Chapter 23 Among tears and scandals

Among tears and scandals

Nina was incommunicado. Imagine what she was going through, if it is hard enough for an artist to have to deal with the press harassment, with the fake news in the race for the audience, with thousands of bad comments and still keep stable, smiling and moving forward, imagine how it was for Nina. She was not used to any of it.

Luckily for everyone, time was not slow, it passed swiftly like an untamed horse, and for Nina, it also passed. After two weeks she thought it should have been forgotten by now, but the news just kept getting bigger and bigger. Her friends, Lyon and Kara, arrived at her house to pick her up. They traveled in Nina's car to hide in the mountains. They went to a hinterland that was almost four hours away from Bergen, in the Sogn og Fjordane region of Svelgen.

While Nina runs away to isolate herself from the world, David goes to a top-rated show on the planet and gives a full interview about the two of them. He addresses topics such as haters, virtual toxicity, bullying, lies, and slander, and defends Nina tooth and nail. He defends her integrity, talks about how she is daily, talks about her personality, people noticed the affection he had for her in the way she spoke, her conviction, the sparkle in her eyes, he states that he is sure that she never had an agreement with anyone, and those people who were lying were going to be unmasked by the authorities.

He didn't know that these false witnesses had been paid and hired by his own counsel. It was them all along, after all. Since the first published photo in Rome. That's why they didn't publish Nina's face before. That's why they had control of what would be exposed or not. They could never harm David and his image.

He appeals for respect, he asks his fans to respect her. He asks for the nasty comments to stop. He gives a moral lesson to the media and all the people who published lies and slander without caring about destroying a person's life. He sends a message to her live, on Elena's show, for all the world to see. He asks for forgiveness for everything:

- David. The program ends in a few seconds. If you could say anything about all this to Nina Dahl, what would you say? - asked the presenter.

- I would apologize. - He looked at the camera as if he was talking to her, "I'm sorry for everything that people are doing to you. I believe in you, Nina. Be strong! It will all blow over. No matter what they publish, I'm with you.

This interview caused a thousandfold uproar on the Internet. If Nina's name had become the subject of gossip in the media, after these statements by David, surely her name would never be forgotten.

Another few weeks passed in the world of Ytrehus and Nina did not set foot on the street. No phone, no social networking of any kind. Maybe that's what saved her, because she read nothing, followed absolutely nothing. She did very well. Her friends could swear she was not a human.

She watched every series that existed on HBO, Netflix, Passionflix, With love, Amazon, and others. She had talked to her private doctor and her leave from work had been extended indefinitely. She used Lyon's phone to talk to her doctor, she followed up with her by texting, video calling, and they worked everything out virtually.

David spent day and night recording for various streaming and film projects at the same time. Several advertisements and interviews in lives, this was the new trend in the market since the "coronavirus" appeared. Companies had to reinvent themselves in order not to go bankrupt and to continue producing. If people had to stay at home, entertainment had to be delivered somehow from home. He still had no news of any kind from Nina. All the e-mails came back to his mailbox with the message: "recipient not found". Her phone number had also been canceled; the thousands of times he called, the message was the same: "this number does not exist".

As if everything that was happening was not enough, Nina, prisoner of her own life without having committed any crime, accused, hated, and cursed by thousands of people who had never even seen her in front of them, yet another bombshell came in the morning.

Her current cell phone and laptop had been hacked through the Internet and the almost 100,000 photos she had since the Orkut days of 1999 were exposed for the world to see. Private pictures, pictures from her teenage years, pictures from school, nudes, prints of conversations, bills, private letters from public agencies, absolutely everything. There was no filter, no selection. Whoever did this couldn't leave a trace, they couldn't select just a few intended photos. So it had to look like it was anyone with no specific interest who just did it out of spite. A crime without bail, several crimes had been committed against her.

Not to mention that from now on Nina would have to leave her home to go to the police and get a lawyer. A whole private life played out online for anyone who wanted to access, copy and give their opinion. The Norwegian and Brazilian justice systems were supporting and guiding her. These crimes that were committed against her caused controversy and debate all over the world. People were starting to divide opinions and protest against what they were doing to her, although there were still the radical "haters" accusing her of being framed to be world-famous.

Nobody could explain how the hackers got access to her Google account. Where she kept all her photos online, none on her phone. She also kept copies of everything she did on her phone through her phone company because the service was free and included in the phone plan.

Nina knew what was going on only in passing because her friends Kara and Lyon had not abandoned her. Kara had arranged for another phone number for her that was not registered in either of their names. Nina had filed a lawsuit against the internet company that had allowed a hacker to break her network secrecy, another lawsuit against Google photos, the phone line company and against the company that branded her phone, etc.

