual assault is wrong. Owen pushes the Rohypnol to the back of his dresser drawer and logs into his Tinder account.

Owen meets a woman named Deanna for a date on Valentine’s Day. He feels nervous, but Deanna is nice to him. She tells him about her son and how her husband died nine years earlier. Owen realizes that, despite his fear, he enjoys spending time with her.

Owen walks home after his date, drunk from the champagne. A woman bumps into him because she is looking at her phone. An altercation ensues and Owen calls her a derogatory name before storming off. He looks down at his phone to find a kind message from Deanna and he feels his anger melt away. Owen hears raised voices from across the street. He sees a person in a dark hoodie standing outside a house, looking in through the window. The person turns and he sees it is a young girl.

Cate opens the newspaper and sees a story about the disappearance of Saffyre. The article says that Saffyre went missing the night of Valentine’s Day. Cate texts a picture of the story to Roan. She thinks about the unopened letter in the kitchen drawer. Cate remembers coming back to the house on Valentine’s Day slightly drunk, and drawing the curtains with the suspicion that someone was watching her. She struggles to remember what happened that night and wonders if she heard voices outside. Cate opens the kitchen drawer, opens the card, and finds a message from what appears to be a child, signed by someone named Molly. Later, Georgia comes home with Tilly. After Tilly leaves, Cate asks Georgia if Tilly ever told her about what happened the night of the assault. Georgia says that she thinks that something did happen to Tilly, but that she might have lied about some of it.

Saffyre follows Roan for six months. She sees him meet up with many different young women. Eventually, he starts consistently going out with a young woman with red hair. Saffyre thinks about Cate and wonders why he does not go home to her.

Detective Angela Currie comes to Owen’s door to ask him about Saffyre’s disappearance. He tells her about his whereabouts on Valentine’s Day and that he remembers seeing the girl looking in the window across the street. The detective writes his information down and says that she will talk to the family who lives in the house.

Detective Currie asks Cate about Saffyre’s disappearance. Afterwards, Cate thinks about the one time that Roan had an affair with another student when he was in graduate school. He ended it as soon as she confronted him about it, but she felt haunted by this breach in trust. Roan cried and told her that he could not live without her, so she did not divorce him. The rift healed between them, but Cate knows that she has reason to suspect Roan of infidelity. She wonders about Valentine’s Day and what Roan did after she went to sleep that night.

When Roan gets back from the office, Cate tells him that the police came to see her about Saffyre. Cate asks Roan if he thinks she would run away, but Roan snaps at her and says that he cannot tell her anything about his patients and that he doesn’t allow himself to get involved emotionally with them. Cate tells Roan that she told the police that they went to bed at midnight on Valentine’s Day, but that she knows that it took a while for him to come to bed. She asks him what he was doing, and he gets upset, claiming not to understand why she would question him.

Saffyre watches the affair with Roan and the young woman unfold. She finds out that the woman’s name is Alicia, and that she is also a psychiatrist. Saffyre cannot stop thinking about Cate. She feels terrible that Cate doesn’t know about Roan’s affairs, and she wonders if Roan will eventually leave his wife. One day as Saffyre walks home, she sees Roan’s son Josh smoking weed. She watches as a fox comes toward Josh and lets Josh pet him.