The light faded in the loft. Shadows lengthened. Maggie lost track of time. The personal emails dwindled the closer she got to the present—went from a glut to a scattering to, by July, practically none at all.

Maggie exhaled. Maybe the haters had spent their hatred—or simply found someone new to hate. Or maybe they’d heard that Maggie had left Carlton. She pictured them cheering, She’s gone! We won! Go Tigers!

She waded through one advertisement after another—Amazon, Forever 21, Prairie Schooner, H&M, Kenyon Review, Zara—and deleted them swiftly. Once, she paused to lower her tense shoulders, roll her neck, and look around dazedly. One more month to go.

She nearly had her phone back now—really back, as in something she could actually use. She’d excised the hatred, cut out the malignant parts. She could move forward. Hit reset. Everything that had happened before—deleted. She was determined to forget. I’m giving myself a do-over. She felt a little spark of something good. Something like hope.

And then … another message from a stranger.

It was a relatively recent email, from someone named Jane Cannon. Still riding that wave of relief, Maggie hesitated only for a second, long enough to reason away the possibility that someone would be trolling her six months after the incident, and then she opened it.

Jane Cannon

To: Margaret Arioli

Hello

September 15 at 1:33 AM

Hi. My name is Jane Cannon, and I’m a freshman at Carlton College. We’ve never met, so I hope this email doesn’t annoy you, but I don’t have anyone else I feel like I can talk to, not when it comes to what happened. Actually, I don’t even think I can write about it. But I know something similar happened to you. I guess I’m just looking for someone to talk to and maybe give me advice. If you’re willing to talk, please let me know. Thanks.

Maggie reread it. She shook her head, swallowed hard, and re-reread it. Oh no.

A quiver traveled through her body. The phone fell to the floor. No, no, no.

She tucked her hands under her chin and tore her gaze off the phone. Bleakly, she focused on her shadow, a black puddle spilled across the floor.

I know something similar happened to you.

Maggie drew in her legs and wrapped her arms around them.

Oh God, she was sorry for this Jane Cannon; she truly was, but … no. No way. The girl had asked the wrong person for advice, any kind of advice, but especially advice on this. Maggie wasn’t the right person to reach out to—wasn’t reachable, period. She shook her head again, thought wildly, I can’t help anyone. I can barely help myself. She didn’t want to reflect on what had happened or offer guidance to someone else. She couldn’t. Going back mentally would totally ruin starting over.

“Margaret?”