The lawyers and the police could not find who had been responsible for releasing all the photos of her with David or her online account for storing photos. For no vehicle on any app had claimed first-hand news, they just retweeted, retweeted on Instagram, retweeted on Facebook and all the other pages. It was like a snowball, thus making it difficult for the police to track down who were the first disseminators of slander and defamation. These digital criminals had thousands of fake accounts and posted on all of them, there are even companies that work with this, with fake accounts to increase likes and comments on artists' photos, all to manipulate the media and the number of views. They never found proof that they had been David's agents. Even David had no way to accuse them, since everyone was so interested in their romance, always telling him that they were supporting him and that they were happy for them.

Nina had to cancel several times again the only means of communication she had, which were her e-mail and telephone. She tried to make several fake profiles on Facebook, Messenger, etc., to talk to her family in Brazil, but these were instantly discovered. She made a new one every time she wanted to talk to someone, then deleted it permanently. She was afraid to even make a call from her friend's phone and then find out that they had also been hacked because of her.

Time seemed to drag on. Nina hid in the mountains in Ytrehus, sleeping early, waking early, training, dancing, cooking, meditating, fishing, hiking outdoors, studying, and keeping to a self-created schedule to overcome all these setbacks. She had become resilient itself! Although the world was against Nina, a woman alone, poor, a nurse, they had not been able to shake her as much as they thought they could. She cried, yes, when David left, but she would wipe away the tears and be ready to go back to work and her monotonous life after a while. She cried, yes, she turned herself inside out when she found out about the scandals on the Internet, but one day all this would pass, were it not for the constant citations of her name months later. She would get back on her feet anyway.

Despite everything, she knew how to protect herself. She kept in touch only with Lyon and Kara, who were the first to show her everything that was happening. Nina was already isolated because of the quarantine, she became even more isolated. She couldn't talk to anyone except the two of them. She couldn't move house, she couldn't travel. She was lucky that she was not chased by reporters and bloggers to her door, first because we are talking about Norway, where people respect laws and people's rights with more care and attention, and second because of the pandemic.

Even with less hot pursuit around her, Nina lived in fear, if someone had implanted themselves in the forest behind her home in Bergen, and got hold of thousands of intimate photos between her and David, who knew what else they would be capable of? She was already free-spirited, imagine after all this! She kept wondering, studying how they had acted. "A bug? In David's things? In her things? How did they know absolutely everything that was going on?"

Nina didn't want to have to deal with the police, with lawyers, didn't want to go to the police station, but she had to go to Bergen to talk to the responsible authorities in person. Despite everything they did to her, she came across as very strong. She did suffer an impact, she was very sad and felt violated, she needed a lot of meditation, a lot of concentration exercise to calm her mind, and in the end, she succeeded. Although she could freak out, she chose not to let her feelings control her, she used an incredible inner resilience to overcome and fortify herself. She was letting the dust settle to get back to her job and her normal life, and most of all, she had the support of her family and friends.

The weeks passed and Nina continued her refusal to speak out to anyone. She didn't even feel the need to defend herself, nor to retort or accuse anyone, although she could, because she knew it had been David's agents. She stayed these other weeks that came, locked away, even more, isolated from the world, as far as the people who followed the quarantine to the letter, yet she didn't let her great emotional upset end her state of mental health. Nina really didn't want fame, nor did she want anyone's money. It took her a while to gather her pieces, but she did, and now she was ready to "put her face in the sun.

She went back to work ahead of schedule, on her own. She was working in the contamination area, monitoring patients who were isolated and infected with Covid-19, which was very good for her at this time, as she did not want to have to explain anything to her colleagues there. People at work were forbidden to touch the subject. Nina didn't comment either.

Nina usually avoided close contact with strangers, she usually didn't like contact, but this time she walked with her head held high, smiling at everyone on the street who looked her in the eye, something in her inner ego was wounded pride against the world. She was a passive Aryan, the kind who felt but preferred to walk away.

It didn't take long before she was out the door at work and always had a journalist, albeit discreet like all good Norwegians, planted at the door trying to ask her a question. She didn't answer, she walked purposefully with a posture so straight that the vertebrae in her spine hurt. She walked with her head held high, as if she were walking down a catwalk to her car, always well dressed, with make-up on, and wearing dark glasses when it wasn't raining. Now they were going to see what it was like to mess with an Aryan!

