Back out on the road, I drove down Broad Street and turned onto the side street where I’d crashed. As I drove the darkened street, passing rows of parked cars to my left and right, I searched for something familiar.

Nothing about the historic wooden townhomes sparked a memory. I slowed as I approached the accident site. It wasn’t hard to miss. The utility pole, once darkened by weather and time and covered in flyers, had been cut down after the accident, for fear it would collapse. It’d been replaced by a new pole, telegraphing a freshness out of place among the hundred-year-old townhomes.

I found an empty spot, parallel parked, and then shut off the engine. Keys and mace in hand and out of my car, I crossed the street to the spot. Running my fingers over the pole’s smooth new wood, I closed my eyes, trying to remember.

Panic. Fear. Desperation.

Whispers of them all drifted through me. It would be logical to be afraid after the trauma of an accident. But I’d been terrified before.

I drew my fingers away from the pole as if they’d been scorched. Why had I been afraid before? Forty miles an hour in this area was insane. Only someone running for help or away from danger would be so foolish.

There’d been no one who had needed my help. This I knew from Brit, who had asked me over and over why I’d been driving so fast. Brit had chalked it up to the drugs she and the paramedics assumed had been in my system. There goes Marisa again. High, drunk, or loaded.

But I had been riding high in early January. I’d been busy printing and mounting my photographs for my show. I’d had several weddings, and I’d been diligent about following my AA program. My life was on track. There’d been no depression or sense of loss, my usual past triggers.

I wasn’t using. I’d no memory at my disposal to back this up, but I knew I’d been sober.

Someone must have drugged me. Richards said it happened more often than anyone wanted to admit. The realization was as clear to me as the street in front of me now.

The doctors had been more focused on saving my life, so there’d been no examination to determine whether I’d been sexually active or assaulted. The bruises on my body had been explained away by the accident, so if someone had hurt me right before, then the crash would’ve hidden their deeds.

Hand to my chest, my heartbeat drummed as fast as my fingers. Someone had drugged me.

“I’d been in bars since I’d sobered up, but I never drank booze.”

The memories were there, but they danced just out of reach. We’re here. We’re here. Shine a light on us.