I write about how inadequate Athena has made me feel since college, how I swallowed back vinegary envy every time she achieved something I could not. The way I felt when Geoff told me how she’d mocked me at that convention. I recount the way she stole the story of my maybe-rape. I describe how, despite it all, I still loved her.
But as I dig into the past, I find myself lingering on good memories, too. There are more of them than I realized. I haven’t let myself dwell on college for so long, but once I scratch the surface, it all comes bubbling to the fore. Starbucks every Tuesday after our Women in Victorian Lit seminar: an iced mocha for me, a Very Berry Hibiscus Refresher for Athena. Nights at slam poetry events during which we’d sipped ginger beers and giggled at the performers, who were not real poets, and who would one day certainly grow out of this nonsense. A Les Mis sing-along party at a drama major’s apartment, where we’d shrieked at the top of our lungs, “One day more!”
As I transcribe all this, I wonder if our friendship had indeed been as strained as I’d perceived it. Was that jealous tension always there? Were we rivals from the start? Or had I, in the throes of my insecurity, projected it all against Athena?
I remember the day during our senior year that Athena received the first offer on her debut novel, when her agent called and told her on her way to barre class that she would soon have her book on shelves. She called me first. Me. She hadn’t even told her parents yet.
“Oh my God,” she’d breathed. “June. You won’t believe it. I can’t believe it.”
Then she told me about the offer, and I gasped, and we both screamed back and forth at each other for a good thirty seconds.
“Holy shit, Athena,” I whispered. “It’s happening. Everything you wanted—”
“I feel like I’m standing on a cliff, and my whole life is in front of me.” I remember so clearly her breathy whisper; shocked and hopeful and vulnerable all at once. “I feel like everything is about to change.”
“It will,” I promised her. “Athena, you’re going to be a fucking star.”
And then we screamed back and forth a little more, relishing the other’s presence at the other end of the line, for it was so nice to know someone who understood this exact dream, who knew how mere words can become sentences can become a completed masterpiece, how that masterpiece can rocket you into a wholly unrecognizable world where you have everything—a world you wrote for yourself.
I FALL IN LOVE WITH WRITING AGAIN. I START TO DREAM AGAIN. EVER since the @AthenaLiusGhost tweets broke, I’ve been operating from fear, defensiveness, and insecurity. But now I’m able to dwell once again on all of publishing’s promises, the things this world could give me. Brett will sell this to Daniella for a much lower advance than The Last Front got, given the circumstances. But it’ll be a surprise hit. It’ll go into its second printing before launch day. Then the press cycle will kick up, and everyone will be unable to stop talking about the sheer audacity of it all. The frenzied discourse will drive sales, and I’ll earn out my advance within weeks. I’ll start making double the royalties I was before.
I’m feeling so good that I even log on to Instagram for the first time in weeks and—ignoring the slew of hateful comments on all my previous posts—put up a photo of myself from today’s writing session. I’m sitting at a hardwood table near a café window during golden hour, freckles popping, hair falling in soft waves around my shoulders. One hand cups my cheek; the other skims my laptop keyboard, fingers ready to compose.
“Falling right into this manuscript,” I write in the caption. “Blocking out the negativity, because when you’re a writer, all that matters is the story within. We’re overdue for the next chapter. I can’t wait to share this one with you all.”
ATHENA’S OLD INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT GOES ACTIVE THAT NIGHT.
I wouldn’t have even seen the post if I hadn’t been scrolling through my notifications, trawling for likes. Someone compliments my blemish-free skin and asks for my skin-care routine. Someone exclaims that they love the coffee shop I’m at. Someone else writes, New Juniper Song book? Can’t wait!
But there’s also a notification tag that simply reads: Thought you could get rid of me? I imagine it’s just some shitpost, but the thumbnail image looks familiar, and the account has a blue verification check, so I click to view the post.
I almost drop my phone.
It’s Athena’s account, posting for the first time since the morning before her death. In the photo she’s sitting at her writing desk, smiling sweetly, but everything is off—her eyes are a bit too wide, her toothy smile so stretched it looks painful, and her skin is ghost pale despite the sunlight streaming through her window. She looks like one of those CreepyPasta memes: an image that should look normal, but that makes your skin crawl with its deranged intensity. Lying open by her right hand is The Last Front in paperback. By her left, a slim hardcover of Mother Witch.
I click to expand the caption.
Thought you could get rid of me? Sorry, Junie. I’m still kicking. Glad you had a good writing day! I had a good writing day too—here’s me, flipping through some old works for inspiration. Heard you’re a fan ?
My dinner crawls up my throat. I run for the bathroom. It’s nearly half an hour of panicked breathing and mental exercises before I’m near calm enough to approach my phone again.
I run some searches on Twitter: “Athena Liu Instagram,” “Athena Instagram,” “Athena Insta,” “Ghost Athena,” and all the other possible queries I can think of. No one’s talking about this yet. The post didn’t have any hashtags or tag any other accounts. What’s more, the account, which once had nearly a million followers, now has zero. The person behind this has either blocked or soft-blocked all of Athena’s followers. The only person seeing this post is me. Whoever this is, they’re not trying to go viral—they just want to get my attention.
How is this even possible? Don’t social media companies shut down accounts upon the owner’s death?
This is so fucking stupid, but I Google “Athena Liu alive” to make sure she hasn’t, like, resurrected thanks to some medical miracle without my knowing. But that search returns nothing useful; the most “relevant” result is an article about how a recent English department event at Yale was dedicated to keeping Athena’s memory alive.
Athena is dead, gone, turned to ash. The only person who’s convinced she’s still around is me.
I ought to block the account and forget about this. It’s likely just some troll, posting grotesque things to fuck with me. That’s what Brett and Daniella would say. That’s what Rory would say, if I tried to explain why I’m so upset. A troll is the obvious and rational explanation, and I repeat this over and over in my mind as I inhale and exhale into my fist, since the most annoying symptom of anxiety is refusing to believe the obvious and rational explanation.
Don’t give it power, I urge myself. Just let it alone.
But I can’t. It’s like a splinter digging into my palm; even if it’s tiny, I still can’t rest easy, knowing that it’s under my skin. I don’t sleep a wink that night. I lie with my phone screen inches from my face, staring with aching eyes at Athena’s forceful, mischievous smile.
A memory rises unbidden to my mind’s eye, a memory that I’d hoped I’d drowned out or forgotten: Athena in her black boots and green shawl, sitting in the front row of the audience at Politics and Prose, beaming expectantly at me with bright, painted lips. Athena: inexplicably, impossibly alive.
It’s late on a Friday night, so I can’t get Brett or my publicity team on the line for another two days. But what good could they do? It’s hardly a problem from a publicity perspective. Aside from me, who cares about this post? And it’s not like I could explain why the account bothers me so much. Yes, see, the thing is that I did steal The Last Front, and I’m riddled with guilt, so you understand why these posts give me such bad anxiety I want to puke?
At last, because I have to do something, I reach for my phone.
I text Geoffrey Carlino. This isn’t funny.