It's funny how quickly things can go downhill—and my return to college is less gradual decline and more deadly freefall.

I feel even worse than the first day I arrived back on campus, which is saying something. Maybe it's because I had a taste of a good thing, of fun and friendship and thriving instead of simply surviving; it's harder to cope when all of that gets snatched away. And the worst thing is I know it's partly my fault. I know I don't help myself, that I don't have to twist the consequences into this all-or-nothing dichotomy—and yet here I am. Back to freezing up and sabotaging myself with my own inaction.

I guess I'm nothing if not predictable.

There's no logical reason for me to cut off Fazia and Adam, but how can I hang out with them without the risk of running into Elliot too? He's made it clear enough that he doesn't want to see or speak to me. It's been radio silence since that night, and no amount of checking my phone has been enough to will a message through. So what choice do I have but to back off?

I've already overstepped the line once. The last thing I want to do is force my presence on him where it's not wanted.

But why isn't it wanted?

That's what I'm struggling to get my head around: why my actions were so reprehensible that they could sever a friendship in a single stroke. It was just a kiss. Unexpected, sure; misjudged, maybe—but was it really necessary to blow up like Elliot had?

Josh lied. I keep telling myself that because it's the strongest case I have for me not being a moral disgrace. He put on a performance for the people who loved him most, acting like an angel while the sinister truth lurked in the shadows. Had I known, I would never have gone near him, let alone dated him.

I don't even get the luxury of a breakup. With him gone, so is any chance of closure; I'm trapped in a relationship immortalized by death.

And I'm angry.

Why should he have a grip on my life all these months later, like hands around my neck? He's already destroyed my life once. Tore the pieces apart in one fell swoop, causing everything to split and splinter. It's taken months for me to feel like I'm starting to rebuild, that by taking extra care I can maybe create something stronger—but now I'm back at square one all over again.

And that's just me. What about the life of the girl he assaulted? Her anonymity doesn't make the trauma any less real. All this time, she's been in the back of my mind as a blank silhouette; I haven't tried to picture her because I don't know where to start. There are thousands of students on this campus—and even then, how do I know she's one of them? She could've dropped out, transferred, graduated. She could've been a visiting friend or an exchange student. She's a nameless, faceless voice who was brave enough to speak out, and unless she wants to change that, she'll probably stay that way.

But I can't stop thinking about her.

Despite the blankness, I still latch on—and the longer I spend alone, the more she haunts my mind. I have to find her. I don't know why, but once I consider the tiny possibility, everything else becomes unthinkable. If I could meet her face to face, talk to her, listen to her, then maybe it could solve this.

I'd have the evidence right in front of me: that Josh was a terrible person, and what I've done doesn't come anywhere close.

But with limited information, and a whole campus of candidates, I don't even know where to start. Have I met this girl? It's possible, and if not I probably don't have any hope at all. So I find myself backtracking. Rewinding through the past year. Combing through every moment of mine and Josh's relationship. Searching for clues in conversations, passing comments, fleeting glances. Maybe I'd stand a chance if he hadn't been such a damn good actor—

Then it hits me.

Perhaps not a breakthrough, but a standout moment nonetheless.

The time before winter break, when I stopped by the GXRL office to deliver Hanna's coffee—and found myself barging in on an unexpected conversation between her and Cat. I remember it had seemed weird at the time, since they didn't even know each other. But Hanna had managed to talk her way out of it. What was her explanation again? They were working on an article of some description, a planned magazine feature all about the volunteer group—

I yank my laptop onto the bed, the screen lighting up my face like a ghost. The whole building is silent and I should be asleep, but now the thought's in my head I can't go a second longer without investigating. I only have to type the letter G into the search bar before the GXRL website comes up suggested. One click brings me to the homepage, and from there I start digging.

I know first-hand how much time Hanna spent perfecting her website, and it pays off now: with her search function and tag system, I can pull up any article since GXRL's first issue in a matter of seconds. 'Volunteering' is too broad, as I discover when faced with pages of results. But 'Leaders in Literacy' leaves me empty-handed. Either it's not a recognizable enough keyword, or there's no mention of it on the site at all. So I search Cat's name, both nickname and full: still nothing. I try a couple other female committee members, whose last names I pull from Facebook: still nothing. I even try Josh's name, on the off chance he might be mentioned as the founder, but of course the only result I already know about.

Disheartened, I return to my original search for 'volunteering', and resign myself to trawling through the results manually. If Hanna ever wrote anything about the group, it'll show up here—and for some reason, I can't relax without the definitive answer.

It takes almost thirty minutes to scour the full list of results. I find myself leaning closer and closer to the screen, my eyes sore from squinting in the darkness, but I can't tear myself away until I'm sure. The obvious sinks in before I reach the final page.

The article doesn't exist.

There's nothing here—not a trace of Cat's name, or even anything to do with the group as a whole. Of course, there could be a reasonable explanation; who's to say Hanna didn't intend to write the article, but simply ran out of time with all the other things she was trying to juggle? There were only so many all-nighters one girl could pull without having a physical breakdown.

And yet. And yet.

I just know—deep down, on an almost visceral level—there's something more to it.

What if the article they were discussing was the one that changed everything?

Wait.

What happened to Cat, anyway?