Nina was dressed in her armored armor, and nothing and no one was going to be able to hurt her, shake her, or insult her. She "rolled up her sleeves" and was just waiting to be attacked. As the Brazilian saying goes: you can come hot, I'm boiling!

As she opened the car door, a tall, bald, well-dressed gentleman approached her carefully and said that he just wanted to ask her if she was all right. Nina looked at him before getting into the car and asked if she knew him. He introduced himself as a journalist from one of the best-known newspapers in Bergen. She answered yes, that she was better than ever. She got into the car and sat down. The man came to the door and handed her a card, inviting her to an interview. She handed the card back to him, ending the conversation by saying that she saw no need for it.

- Don't you want to defend yourself against the accusations? Show your side of the story? - the gentleman asked.

- Are you recording this? - she questioned.

- No, I'm not. I just want to help you, Nina.

- I don't need help and I don't need a defense.

- But there have been many reports accusing you. It's been months and you've disappeared. Nobody has had a chance to hear your side of the story.

- I don't care how people judge me. And I'm not interested in proving anything. I just want to be left alone!

- Your name will always be out there associated with everything that has been said about you. Whether you like it or not. We can talk without obligation after you read today's note. You can prove to people that you were a victim of everyone.

- I don't want to prove anything. Let them think about what they want. People only see, only hear, only understand, and only speak what they want. It's not worth using time and energy with what happened. And the more people like you pursue this story to whatever end, the less I will be at peace!

Nina got into the car, started Spotify, turned up the sound, and got out. It still hurt to listen to the songs that reminded her of the moments she had spent with David. Of course, it did! But she focused on the power of now. Every time heavy and sad thoughts tried to settle in her mind, she would soon shake them away. She used to ask herself what she was doing at that moment, what she would do next, and she would describe the now in her mind. She constantly trained her mind to be stronger than her desires and feelings, this is called emotional intelligence.

The next day a story came out saying that David Nichols' "affaire" had been caught leaving work, back to normal. And that she did not care to give an interview, much less an explanation. The journalist had faithfully replicated everything Nina had replied. He had come out in her defense and raised several questions about the behavior of people behind a telephone on the various social networks.

The newspaper had arrived first hand in Nina's mailbox. At first, she was reluctant to read it because she could already imagine how upset she would be. She thought for a moment about the new phase she was going through, in which she had decided to be strong, not to care, and to face the world, if necessary, with her head held high. Then she read it. The journalist had written some good and true things. It raised issues that were part of Nina's shared thoughts. He criticized how humanity easily became inhuman with a cellular device in hand. It talked about feminism, it cited Nina as an example of female empowerment, and she simply loved it. For everything that was written, there was truthe th.

No one knows how, but the journalist knew almost everything about Nina's life. One of the questions that suggested reflection for the haters was: How could a woman who has been working since she was fifteen years old taking care of sick people, have come up with such miraculous plans to become the target of a prejudiced, sexist and unfair society? The journalist suggested that women themselves were more sexist than men. And he cited several examples of comments exposed on social networks. For the first time in weeks, Nina opened a smile when it came to any subject connected to the Internet.

This open debate on the newspaper's online page generated thousands of positive comments. Norwegian women had a different culture than many women around the world. They were financially independent, and the most cherished motto in Norway was "Likestilling!", which means "equal rights!" Referring to men and women. The laws in Norway worked more strictly than in other countries in the world. You literally could not verbally assault another person. Almost nowhere in the world was this allowed, but in Norway people actually reported it to the police and the offender had to pay a fine.

Everything there was stricter, including the rights of animals, children, and the elderly. It was not allowed to carry liquor on the street. If someone was caught peeing in the street: fine! And it was precisely in Norway that Nina found support from women ahead of their time. Empowered women and men who respected this empowerment as a whole. Nina felt welcomed when she read many of the thoughts and comments of these people who lived in the same country as her.

Nina's life was no longer a secret to anyone. Not only were her thousands of photos from her years of living open and exposed to the public, photos from her childhood to the present day, but journalists from Brazil and around the world still reviewed her history, her past, and the life of her family. Although it is said that in Brazil everything turns into a carnival, not only the gossip channels on TV but also the youtube channels from all over the world were not forgiving! Time and again they were exposing more and more everything that had already been exposed. After all, they had material for months of gossip.

There was a saying in Brazil that Brazilians lost a friend but didn't lose a joke, but in fact, that was how it was with the rest of the world too. Nina felt it in her skin, she had become the woman of memes. Every photo of her came with a text that circulated with the most diverse feelings. It was almost like a jungle, all for the audience! Nina refused to live all the time since her private life had been taken by force.