He softened his voice. “This is just someone trolling you, Jane. Unfriend and delete.”
She didn’t; instead she read the message again. There were people, Jane knew, who thought she should be punished for the accident. “Liv Danger,” she said. “It sounds like a joke name.”
“Google it,” Adam said.
Jane did. There were two other social-media accounts using that name—she guessed it was a play on words for “live dangerously.” These all had the feel of pseudonyms, not real names. She clicked on the “about” tab for the various accounts. One lived in California, another in New York. No one she knew here in Austin.
Jane inched down her own Faceplace page. No postings to her page from anyone for months. Then, two years ago, many posts that started with Thinking of you, Praying for you, Jane, and Get well soon, but soon devolving into memorable tidings such as YOU’RE A LIAR AND MURDERER. Written by someone she didn’t even remember from high school, because she didn’t remember high school before the crash. The accident had taken care of that.
That was when she’d left Faceplace. Jane hadn’t deleted that post when she saw it, not because she thought she shouldn’t but because she thought her friends would rally. A couple of people had said, in the comments below, that nothing was proven, expressing concern for Jane. The final comment, from Adam, read, Say it to her face. Or to mine. Leave her alone.
Adam touched her shoulder. “You should delete this account. There’s nothing to be gained from keeping it except to paint a target on your back.”
Jane stared at the words:
I know what you claim you don’t remember, Jane. I know what happened that night. And I’m going to tell. All will pay.
Tell who? she wondered. Tell what? And “All Will Pay”—what did that mean? She felt cold.
Adam’s voice went soft. “You know, if the near impossible were to happen and you did remember something, anything, no matter what…you can tell me. You can tell me anything.”
Even if it’s the worst thing I could know about myself? That maybe everything they say about me is true? She shook her head. “No. Nothing to tell. But maybe someone knows something I don’t know. Someone saw something…”
“There were no witnesses to the crash. Someone would have come forward.” Adam touched Jane’s shoulder. “Forget it. Erase it. At least change your password.”
“No. I want to see if they say anything else.” She logged off Faceplace before Adam could take the tablet and start deleting. She stood up. “I keep thinking,” she said, “that whatever happened, it’s still stuck in my brain somewhere, and I just have to work it loose.”
“You know that is not how amnesia works, Jane.”
She knew he didn’t mean to sound patronizing, but he did, and she turned on him. “Adam. I live with this every day.” She’d read it described in one amnesia memoir as “the burden of uncertainty.” It was so true. “I know what you mean. I’m saying I cannot shake the thought that I will remember this.”
“It’s been two years. Most memories, if they’re going to return, do so in six months.”
“But what we don’t know about the brain is equal to what we do know.” That was what Dr. K, her neurologist, had told her, lighting a candle of hope that never burned very brightly.
“Don’t you see how that holds you back, Jane? This pointless hope.”
She turned away from him, a flush flooding her face.
“You tell yourself the only way you get whole again is by remembering. I’m telling you, that isn’t going to happen. You better find another way to pull yourself together.”
She pressed her fists to her eyes.
Adam’s voice broke. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be a jerk; I’m just trying to help. I’ll skip class today. I’ll stay with you.”
“I love you for that,” she said, and suddenly tears, which she hated, were in her eyes and she wiped them away with the back of her hand. “But no. Go to class. Be brilliant. I’m…”
Going to David’s grave. Maybe it would loosen a memory. As if being close to him would work a bit of magic on her mind. “I’m going to rest,” she lied.
“I could find out who it is,” he said. “Ask my hacker friends.”
“All right,” she said. “Let’s find out.” What scared her was the end of the posting: And I’m going to tell. All will pay. Like there was a score to be settled.
He nodded. “I’ll start after class.”
Adam gave her another hug and left.
She didn’t drive anymore, but there were the ridesharing services, and her mother let Jane use her PayPal account for payments. She didn’t use it often, because she didn’t want her mother to know where she was. She crawled out of the dorm room window and walked across the greens and the college’s parking lots toward Congress Avenue, tapping a request into the app once she was a few blocks away from the school, biting her lip, sick with nervousness at the thought of seeing David’s grave.
3
AFTER GRANTING HERSELF a good cry as soon as she awoke, Perri Hall showered, still sobbing under the spray. When she stopped, she told herself, There, that’s done, no more. Then she felt ready to face the terrible day. She pulled chilled spoons from the freezer to ease the puffiness of her eyes, resting on the couch with the spoons curved against her eyelids, the bright chatter of the TV morning-show hosts a garble of voices in her brain. She chose to wear a modest dark top with slightly patterned gray slacks, and a silver necklace that David had picked out as a Christmas gift when he was in middle school. Perri carefully applied her makeup. She looked, she thought, somber but elegant. Now she had to be strong. For David’s memory, for everyone who expected strength from her. She watched herself in the mirror and made sure her bottom lip had stopped trembling.