It all makes sense.

It's Hanna.

Of course it's Hanna.

The girl at the party. The girl who ended up in over her head, because it was the first time she'd tried anything stronger than alcohol or weed. The girl with the anonymous voice, who dared to speak out after the dust had settled.

The choice had been there. She could've let Josh's memory lie in peace, keep the secret close to her chest with the guarantee that it would never be shared without her consent. But she chose to speak out, because it was the right thing to do. Even if setting the precedent meant losing her best friend in the process, she went ahead with it—because she knew she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she didn't.

I can't blame her.

In fact, I can only admire her.

Because I'm not sure whether, given the choice, I would sacrifice that much in the name of the truth.

I have to speak to her. It's two in the morning, and a crazy idea to go anywhere right now, but if turning up at her apartment door in the middle of the night means we can finally put the pieces together then I'm willing to do it. The only way I can feel at peace right now is if I hear her admit it. That she was the girl Josh assaulted, and all this time, the only one to see the other side of him.

I should take an Uber, but there's so much white-hot energy coursing through me that the thought of standing still and waiting for one is unthinkable. So I pull on fleecy leggings and a thick hoodie and a waterproof jacket and tear out of my room like a madwoman. I power-walk through campus, even though it's pouring with rain the most irritating pathetic fallacy ever, and the water soaks my hair and streams down my face. But I don't care. As long as I make it there. As long as I finally put an end to this ordeal.

There's a buzzer on the outside of the apartment building, but I don't want to scare Hanna or her roommates by pressing it as many times as I want to. Instead I pull my phone out and scroll until I reach her name.

MORGAN: I know this is weird, but can you come to your door?

I know Hanna well enough to be confident her phone will be on. Even if she's asleep, it'll buzz her awake; she'd rather die than resort to do not disturb. And sure enough, the two blue ticks appear less than a minute later.

HANNA: ???

But she doesn't wait for a response; the main door soon buzzes to let me in. I move quickly and take the stairs two at a time.

Then I'm at her front door.

And she's standing right there.

"Morgan?"

She looks dishevelled: that's the only word that springs to mind. Her hair, which has grown longer than I'm used to seeing, is ruffled and unwashed. The dark circles under her eyes suggest she hasn't had a good night's sleep in weeks. And to top the whole thing off, there's a half surprised, half panicked expression on her face.

"Hanna," I breathe, my voice cracking in the middle.

"God, are you okay?" she asks. "What's going on?"

I thought I had it clear in my head. Even among the internal chaos, I had a single aim: to make it here as quickly as possible. But now I am here, I realize that's as far as my plan extended. Everything else I have to improvise.

When no words make it out of my mouth, Hanna jumps in for me.

"Why don't you come in?" she says, opening the door a little wider. "You look cold."

I am, and this is the first time it really occurs to me. The jacket may have saved my top half, but my pants are soaked and my hair looks like I've stepped out of the shower. The shivering hits me right on cue.

Inside, Hanna leads me to the empty kitchen. She busies her hands making two mugs of peppermint tea, letting the silence swirl around us like wisps of steam. I haven't asked for anything, and I probably would've said no had she offered—but once the hot drink is set in front of me, I realize it's exactly what I need.

As I raise it to my lips, I try to piece together what I need to say.

"I'm sorry," is what I start with. "For showing up here at this time. For waking you up. I should've waited until tomorrow, but I don't know, I wasn't thinking straight, and something in me just couldn't bear to—"

"Morgan." Hanna's voice, quiet and commanding, forces mine to fall at its feet. "It's okay. I was awake anyway."

"You were?"

She shrugs. "I haven't been sleeping great lately."

"Still, I'm sorry."

"You don't need to apologize."

I swallow over the lump in my throat, but it doesn't budge. Not even slightly. "I just... I needed to talk to you about something."

"Okay." If Hanna is fazed at all, she doesn't show it. Her expression remains as calm and still as an undisturbed pool of water. Not a single ripple on the surface. "Let's talk."

She makes it sound so easy. I wish it were.

"It's about Josh," I say. Even though she's probably guessed that already. Even though there's no other reason for me to have turned up in this state, looking and feeling like my whole world is falling apart. Only Josh has ever been able to do that to me. And from beyond the grave, he's still managing it pretty well.

"Okay."

"It's about the article you wrote." I wait for her expression to change, but it doesn't. "We talked about it before, I know, but that didn't go the way I intended. And anyway... this is something different."

"Okay," she says again.

"I realized something," I say. "Maybe I should've picked up on it before, because I know now there have been signs all along. And if I had known, I would've done things differently. But I can't change that now. I can't change everything that's happened between us... but I can say that I finally know the truth."

