The List: A Novel

Content Warning: This section mentions sexual assault, anti-gay bias, suicide, and a panic attack.

After a painful bikini wax, Ola reflects on the sex that she has had with Michael and wonders what the consensual bites and bruises say about them both. She has a Skype conversation with her half-sister, Fola. The two women look like identical twins. They have the same father but different mothers, and when their father died in 2002, they met for the first time. Their story links to the sitcom Sister, Sister, which features identical teen twin sisters who were separated at birth.

Now, Ola confides in Fola about Michael. Ola feels “dumb” and believes that she loves Michael “too much.” Fola refutes this claim and emphasizes that Ola is human and that love tends to disrupt a person’s “faculties.” Fola promises to support Ola whatever her choice might be, but she urges Ola to make a choice.

The famous former soccer player and current TV personality Lewis Hale texts Michael, and they meet at Lewis’s luxurious house and discuss The List. Michael tells him about Jackie, and Lewis says that newspapers regularly gossiped about his sex life before the advent of social media.