Lovely Milluki awoke with a tremendous headache, her temples throbbing in time with the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead like angry wasps. She slowly opened her eyes and gave them time to adjust to the blinding light that emanated from the window. The sterile scent of bleach and iodine clung to the air, mingling with the faint metallic tang of blood from her split lip. She was disoriented from her fall, her limbs heavy as if weighted with sand, so she failed to notice where she was. It took about five minutes before the young woman frowned and realization set in. The bed was not her own, its stiff mattress digging into her back through the thin hospital gown, nor were the sheets, their starched roughness chafing her wrists, and she for sure did not have white tiles on her floor, cracked and yellowed with age, stretching out like a chessboard under the glare of the overhead lights.

In her moment of bewilderment, the door opened with a squeal of unoiled hinges, and in came a woman in a nurse's uniform, her crisp white shoes squeaking against the linoleum. She was carrying a metal tray that had a glass of water and medicine, the pills rattling like dried beans in a plastic cup. "You're finally awake," the nurse said in a sweet and caring tone, though her smile was tight, her coral-painted lips stretching thin over teeth too perfectly aligned. Lovely smiled back weakly and rubbed her temple, her fingertips grazing the bandage wrapped around her forehead, sticky with dried sweat. "What happened to me?" she asked, her voice rasping like gravel, because she couldn't seem to remember why she was in a hospital.

The nurse regarded her with a questioning look, her penciled eyebrows arching as she glanced at Lovely’s chart. "Well, you were found unconscious in the forest near the Calderon estate. Someone saw you and brought you in. I’m not sure about the details, but that’s as far as I know," the nurse replied, her tone clipped, as if reciting from a script.

Despite her baffled mind, Lovely reached for the medicine and the glass of water that the nurse held out for her, her fingers trembling like birch leaves in a storm. But just as she raised the glass to her mouth, the water sloshing precariously near the rim, a sudden pang of guilt and pain erupted inside her once more. Her throat constricted, the glass slipping from her grip and shattering on the floor, ice-cold water splashing her bare ankles. She started hyperventilating, her chest heaving as if crushed beneath an invisible weight, thrashing the bed like a deranged lunatic, the IV line yanking at her arm, needlestick burning. The nurse, astounded, her clipboard clattering to the floor, quickly pressed the panic button beside her bed, and immediately several nurses followed by a doctor arrived in the room, their hurried footsteps echoing like drumbeats in the narrow hall.

They slowly pushed her back onto the bed, their gloved hands firm and impersonal against her clammy skin, and placed an oxygen mask over her face, the plastic digging into her cheeks. One of the nurses, a young woman with a frizz of auburn hair escaping her cap, kept running her palms over Lovely’s hair while whispering reassuring words like "It’s going to be okay" and "Try to relax," but Lovely failed to do so. Her senses were consumed by one thing: the image of herself, perched on a hard wooden chair in the police station, the flickering bulb overhead casting her shadow like a specter on the wall, relaying what she had seen on the night of Ram’s disappearance.

The memory clawed at her:
The police officer leaned across the chipped laminate desk, his breath reeking of coffee and stale cigarettes. "Are you sure?" he asked again, his pen tapping impatiently against the notepad.

She nodded, her nails biting crescent moons into her palms. "It was Gen. She was the last person with Ram. I saw her and Ram enter the kitchen, then I heard a loud banging. I was drunk but not so much to have my vision lulled. I know what I saw."

The fluorescent lights hummed. A fly buzzed against the window, trapped.

Lovely’s eyes were suddenly filled with tears upon remembering her own words. They spilled over, hot and salt-bitter, streaking down her cheeks. She felt her chest tighten, her lungs burning as if filled with smoke, and again, the need for air consumed her. The oxygen mask did nothing for her, the plastic seal smothering her like a hand clamped over her mouth, so she pried it away from her face. The doctor, a gaunt man with wire-rimmed glasses, barked an order, and the nurses pinned her wrists to the bed, their grips vise-like. "I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean to!" she yelled to them, over and over, her voice raw and guttural, until the doctor decided to sedate her, the syringe plunger depressing with a soft hiss.

***

It was evening when Lovely awoke again. The room was bathed in the sickly orange glow of streetlights filtering through half-closed blinds. She was awakened by the not-so-considerate chatting around her. She opened her eyes, her lashes sticking together with dried tears, and there, standing near the door, was Carry with her arms wrapped around Angus’s arm, her glittery phone case catching the light as she scrolled mindlessly. Patrick was seated on a metal chair on her left, his boots propped on the bed rail, scuffing the chrome, and her mother was on her right, standing beside a small wooden table, busy cutting some apples, the knife thudding dully against the core. They were so absorbed by their chatter that no one noticed her awakening. So she released a snort to gain their attention, the sound wet and ragged in her dry throat.

It was Patrick who first addressed her. He asked what happened, his voice low and graveled, but Lovely felt too emotionally drained to talk about it, her tongue leaden. She kept silent; however, Carry made a snide remark about how she was found near the Calderon estate and Esther probably had something to do with it, her words dripping with faux concern as she twirled a strand of bleach-blonde hair around her finger.

Lovely felt a wave of pulsing anger bounce from her toes to her head, her fists clenching the bedsheet until her knuckles bleached white. She wanted nothing more than to shove Carry’s head into a wall, to feel the satisfying crunch of cartilage under her palm, but with her current condition, she knew she would fail miserably. Her hands still felt numb, pins-and-needles prickling up her arms, her head was still pounding, a jackhammer drilling behind her eyes, and she wouldn’t even have had the strength to conjure the ability to stand. Deciding to ignore Carry, Lovely turned her attention to her silent mother, whose hunched shoulders and white-knuckled grip on the knife betrayed her turmoil.

