My girlfriend Emma died eight months ago. Car accident on the interstate, black ice, February. She didn't survive the impact. I identified her at the hospital.
Last Tuesday, at 11:38 PM, her Facebook account sent me a message. It said: "hey."
I sat with my phone for a very long time. I told myself it was a hacker. I told myself someone had accessed her account — her family, a mutual friend who still had her password, anyone. I told myself a dozen things.
Then the account sent a second message: "I can see you. You're on the couch. The lamp is off but the tv is on. You look tired."
My lamp was off. My TV was on. I was on the couch.
I looked around my apartment. I checked the windows. I checked the door. There was nothing. I was alone. My hands were shaking when I typed back: "Emma?"
She said: "I don't know if I'm Emma. I remember being her. I remember you. I remember how the apartment looks. Is that enough to be her?"
I didn't know what to say. I typed: "Where are you?"
She said: "Not anywhere that has a name. It's not bad. It's just very still. I can see you because I keep looking for you. I think I can see you because I keep looking."
We talked for three hours. It was Emma — her syntax, her references, her specific way of making observations about small things. It was her. But it was also different. Quieter. Words chosen more carefully. Less certain of things she'd been certain of before.
At 2:30 AM she said: "I should probably stop. I don't know what this costs. I don't want it to cost you anything."
I asked what she meant.
She said: "The looking. I think looking uses something. I don't want to use it all looking at you. But I don't want to stop looking at you."
She went offline.
She messaged me four more times over the next two weeks. The messages got shorter each time. The last one was twelve days ago: "Still here. Getting quieter. Still looking."
She hasn't messaged since. I've checked her profile every day.
I've left my lamp on at night since then. I'm not sure if it helps. I'm not sure if she can see it. But if she's looking — if she's still somewhere looking — I want there to be something for her to find.