She doesn't say anything, but the solid gaze of her eyes locked on mine says more than we've exchanged in months. It's not silence at all.

There's nothing left to do but come out and say it.

"The girl who wrote the letter. The girl whom Josh assaulted. It was you, wasn't it?"

By now, I feel like I don't even need an answer. There's so much weight in just saying the words aloud, and already I can feel a change within. A shift into alignment of something that's been off balance for a long time. Not a resolution, but an acknowledgement. An acceptance. Finally, I can begin to make sense of the past year.

But then Hanna's expression changes.

Morphs into something I'm not expecting.

Confusion.

"What?" she asks, and I know right away it's not an attempt to conceal or deny: it's genuine surprise. "What? Morgan, what are you talking about?"

"It's you," I say, but the doubt has already come flooding in. "... Isn't it?"

"No." She shakes her head. "God, no. He never did anything to me. Why would you think that?"

My mouth is open, but no words come out. It feels like the rug has been pulled out from under me; I'm now off balance, teetering on the edges of crashing down altogether. I can tell Hanna's not lying. It really wasn't her. And yet it makes no sense. Wasn't it why the article caused such an irreparable rift between us? Wasn't it why she clammed up the first time I asked her who was behind the anonymous letter? And wasn't it why she had been so unequivocally certain that her source had been telling the truth?

No. Apparently not.

"I don't... I mean, I thought—"

Hanna carries on looking at me, and my grip on the situation wavers with every second.

"If it wasn't you that wrote the letter," I say, "then who did?"

She goes quiet; we both do, hands curled around our mugs and eyes deadlocked in the space above. There doesn't need to be this much suspense. She's the one who wrote the article, even if not the letter, and therefore knows who handed the letter over. All she needs to do is say the name.

"Please," I say. "I need to know."

She takes a deep breath. Diverts her gaze to the table and laces her fingers together. "Okay, look... I have a confession."

"O-kaay..."

"A few months ago, when you asked me who wrote the letter, I refused to tell you because I said you didn't have a right to know." She pauses. "But that wasn't strictly true."

"What do you mean?"

"The truth is, I didn't tell you because I don't know."

What?

"How could you not know?" I ask, feeling my heart rate quicken. "The girl gave you the letter because she wanted you to publish it, didn't she?"

Hanna shakes her head.

"It was anonymous," she says. "To the readers, but also to me. I found it in my pigeonhole one morning, this pages-long typed-up letter addressed to me, detailing everything that happened. But no name, and no identifying information. Just a note at the top that said to tell as many people as possible."

"I don't understand," I say. "If it was anonymous this whole time... why did you act like you knew?"

Hanna reaches up to scratch the back of her neck. "Defensiveness, mostly. I had no idea whether the source was trustworthy, and the responsible thing would have been to verify it before I published anything. But you know what exposés do for GXRL's stats. People go wild for them. I even held onto the story until the start of fall semester—for maximum impact in the back-to-school edition. I pretended I knew the source because if you found out I didn't, you'd have called me out. And I didn't want to hear it."

I force myself to take a deep, albeit shaky, breath. "So... even now, it could be true, or it could be not."

"Technically, yes," Hanna says, with a weary sigh. "And I know I'm a shitty person for going ahead when there's even a slight chance it could be false. But... I don't know. There's something about it. Something that jumped out at me, that I can't dismiss even now. Every time I read that letter, I can feel her desperation, her panic—I've lost count of the times the words have kept me awake at night. And, sure, my intuition could be wrong, but... somehow I just know it's not."

Silence settles between us for a few seconds before I find my voice.

"I know," I say. "I felt it, too."

But that's all we have: a shared hunch, which means nothing in practical terms and brings us no closer to the conclusion of this mystery. We're still right where we started. And maybe it's time to accept that we may never know the truth. Josh was buried with plenty of secrets; perhaps it's better for everyone if we finally stop digging.

There's one thing we can change, though, and we're all too aware of it.

Like usual, Hanna speaks first.

"Morgan," she says quietly. "What happened to us?"

It's such a loaded question—where would I even start? Instinct tells me to clam up, to shut down, because that'll be easier than unpicking my decisions from the last few months. I know I'm to blame. This thing started way before Hanna's article, when cutting myself off from the rest of the world felt like the quickest way to heal. It's not going to be a pleasant process trying to undo the damage I've caused. But when it comes to me and Hanna, the reward is great enough for me to know that I have to try.

"I don't know," I murmur, feeling tears prick my eyes. "But I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry," she says, and although her voice sounds much stronger, I can tell she's affected too. "These last couple of months, with you back here and us not talking... well, they've been rough, let's say that."

"They have?"

She seems surprised. "Of course. It's not been easy trying to make peace with the fact you probably hate me. Still, it's not like I didn't deserve it. It's one thing deciding to publish the article in the first place... but another entirely not even talking to you about it first."

