AUGUST 15
“I never wanted to be a hashtag,” I say, forcing my eyes to remain up and facing the crowd. Halley is sitting four rows back and on the middle aisle, because she insisted that I could look at her the whole time if I needed to and it would seem like I was addressing the entire group. This presentation for her Mormon youth group is the first of at least thirty public speaking events I plan to do over the next year.
I couldn’t get over the fact that nothing I did was technically illegal, so with the help of my therapist I reached out to organizations focused on internet bullying and drowsy driving, offering my services as a speaker or volunteer. I had a lot of takers, so many that I’ve decided to take a gap year before I start college so I can focus on helping other people avoid the mistakes I made.
Halley clears her throat and I realize I’ve lapsed into silence. “Sorry, this is hard.” I pause for a second to take a sip of water from the bottle clutched tightly in my hands. “Once I had a teacher ask the whole class to pick five hashtags we would apply to ourselves. It was just an updated version of that ‘What five words best describe you?’ interview question. I picked things like #BlondAmbition and #PreMed and #NeverSayQuit. I thought I was such a good person back then. Lately, people have been hashtagging me with things like #Coward and #Selfish and #Liar. The worst part is, they’re right.”
I swallow hard. “I did a lot of things wrong the night of the accident. And then I continued to mess up, for weeks afterward. How does someone who once tweeted, ‘Where there is truth, there is trust. And with trust, you can survive anything,’ become a #Liar?” I raise my chin and look straight at the crowd. “This is how it happened.”
And so I give them the whole story: the party, the accident, the horrible sick feeling in my stomach when I realized I was responsible. I tell them about hiding, about running away, about trying to start over, but repeatedly being drawn back into the internet drama.
I clutch a balled-up tissue in my hand. I had no idea how many times I would break down crying while telling this story in front of a group of other teens, but surprisingly I’m holding it together. Maybe that means I’m starting to accept my role in all this, or maybe I’m just out of tears.
After I take responsibility for what I did and caution people about drowsy driving, I return to the idea of the internet. “It’s funny,” I say. “Maybe you think you’re just one person. What you do doesn’t really matter. You can read a few tweets or blog posts and then publicly render your judgment of a total stranger. Who cares? You’re just one tiny voice in a huge ocean. But the thing about tiny voices is that when they band together they can be incredibly loud. Uncomfortably loud. Sometimes that’s a good thing—a strong thing. A group of voices can wake people up to the truth. But a group of voices can be a bad thing too, because we’re not always right.” I pause. “Or even when we are right, sometimes the things we do to each other still aren’t okay.”
Halley gives me an encouraging nod. “Keep going,” she mouths. “You got this.”
I inhale deeply. “Sometimes we bandwagon, we jump to conclusions, we point fingers at people, because it seems fun or makes us feel like part of something. Maybe we do it because we feel angry or powerless and it gives us the illusion of control. But we don’t think about how it feels to be on the other side of those fingers. We don’t think about what it’s like when you just need a few minutes of peace and everywhere you look people are judging you.” I pause again. “We don’t think about what it would be like if you just needed a reason to keep going and instead you got a bunch of reasons why you should go die.”
I look from one side of the room to the other. “Brad Freeman made the decision to try to end his own life, but he had a lot of encouragement. You have more power than you think. Be careful what you do with it.”
Halley congratulates me after the speech and tells me I did amazing. Several of her friends come up to me to say they were moved. I make small talk and answer their questions for about twenty minutes, but the truth is, I’m dying to get out of here. After the crowd has died down, I give Halley a hug and tell her I’m taking off.
“Going to see Elliott?” she asks, a gleam in her eyes.
I smile. “Maybe.” This is Elliott’s last week of work at the park before he packs up and moves back to St. George for the school year. I know we’ll only be about forty minutes apart and will still get to see each other when I’m not doing presentations, but I still don’t want to waste the time we have left.
I slide into my dad’s Prius and start the engine. Once I got back from St. Louis, Rachael and Dad encouraged me to start driving again. It was scary at first, but Dad said if I was brave enough to tell the truth, I was brave enough to get back behind the wheel. He and Rachael took turns riding along with me as I worked my way up from the streets of Springdale to nearby two-lane highways and eventually back onto the interstate. I’m grateful to them for pushing me. It’ll make traveling to my presentations and seeing Elliott a lot easier.
A lot of other things have happened in the past few weeks too. I’ve been called basically every name there is on the internet and turned into a few unfortunate memes about lying, but I’ve also received some nice messages of support too. Brad Freeman did a TV interview where he publicly forgave me and told the world that what they were doing to me wasn’t any better than what people had done to him. Last I heard he had quit drinking completely and was working with a lawyer to try to get his paramedic license reinstated. I hope that works out for him. Tyrell James emailed me to say he’s writing a song in honor of Dallas and other performers who have died in car accidents. He plans to use the proceeds to raise awareness for driving safety. Tyrell is another person who I figured might hate me, but if he does, he’s keeping it to himself.
Clint is in the entry booth as I pull into Zion. He gives me a little wave. I park in the lot by the Visitor Center and take the Zion Park Shuttle to the lodge. Officially the Zion Canyon Touch Trail doesn’t open for three more weeks, but once everything was completed we pulled down the caution tape and let people try it out. When I see a man my dad’s age walking along it with two little girls, my eyes start to water.
