Free With Malice by Eileen Cook

having a prettier, smarter, sexier best friend and decided to take us both out. Murder-suicide. It didn’t make sense. Simone was better than me with some things, but I was better than her in others. It evened out. She was my best friend. Sure, she annoyed me, but I knew I annoyed her too. It didn’t mean that either of us would
kill
the other. It was absurd, but everyone acted like it was a perfectly reasonable thing to have happened.
    And I couldn’t understand why so many people cared about the accident at all. My lawyer, Evan, said it was because the story had legs. Two pretty girls, an exotic foreign location, mystery as to why I did it, and the potential for revenge and jealousy to be the cause. It didn’t matter what the truth was—what mattered was that it was fun to talk about.
    The whole case seemed to be based on how the one eyewitness didn’t see any brake lights before the car hit a stone wall that went around the town. She told police that I aimed straight for it. Anna had pointed out that it was possible there had been something wrong with the car. Maybe the brakes or steering were busted. When she’d come up with the theory, I’d experienced a huge wave of relief. It explained everything. All I needed was for someone in Italy to look closer at the car, and it would clear things up.
    â€œI’m not saying the accident is anyone’s fault, but what happened, however it happened, had to be extremely upsetting. It’s not uncommon when there’s trauma, emotional or physical, for the brain to shut down. It goes into emergency-only systems as a way of protecting itself. Your brain may be giving you some space to recover.”
    I looked out her window onto the parking lot. The rehab hospital was directly behind a strip mall, complete with a grocery, a coffee shop, and one of those everything-for-a-buck stores. It was weird to see people coming and going, doing everyday stuff. It made me feel like I’d gotten stuck in the wardrobe of Narnia, peering out, with no idea how to get back to the real world.
    â€œI think not remembering is worse than anything that could have happened. I keep imagining different scenarios. There has to be something I can—” The word disappeared from my head.
    â€œDo?” Dr. Weeks finished my sentence. “You can’t force yourself to remember, and there’s no pill or treatment that can zap your memory back into place. However, you can help it along.”
    I leaned forward. This was way better than putting together block puzzles. “What?”
    â€œDo you have a phone?”
    I nodded and pulled the replacement my mom had finally given me out of the bag that hung from the handles on my wheelchair. Now that there wasn’t anyone to text, it seemed pointless, but I still took it. It was like a lucky rabbit’s foot, my reminder that life could be normal again. I’d find myself compulsively checking online to see how everyone else’s life was progressing without me. I stalked Simone’s Facebook page every day to see what people were saying about her. I wasn’t allowed to post anything on social media. No selfies. No nothing. My dad and Evan had forbidden me to text or email anyone from school. Not even Tara. Just in case. Neither of them clarified in case of what. I was cut off from everybody. I passed it over to Dr. Weeks, and she began to click around. Who knew? There really is an app for everything. It hadn’t even occurred to me that there would be some kind of memory aid I could download.
    Dr. Weeks slid the phone back over to me. “I put the memo section on your first home screen. Anytime there is something you need to remember, either type it in, or there’s a voice-record function. If you’re getting headaches, it may be better to use the record. You can transfer it later from speech to text.”
    The excitement in my chest slowly deflated like a deserted party