I can't remember what happened that night.
Not because I drank too much. I'm not talking slippery details or fuzzy-edged visions: the kind of alcohol-induced memory loss where things get progressively less focused, but you can at least remember where you started. I mean a complete and utter blackout.
Like I wasn't even there.
Except I know I was.
I haven't told anyone about this lapse in memory. At the time, keeping it to myself seemed like a wise idea. I didn't want to worry anyone—didn't want them to think I was lying when I insisted I was okay, or realize that the sudden, horrible death of my boyfriend may in fact have damaged me more than I was letting on. Because it's normal for your brain to do that, right? It's an ingrained biological mechanism, a shield of nature: existing precisely to protect you from going over and over what will only tear you apart.
I've consulted Doctor Google, of course. When dissociative amnesia popped up, I clung to it with both hands, because it describes my symptoms to a T. Gaps in memory for a long period of time. Going well beyond normal forgetfulness. Usually associated with a stressful or traumatic event.
If the night of Josh's death doesn't fit the bill, I don't know what does.
I should seek professional help. It's not normal that there's so much missing from my mind—an entire night's worth—but there's also more than my mental health on the line. As Josh's girlfriend, the police asked for my version of events, and it didn't seem wise to confess that I could've been anywhere, anytime. Instead, I kept the details minimal and let their questions steer the story. Eventually, I found myself looking back at a version of events where Josh and I arrived at the party together, but got separated somewhere along the way. I misplaced my phone—a snippet of truth, because it was nowhere to be found when I woke up the next morning—so I had no way of contacting him. Eventually, I gave up and went home, figuring he was with his friends.
But the next day, his body was dragged out of the campus lake.
And my world fell apart at the seams.
I thought the memory would come back to me eventually. That I'd wake up one morning and remember what role I played that night, so the guilt would lift and I could know for certain that I hadn't concealed anything important from the police investigation.
But it's been six months now, and still nothing.
Perhaps this is just the way things will be.
***
It's the morning after I went over to Hanna's apartment, and I'm standing in my dorm room, trying to kill the couple of hours I have before my first class starts. A stupid part of me thought rifling through the belongings she gave back might jog my memory, but the whole thing's a lost cause.
With the stuff sprawled out over the spare bed, I realize that the girl who took these color-coded notes and marked important pages of textbooks with Post-Its and hoarded planners like there was a global shortage isn't the same person I am now. This girl lived in easy, blissful peace; she didn't know what was coming her way.
She can't help me, because she has no idea what I've lost.
I'm distracted, anyway. Now's not the time to try clawing back the impossible—not when the adrenaline is pulsing through my bloodstream like liquid fire. I've had an entire night to process things but it still hasn't come close to fading away. I'm not even sure it ever will.
I only managed to read the article once over, and yet somehow the words are seared into the inside of my skull. It starts with details from Hanna's own investigation. Black-and-white statistics showing how many sexual assaults were reported to the welfare office last year, and the striking proportion that went uninvestigated and unactioned. Confessions from anonymous welfare staff about how allegations are routinely disregarded, especially if the accused is a high achiever or an athlete. An official statement from the university declining to comment.
Hard enough to read on its own, but near on impossible when I know what comes next.
An unnamed girl.
A party Josh happened to be at (date not specified, so it could've been any of them).
Was it before or after me?
Too much alcohol. Maybe also something stronger.
A lie down in one of the spare bedrooms, because she'd gone one stop past good drunk toward verging-on-very-bad drunk.
We've all been there before.
The creak of the door as somebody—at first, she'd not known who—slipped inside.
Josh, to the rescue like her knight in shining armor. Asking if she was okay. Fetching her a glass of water. Keeping one hand on her back as she fought to keep the waves of nausea at bay.
The kind of Josh I knew in the beginning.
Still by her side when she lay back against the pillows, telling him she just needed to rest her eyes.