It occurs to me then that I haven't seen her since Josh's funeral, where she sat quietly among the several dozen members from the volunteering group. We hadn't exchanged more than a few polite words that day, and then I didn't return to campus until the new school year. Now I think about it, since I've been back, I haven't heard from her, seen her, even noticed so much as a social media post from her...

I open a new tab and pull up Facebook, the frown already carved deep in my face. I start typing her name in the search bar, expecting to find her profile straight away, but I'm greeted by a list of strangers. Which doesn't make any sense, because I know we're friends. I go to my own profile and then my friends list, scrolling a couple dozen people down to reach the Cs. But between Bethany Rosario and Charlotte Connelly, she's not there. Her profile has vanished.

I guess it's possible that she blocked me—but we never had any kind of argument, and when I log out to search that way nothing comes up either. The same goes for Instagram. The only explanation is that she's deleted her social media accounts entirely.

Why?

I grab my phone and pull up WhatsApp, finding our latest conversation: a nondescript exchange about schedule changes sometime in February. However, where her profile picture used to be there's a blank gray circle. I tap out a message—simply Hey—and try to send, but it bounces back with a notification that it can't be delivered.

What the hell is going on?

A chill creeps up my spine, despite the collection of blankets layered over my crossed legs. There's something very wrong here. Whatever reason Cat might have for disappearing off the face of the earth, it can't be good. And of course one possibility is at the front of the my mind: she's the girl at the heart of this all.

I glance at the time on my screen. It's late, but not enough for there not to be someone around: someone who might give me an answer. I go back to WhatsApp and start looking through my contacts. I haven't spoken to anybody from the volunteer group since last year, but of course they're still in my phone. All I need is one green dot—one person pulling a late-night study session or on their way back from a bar—and that might help me lift the fog.

Dean Chambers.

He's there, like the stars have aligned. If anybody knows where Cat has disappeared to, it'll be him. They definitely had some kind of thing going last year, although I'm not sure how far it went. But right now it doesn't matter. I have to ask.

I tap out the message with shaky fingers.

MORGAN: Hey. I know it's been a while, but can I ask you a weird question?

It's maybe a couple of minutes before the gray ticks turn blue, and another before he starts typing. My heart is pounding the whole time.

DEAN: Morgan! Whoa, it really has been a while. Hope you're good

DEAN: As for the weird question, go ahead, I guess??

MORGAN: Have you heard from Cat recently?

The reply doesn't come straight away. Every second of waiting stretches the possibilities wider—leaving room for my mind to create ever more twisted scenarios. I don't know why I feel so deeply that something bad has happened, but my gut wins over rationality every time.

Until Dean snuffs out the flame.

DEAN: Did you not hear? She moved back home at the end of last year, transferred to community college. Family issues, I think, so she wanted to be closer to her mom

DEAN: She went on a kinda crazy social media detox to clear her head, but she did give me her new number. You need it?

I slump back against the headboard, a breath escaping me in one low hiss. There I have it: a perfectly reasonable explanation, spelled out in black and white. It should be a relief, shouldn't it—knowing Cat's okay? And it is, mostly. But there's also an evil part of me that deflates when I realize this isn't the lead I thought it was.

MORGAN: That would be great, actually – thanks

He texts back with the number, but I already know I'm not going to use it. Not tonight, anyway. It's not what I need right now. Of course, this doesn't change anything; just because Cat's moved away for a seemingly legitimate reason doesn't mean she can't be the author of that letter. But short of texting her and asking outright, in a totally blunt and tactless way, I can't see how I'm ever going to find out.

With nothing else to go on, I return to the GXRL site and pull up the article about Josh. I know it's a bad idea—that I'd be better off giving up and trying to get some sleep. I've been running on a couple of hours a night since the incident with Elliot, and God knows it's not doing me any favors. But my mind is wired, almost crackling with electricity, and I can't sit still if I don't feel like I'm doing something.

The article is familiar. Achingly so, but I push through the discomfort and force myself to focus on the words on the screen. There may be something I've missed. A detail, perhaps, that I've overlooked because it didn't seem important at the time. Even if I could just narrow down a time period and work out roughly when it happened it would make things easier...

I wanted to get drunk, but not that drunk.

Maybe I lost track, or maybe somebody spiked one of my drinks with something stronger—I'm not sure. All I know is that control started slipping away much faster than I wanted it to.

At some point I slipped out of the apartment for some fresh air, but it didn't help. I wasn't dressed for snow; nobody was at that time of year. The shivering made it worse, and made me feel like I was going to throw up even more—

I'm rereading for the third time when it jumps out at me.

I wasn't dressed for snow; nobody was at that time of year.

Then it hits me like a ton of bricks.

The last time I saw snow was months ago now, but I remember exactly when it happened. Early April, and we'd been teased with at least three weeks of warmer weather already—a whole state lulled into a false sense of security that winter was well and truly behind us. But it changed again quickly, and nobody was expecting the twelve inches of snow that fell over the course of a single Friday night.

That Friday night, of course, was also the night Josh died.

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

We get a lead... and then I snatch it right out from under your noses. Don't say I don't keep you on your toes ;)

I am VERY intrigued to know if you have any theories about what's going on right now. Anybody seeming a little shady or that you don't quite trust? Anybody you trust with your whole heart and won't hear a single bad word about them? Let's chat in the comments!

Until next time...

- Leigh