"I can't remember what happened that night. I'm not talking slippery details or fuzzy-edged visions; I mean a complete and utter blackout. Like I wasn't even there. Except... I know I was."
Since the death of her boyfriend six months ago, Morgan Cai...
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I didn't think there could be anything worse than everyone on campus seeing the article.
That's because it never occurred to me it would find its way to my parents, too.
I'm alone in my dorm room later that evening when the calls start coming through. At first, I don't notice my phone ringing, because I'm neck deep in biochemistry reading with my headphones on full blast. It's only when I realize that the vibration isn't part of three tracks running that I reach for the phone on my bedside table—and by then, I'm up to eleven missed calls.
"Mom?" I ask, after she answers on the first ring. "Is everything okay?"
"Morgan," she says, with breathless urgency. "Oh, good. You picked up. I didn't know whether you were busy tonight, or..." Her voice trails off. "It's nothing, really. I was just calling to check if everything's okay."
She doesn't have to say it.
"You've seen the article, haven't you?"
"I..." There's hesitation; the silence is deafening. I'll hear it crashing in my ears for hours to come. "Hanna shared it on her Facebook page. I just saw Josh's photo, I had no idea what it was about—"
I want to slap myself. I can't believe I've been so stupid. It doesn't matter that I've barely spoken to Hanna all summer; our frosty relationship hasn't yet reached social media significance. Of course she's still Facebook friends with me and my mom. Which means I definitely should've seen this coming.
"Mom," I say, before she can get any further. "It's really not what you think."
"I don't understand." She sounds on edge, panicked, and I feel fresh guilt for not diffusing this when I had the chance. Who knows what scenarios she's had time to conjure up between then and now? What nightmares she's invented that I've never had to live through? "Did Hanna write this? Did she talk to you about it first? God, Morgan, did you know this kind of thing was going on when you and he were...?"
"Mom."
It's gentle but pointed; I need her to stop, pause, take a breath. Thankfully, she seems to take the hint.
"I didn't know, okay?" I tell her, because even though it wasn't her first question it's obviously the most important. "This has all come totally out of the blue. I don't know when it happened, where it happened... nothing more than what's written in that article. But I can promise you, Mom: before yesterday, I didn't have the faintest idea."
As the silence stretches the fifty miles between us, I lean back in my chair, running my free hand through tangled curls. The several-second wait is agonizing. I know I'm telling the truth, and yet it still feels like there's a whole world resting on whether or not she believes me.
Her sigh of relief feels like the tail end of a hurricane: a sense of calm marking the end of destruction. "Oh, thank God."
"You don't have to worry, okay?" I tell her. "The way I knew him... it was nothing like that. He never pushed me, never pressured me into anything. I promise."