"Mom," Lovely called out in a weakened voice, the word cracking like thin ice.

The dressmaker Anita Milluki turned to face her daughter, her eyes glistening with tears that caught the light like shattered glass. When she received a call from the hospital, she felt that her world caved in on her, the phone slipping from her grip and clattering to the workshop floor, spools of thread rolling into corners. The last thing she wanted to hear after her husband’s sudden death was her daughter in a hospital with her head bleeding and unconscious. "Mom," her daughter called out again, the sound frail as a moth’s wing, and that pushed her to walk toward her, her feet dragging as if wading through tar. She wrapped her arms around her daughter, the starch of Lovely’s gown scratching her cheek, and her cries took flight, raw and keening, echoing off the sterile walls.

Lovely couldn’t help but cry too, her tears soaking into her mother’s floral-print dress, the fabric smelling of lavender detergent and grief. Her arms came up around her almost immediately, pulling her mother’s weakened figure against her petite frame, their shared sobs a tangled, dissonant harmony. Her friends, who felt like giving them privacy, nodded to each other and were about to leave, chairs scraping like nails on a chalkboard, when Lovely suddenly yelled at them, "Don’t you dare leave!" Her voice lashed out, sharp as a whip, and that left her friends stunned and mute. They exchanged meaningful glances, Carry rolling her eyes skyward, before deciding to settle back, their discomfort palpable in the way Angus picked at his chipped black nail polish.

After a lot of crying and body-aching hugs, Anita finally let go of her daughter. She cupped her face with her palms, her calloused thumbs swiping away tear tracks, and lovingly asked her daughter what happened. Lovely took a deep breath, the air shuddering into her lungs, and relayed the events of the previous evening.

The memory unfurled, vivid and suffocating:

She was busy embroidering a dress on their porch, the needle darting in and out of the fabric like a silver minnow, when Mrs. Lee, the wife of a policeman, came running toward her. The woman was flabbergasted, her chest heaving beneath a polyester blouse damp with sweat, and in between gasps, she told Lovely what her husband had told her when he came home. Ramuel Tobias was alive and would be arriving in their town to explain his sudden disappearance.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Lovely felt the life drain out of her, the embroidery hoop slipping from her fingers and rolling into the hydrangea bushes. She was so shocked by the news that sleep eluded her that night. She kept tossing and turning in her bed, the sheets tangling around her legs like shackles, before deciding to drive to the Calderon Mansion. The steering wheel vibrated under her death-grip, the headlights cutting through the fog like twin blades. She waited outside under the cold moonlit sky, her breath frosting the windshield, and finally, around four o’clock in the morning, she saw a light emanating from one of the mansion’s windows, a lone golden square in the darkness. That’s when she decided to ring the doorbell, the chime echoing through the halls like a funeral dirge.

When Esther opened the door, her apron streaked with soot and eyes red-rimmed, Lovely attacked her, slapping her face hard, the crack of palm against cheek startling a flock of crows from the nearby pines. It took a lot of running and convincing before the old woman gave up and listened to what she had to say.

After relaying the news, the words tumbling out in a frantic jumble, it earned her another slap, the force snapping her head sideways, and the angry housekeeper left her standing in front of the mansion, the door slamming with finality, determined to talk to the police chief.

A cracking sound halted Lovely’s tale. They all turned, only to see the screen on Patrick’s phone showing spider cracks, the glass splintering like a frozen pond, and his hands bleeding, crimson droplets splattering the linoleum, with lips contorted into a manic grin. "That son of a bitch is alive," he yelled, spittle flying from his lips. The anger emanating from him was enough to send shivers down their spines, the room temperature plummeting as if his rage had sucked out all the warmth.

Patrick was one of the few who deflected the idea of Gen killing Ram. He was adamant when he fought for her honor, his voice roaring over the town hall meetings like a tempest. But no one heeded his words, because everyone knew how hopelessly in love he truly was with Genelyn Calderon. Despite her having a boyfriend back then, he never stopped loving the girl. His bedroom walls were papered with her laugh, her smile, the tilt of her head in faded Polaroids. When the rumors erupted, he was on the front line, his fists bloodied from brawls in alleyways, fighting and arguing with every person that ever made a snide comment about Gen.

Patrick turned his eyes, wild and bloodshot, toward Lovely, and the woman knew what was coming. "You, you said," Patrick began, his voice trembling with the effort to contain the storm inside him, but he was too deep in anger to even find the words. "I told them what I saw," Lovely answered, her chin jutting defiantly, refusing to wait for the rampant blaming that she knew Patrick wanted to throw at her.

He violently stood from his chair, the metal legs screeching like a banshee, and took wide, fast strides toward the door. Angus tried to stop him by grabbing his wrist, his fingers digging into the leather cuff, but Patrick violently pulled it back, his elbow jabbing Angus’s ribs. He threw one last look at Lovely, his gaze a scalding brand, before opening the door to her room, the hinges groaning, not bothering to close it.

"This is sick," Angus said a minute after Patrick left, rubbing his side where Patrick’s elbow had struck.

Carry was about to say something, her lips parting in a smirk, but Lovely cut her off before she could begin. "Don’t you even dare, gossip queen!" Lovely angrily spat those words at Carry, each syllable a dagger, wishing they sharp enough to slash through Carry's smirk. The woman had no right to give her shit because Carry herself was the main reason why the townspeople began calling Gen a murderer. It was Carry who absent-mindedly spread the rumors about Gen being a suspect, her whispers slithering through the town like poison, and how she was the last one to see Ram alive. It was also Carry who told the townspeople about Lovely’s statement with the cops. She was the wood that kept the flame burning, her laughter ringing from salon chairs to church pews as she fanned the embers of Gen’s ruin.