I had expected it to do. I was just excited to figure out what exactly this
college thing was that everyone was doing.
Later that semester, I called my friend Nora to check in on her.
In high school, I’ve always been loud and had a comment for everything
– one friend called me “One Step” because I took jokes one step too
far – and something about Nora’s quiet spirit made us inseparable. She
could crack a joke under her breath, and being there to catch that small
breath of air before it fell to the ground and disintegrated made every
moment with Nora critical. Because no matter how hard you tried, and I
tried countless times to retell and recreate these moments to our friends
as Nora sat silently giggling by my side, it was never the same as living in
that moment. I called regularly to hear how things were going with her,
and hearing how happy she was made my days brighter. Even if I couldn’t
be with Nora, I still liked to check and see how she was feeling, what her
new friends were like, and how UVA was so different from our small, allgirls high school.
“Chloe,” she said one time in the middle of a call. Obviously we
both knew it was still me on the other end of the phone, but the direct
address warned me she was about to let me in on something serious, like
we would do when it would be just the two of us in a car talking about
something that might be consistently bothering her and distracting her. “I
went to a vigil last night for Hannah Graham, and I just started crying,”
she continued. “I don’t even know the girl. But it’s so sad, and everyone
here is shaken up about it.”
Hannah Graham had recently had her face plastered and reshown
online to the point that everyone who saw it merely recognized it as “that
girl.” That girl who went missing at UVA. That girl with her last couple
moments documented, as she runs away from a man power walking some
distance behind her early in the morning/late at night. That girl who in
this footage wore slimming black jeans, like Maggy and I had bought in
August in order to prepare for the abstract destination of “college,” and
an olive, sequined crop top that I would want to borrow. That girl whose
remains were recently discovered near UVA, confirming that the worstcase scenario is the only-case scenario.
And her parents. Her poor, poor parents. For some reason, this was
all I could think to myself after I hung up the phone. They have to live
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