I take the short trail from the lodge to the Grotto Picnic Area. I know exactly where Elliott is because he’s doing nature talks all day. Right now he’s up at Scout Lookout, giving a talk about the peregrine falcons that nest on the cliff.
When I make it up to where he’s presenting, the crowd is just starting to dissipate, some people heading toward the series of Walter’s Wiggles that will zigzag them down the side of the cliff, others moving toward the safety chains that lead out to Angels Landing. The first time I stood in this spot, part of me didn’t care if I lived or died. I’m glad I survived those moments.
“Thank you,” I murmur into the ether, just in case someone is listening.
“Talking to God again?” Elliott has sneaked up behind me.
“Maybe,” I say.
“You know, Ezra and Garrett go to this nondenominational church in St. George every Sunday. I join them sometimes. You could come along too.”
I smile. “I’ll think about it.” I wouldn’t say that I’ve found faith or anything this summer, but like my dad said back in St. Louis, I’m more open to the possibilities now.
“I’ve been thinking about you all day,” Elliott says. “How did it go?”
“Not bad, actually,” I say. “No one spit on me or cussed me out.”
“Mormons are good like that,” he says with a wink. “I’m sorry I couldn’t make it.” He pauses. “So what’s up?”
“Nothing,” I say. “I just wanted to see you.”
“I’m glad.” Elliott points at a wide flat rock across the clearing. We make our way over to it and sit down, just a couple of feet from the edge of the cliff. A curious chipmunk comes to investigate us.
“Shoo,” I tell it. “There are no handouts here.”
Elliott watches the chipmunk disappear into a clump of sagebrush. “I wish I wasn’t moving next week. I can’t believe you’re not going home.”
I lean my head against his shoulder. “I can’t believe this place is starting to feel like home.”
“Do you have any hesitations? About not starting college?”
I shake my head. “I can take some online courses to complete a few gen-ed requirements if I want, but doing these presentations feels more important, you know?”
“And your mom is okay with it?”
“Yeah. She’s being really supportive of the decision,” I say. “I know she’s going to miss having me close, but I plan on visiting her a lot. She even said she might come out here for a long weekend sometime so I can show her the trail we made.”
“Awesome. Of course you’ll have to help me with my hair and outfit before I meet her.” Elliott grins. “I want her to like me.”
I laugh. “I think she’s actually changed a lot over the past couple months. You’ll probably be okay.”
“If not, we’ll just bring her to the gym and I can wow her with my mad ninja skills.” He winks.
“Sounds like a plan.”
We sit holding hands, looking out at the view—red cliffs banded with pink and white stretching out into the distance, the sinewy twists of the Virgin River and the park’s scenic drive below us. The sun is beginning to set and I know that soon we’ll have to start back, but I want to enjoy this moment while I can.
“You been online lately?” Elliott asks. We both know I can’t avoid the internet forever.
“Not much. I peeked at Twitter yesterday. Megan Freeman had tweeted a couple of things about me—like she wondered how I could sleep at night and she thought her dad was wrong to forgive me.”
“You’re going to have to see her again soon, right?”
“Yeah, in October.” A film student working on a documentary about internet shaming culture had reached out to both Brad Freeman and me, asking us if we’d be willing to talk on camera. As far as I know, Carly and Megan are also going to be part of the interview.
I wonder if Megan will ever forgive me.
I wonder if I’ll forgive myself.
“Hey.” Elliott yanks a small pair of binoculars out of the side pocket of his uniform pants and holds them up to his face.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Look.” He hands me the binoculars and points off into the distance, at the top of the next cliff.
“Holy crap,” I breathe. A mountain lion is moving along the edge of the summit. “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Elliott laughs lightly. He strokes the side of my face, where beneath my makeup a scar from the accident still lingers. “It’s definitely in my top five.”
I am enthralled by the cat, by the way its thick tail hovers just below the ground, by the powerful and purposeful feel of each of its strides. “Should we make a lot of noise to protect ourselves?” My lips curl into a grin. “A wise man once told me that was the proper protocol.”
Elliott wraps an arm around me. “I think we’re safe.”
I smile as I lean into his body, but the truth is, I don’t know if I’ll ever feel safe again. Our “protective bubbles”—our houses, our cars, our friends, our online identities—might make us feel secure, but most of it’s just an illusion. It’s easy to get hurt, just like it’s easy to hurt other people. That’s part of why I’m doing these presentations. At first it was about penance—I thought they might take away some of the guilt. Now I’m hoping my story can help protect people by keeping others from making the same mistakes I did.
It’s a daunting task and part of me worries the whole next year will end up being a disaster—that I’ll be booed off stage, or no one will listen to me and nothing will change. It’s probably impossible to make a real difference.
But I know a lot of people who have accomplished some pretty incredible things—my mom raising me mostly on her own while maintaining a research lab and busy surgical practice, Elliott’s dad making it to the third stage of the American Ninja Warrior finals, Dallas turning a hobby into a major recording contract.
With practice and dedication and hope, other people have redefined what’s possible. If they can do it, maybe I can too. It won’t be easy and there are no guarantees, but I’m going to try anyway.