Page 88 of What They'll Say About Us

"Let's put together a short slideshow. I also found some family photos from the public memorial that was held for her. If you can come up with anything else, we can add those in or just go with what I found."

"Let me see what I can find."

"You do that, and I'll finish the rough script I was working on."

I pulled out my computer and logged into my online storage account. It felt ridiculously difficult to open my archived photo files, but, somehow, I did it. And then the memories came flooding back. It was one thing to think about Paige, to remember her, but seeing her face frozen in time at the age of twenty-one, knowing what I knew now, was very painful. The young and beautiful girl—I couldn't really call her a woman—was full of life in most of the photos I had of her. Because, frankly, those photos had all been taken before we'd gotten caught up in our ambitious fight.

There were fewer photos of Paige in the months before her death, but there was one that gave me pause. It wasn't one I had taken but a photo that had been shared with me by someone else in the play. It was me and Paige, standing together on a stage, probably snapped during a rehearsal, in between action.

I'd been shadowing her actions for the role, being her understudy, and it was in that one photo that I saw how thin Paige had gotten, how drawn her face was, how tense and stiff her body was, and how there was a pain in her eyes I'd never actually seen. It felt like she was acting in her own life, as much as she was acting in the play.

In contrast, my face showed all my emotions: naked ambition, overwhelming jealousy, a forced smile that didn't match my angry eyes. Neither one of us had been caught in our best light, and I had a feeling Paige would have hated this photo as much as I did. I didn't know why I'd kept it. Maybe because I hadn't looked at it before. I'd just saved it from someone's text message and then archived it with all the others.

"Did you find anything?" Morgan asked.

"Yes." I clicked out of that photo, picked some of the happier ones, and shared those in a text to Morgan.

"These are good," Morgan said. "You all look surprisingly happy."

"That's when we were friends."

"I guess you don't have many from when you weren't friends. It would have been nice to have something taken right before she died to show the contrast. You said she changed and was super stressed for weeks. It would help us take our listeners through her life with better imagery."

I went back to the photo I'd put away and clicked it open again. "Here's another one. I'm not sure I want to show it." I turned my computer around so she could see the image. "It was probably taken two weeks before she died, maybe less."

"She looks very different. So do you. That play took a toll on both of you."

"I don't think it was just the play; it was our need to be the best, to be the center of attention."

"Clearly, you both felt the pressure."

"I was just her understudy. I had a small role in the play, about ten lines in total. But I was clearly a mess."

"It's up to you if you want to put this out in the world, Tessa."

"Let's hold off on this one," I said. "It might be better for the end of the story, whatever that is."

"Good point. I'm sending you the script. I'll set us up at the table by the window. We'll show the photos and talk over them for most of the video, if you're okay with everything, of course."

I took a few moments to read through Morgan's script. It was good, dramatic, and just the way I liked our videos to be. "This is great," I told her. "Not just the script, but this whole idea. You nailed exactly what we've been missing. We're trying to tell Paige's story, but no one really knows her. They might be curious, but maybe now they'll feel like they can relate to her, like she could have been any one of them during their college years."

"I'm glad you like it," Morgan said. "You're usually better at this stuff."

"This is the best thing we've ever done."

"Well, hold that thought until we see how it plays out."

"Once in a while, you have to accept a compliment," I said dryly.

"Thank you. Are you ready? Do you want to read it a few more times?"

"No, I've got it."

"Great. I texted Cassidy. She's also on board with the idea. She's going to watch the comments for us. You can start with your usual introduction, then I'll flip the screen away from us to the photos, and you read the script. We end with a teaser about the investigation moving along with an update coming shortly." She paused. "Do you want to change before we start?"

"No. I'm good. Let me just read it once more." After doing so, I felt more comfortable and gave Morgan a nod. When we went live, I said, "We know you're eagerly awaiting an update, and there is news, but I can't share it yet. I know that's not what you want to hear. But until we can share, I want to talk to you about Paige, about the girl I knew. To help us do that, I want to show you some photos and tell you a little more about her. We might not have ended up the best of friends, but we didn't start out as enemies, and maybe it's important to see that Paige's life was a lot more than her tragic ending. Let's begin."

As Morgan flipped the screen to an image of a much younger Paige, I looked down at the script and began to read. Morgan matched her photo flips with my words, and it was a short but compelling story. We finished with a twenty-second video clip from Paige, speaking in her own voice about the upcoming play to a local news reporter, and her words held the same amount of stress and strain as her face.