"Why didn't you?"

There's a pause. Then she sighs. "Honestly, I don't know. I was intending to. When you came over here that day to pick up your things, I was going to tell you then. I'd planned out everything I was going to say. And then you showed up, and I just... didn't.

"I don't really have an explanation other than I chickened out. Things already felt weird after we hadn't spoken all summer, and I knew it was going to be a difficult conversation. Plus I'd already convinced myself to go ahead with the exposé, and I didn't want you to talk me out of it."

"I wouldn't have told you not to do it."

"I know." She nods. "And if I could go back now, I'd do it all differently. In fact, I would've told you the moment that letter landed in my pigeonhole. Because if anyone deserved to know first, it was you."

I don't know what to say. I'm a little stumped by the conversation, even though it's long overdue. My head is still spinning after being so sure Hanna was the one and then having my theory blown to pieces. And now she's here, acting so calm and kind and considerate despite me deserving to shoulder a fair share of blame. I'm struggling to hold myself together.

Before I can speak, she's staring at me again.

"What's it like for you?" she asks carefully. "To know this about him. To find out what he did, all these months later." When I don't answer right away, she continues. "I only ask because... well, I can't imagine what it'd be like in your shoes. You've been through so much already, even before this. And if there's anything I can do to understand, or help, I want to know about it."

"You don't need to—"

She stops me with just three words. "Yes, I do."

I allow myself a pause, to untangle the mess inside my mind and figure out what there is to say. Then I take a breath. "Honestly?" I say. "I don't know how I've made it through this year. All the days seemed to have blurred into one. I can't work out how I feel about Josh, because on one hand I hate his guts and I'm glad I never have to face him again... but on the other, there are times when I miss him so much it hurts. And then of course I'm racked with guilt because I know I shouldn't."

My voice cracks. A single tear rolls down my cheek. Like a reflex, Hanna jumps from her seat and goes to grab me a box of tissues.

"Sorry," I mouth as I take one.

But she simply shakes her head.

"On top of all that, though," I continue, "I feel angry at him. Angry for doing what he did, but also angry at him for dying. And I know that doesn't make any sense—it's not like he set out to drown that night. But it's infuriating because he got to escape everything, you know? He doesn't have to deal with the consequences. He doesn't even have to answer anything. He just gets to rest in peace from here on out—while I have to spend the rest of my life in this horrible gray area, not knowing who or what to believe."

As my words tail off, I reach up to dab my eyes again. If only I were better at keeping it together. It feels exposing enough—even verging on pathetic—to admit this all aloud, even if it is only to Hanna. In one swoop I've sacrificed my stone-cold façade, my means to pretend that I'm handling things. It once felt so important to prove that; however, now I've realized I can't keep it up much longer.

Hanna doesn't say anything. Instead, she lets go of her mug and rounds the kitchen counter. Then she throws her arms around me and squeezes me tight.

She's never been much of a hugger, but she puts her heart and soul into this one. Her hair tickles my cheek, smelling like her favorite coconut shampoo, and I'm not expecting such a simple gesture to hit me with such a sense of security. Perhaps it's the familiarity—like she's steering us back to a time when things were easier, when the world wasn't so chaotic and I always had her by my side. I know it's impossible for things to ever be exactly the same, but right now, it feels as close as we're going to get.

"I'm sorry," she says, her voice low and breathy in my ear. "God, Morgan, I really am."

"I'm sorry, too. I shouldn't have pushed you away this summer. I know you were only trying to help, and I don't know why I didn't let you. I should have let you."

When she pulls back, her eyes are glistening; she's not quite crying, but the emotion is there all the same. "Guess we'd both do things differently the second time around, huh?"

"Yeah. No kidding."

"Not that I'm hoping there's a second time, or anything close." She takes a step back and studies my expression closely. "So are we okay?"

I nod without hesitation. "Yeah, we're okay."

Her sigh of relief mirrors my feelings perfectly. I wasn't expecting a full reconciliation when I showed up here; in fact, I was so frantic and confused that I didn't know what to expect. But now it's a huge weight off my shoulders, and I finally feel like I can breathe again.

These past few months may have proved that Hanna and I can live without each other, but they've also made me realize that I never want to.

------------------------

So, um... gotcha? ;)

I'M SORRY, but I have to admit I'm going to leave you hanging for a little longer. I just can't give up the answer that easily...

The good news is that Morgan and Hanna are reunited, which I'm sure you will all appreciate. My heart is at peace again ❤️

As always, let's chat in the comments! I'm really intrigued to know what you think. And if all you have to leave me is a load of hate, well... I kind of brought that on myself  💀

- Leigh