They told me to come into the station that afternoon at 2 p.m. for more questions because they weren’t satisfied. I had no idea what to do. There was not enough time to locate a lawyer or even a translator because they would have likely needed to travel from the city that was closest to them. I tried to create as many useful sentences as I could using Google Translate, but it was hard to focus.

I entered the police station at exactly two in the afternoon, and the officer laughed when he saw my worried expression. She showed up, which is good for you,” he said. Amazingly, that marked the end of that. This has never been mentioned again to me.

Note: I tried to figure out how my mobile number ended up on that forum afterward. It turns out that mobile phone numbers are frequently reused, and that that girl used to have my number. In most cases, recycling a phone number takes at least a year, but in this instance, the company recycled it within a few weeks of her letting it expire.