It definitely hadn't been an invitation for a kiss, but Josh's lips found their way to hers anyway. When her eyes flew open in surprise and she tried to scramble away so she could ask what he was doing, he'd already climbed onto the bed so his weight pinned her down.
"Shh," he'd said. "Relax."
An order she couldn't follow.
I shouldn't have found out like this.
Why am I finding out like this?
My head spins and my heart pounds every time I think about it. The words are now permanent, but I can't conjure up the image in my head—of Josh doing this to someone. Forcing himself on someone. Shattering some girl's entire world and leaving the razor-sharp fragments in his wake, only to come silently to my bed.
And take his secret to the grave.
Or so he thought.
For the dozenth time, my eyes catch on the phone on my bedside table. It's been tempting me all morning; I keep thinking about how it would feel to tap out everything I'm feeling onto that tiny keyboard and send the thoughts hurtling out of this room. At the very least, it might feel like a release.
I shouldn't do it.
I know I shouldn't do it.
But this time, for reasons I'm not sure of, I can't stop myself. I snatch up the phone and start typing.
MORGAN: Really? Was it the right way to do this?
There's so much else I could say, but my mind's so scrambled that I can't seem to string the words together. A coherent argument is out of the question—I just feel like I need to say something.
A few seconds of nothing. Then, I see the text onscreen change:
READ 10:38AM.
My heart skips a beat, although I shouldn't have expected my message to take long to reach her. Hanna's phone is permanently glued to her hand, her collection of inboxes constantly monitored; if she doesn't reply to a message within fifteen minutes, it's pretty much justified to call the emergency services. I wait for the three dots to tell me she's tapping out a reply, but they don't appear as quickly.
Don't ignore me, I think, gripping the edge of my mattress to hold myself together.
Thankfully, she doesn't. But the reply that pops up is just as disappointing.
HANNA: I don't want to do this over text. If you want to talk about it, it's only fair to do it face to face.
I want to throw my phone against the wall. Is she really taking the moral high ground right now? She's the one who decided to publish an exposé in one of campus' most-read publications trashing the reputation of a guy who died six months ago—without checking to see whether his girlfriend knew about it first.
A heads-up would've been nice, but I guess we've drifted further apart than I thought.
The thought of sitting there, listening to her speak calmly and gently because we're no longer good enough friends to shout and scream, is almost unbearable. Why even give her the satisfaction? The damage is done, and I can't change things now. So I lock my phone without replying, throw it down onto the mattress and turn my back.
***
Except my resolve barely lasts an hour.
I need to talk to her—even if it's just to say my piece. So we've agreed to meet in the student center, during the hour-long window between my last class ending and hers starting, and although I know one conversation can't possibly fix everything, it seems like the only place we can start.
I'm in no place to concentrate all through biochemistry, so it's a relief to discover within the first few minutes that we're spending this first class going over the syllabus. But as it turns out, trying to stay focused on what the professor is saying is the least of my worries.
If I should've prepped for anything, it's the fact that everyone in the room seems to be staring at me.
They've all seen the article. Honestly, I don't know why I expected anything less; even if Hanna's readership hadn't grown exponentially last year, it's created enough of a buzz on social media that even the most anti-feminist students have given her a click. I'm hardly a big name on campus, but apparently enough people know that I was dating Josh for it to have become common knowledge.
Now they're all looking at me, even if they glance away quick enough to hide it, and I know exactly what they're thinking.
I wonder if she knew.
Needless to say, that class ends up being the longest hour of my life.When the summary slide finally appears on the projector, I practicallyjump out of my seat so I can dash for the door as fast as possible. Not onlydoes getting out of here mean shrinking away from prying eyes, it also meansgetting some answers.
------------------------
So, this is it... Morgan faces Hanna in the next instalment. And it leads me to my question of the chapter: was Hanna right to publish the article about Josh? Should she have spoken to Morgan about it first?
I'm very keen to hear your thoughts!
- Leigh