I spent another week at that hospital with only Jay and his wife visiting me. Sometimes he was alone, and most times she was.

"Are you okay? Do you need anything," she'd always ask, regardless of my saying yes and no every time. Then she'd say, "Alright, well, have them page me if you change your mind," and I'd watch her leave the room.

I didn't have a clock; the only way to know the day had changed was the dry-erase board near the sink. My doctor wrote her name, and the nurse wrote hers. Whoever checked on me first would rewrite the date.

I'd have moments when I felt that the stay was a nice respite from the entity, and then I'd be reminded of him.

I felt someone watching me when the privacy curtain wasn't shut. The squeaky whiteboard and a black marker sounded like those large shoes that left me lying in a puddle under my toilet. Sometimes, the lights would flicker and buzz, like in a scene from a horror film where you're standing at the end of a dark hall.

I suppose the positive thing is that by that point, it hadn't shown up since Claire visited me.

Later, Jay visited me wearing a denim jacket. It looked like the one he'd always wear in middle school until someone poured milk on the back. He hardly spoke because he'd get teased for having an accent, and being from Singapore, he barely knew English enough to answer the teacher without his sister translating for him. The day I watched two guys deface his jacket, he must've learned a few swear words over the weekend because their faces were red by the time he was done yelling.

"Are you okay," he asked. I hadn't seen him since the week before, right before my parents showed up, so by that point, the anger I felt in the pit of my stomach had time to disappear.

"Why would you give my mom and dad the letters?" He narrowed his eyes in thought, then relaxed them with a deep breath.

"Helen, I was worried," he said, sitting beside me on the bed. "I tried texting you on AIM, but you didn't answer."

"Dude, I haven't been on that since middle school." Right after Kristin passed, I no longer felt interested in anything we once did. I skipped school, lunch, and most of the classes I shared with her. I hated book fairs and the computer lab. I stopped sketching and watching Cartoon Network, and, for a while, I stopped sitting outside. Getting rid of my AIM account was the easiest decision.

"Well, I figured you didn't have Skype or MySpace, so I didn't know what else to do." I scoffed and rolled my eyes.

Turning back to him, I asked sharply, "So, because you couldn't message me, you ratted me out to my parents?"

"Helen, we're not twelve anymore. This is serious," he told me, and I relaxed a little when I heard how stern his voice became. "I interpreted those letters as you spiraling from guilt and possibly planning to commit suicide." We were silent for a few breaths, then he said, "And when I showed up and you didn't open the door, it proved me right."

I didn't speak for a few seconds, mulling over his half-confession and thinking of a response. I asked in a low voice, "But why them?"

"I needed your address." Jay looked me in the eye when he spoke, showing his sincerity. "And again, I was scared. I figured they had as much right to know if something happened to you." Again, I didn't respond. My chest tightened near my heart, more so for his grief than my parents'. It felt nice to see and know that someone was worried about me and was willing to drive an hour to see if I was okay. "They kept messaging my phone and calling me after I left your place. Honestly, I was wondering if I should've just gone with my pager instead." He chuckled at his comment, but I didn't find it funny. I kept staring at the white afghan. "They wanted to visit you here. I'm guessing they did," he asked, and I rolled my eyes. "What happened? What'd they say?"

I stared into his almond-shaped, dark browns with an emptiness in mine. 

"They spent more time telling me I overreacted than making sure I was okay." He pursed his thin lips. "Why didn't you just call Lauren or Cole?"

"Cole's on duty." I creased the skin between my brows. "And Lauren had enough on her plate with the baby," he said, stopping when I spoke over him.

"You knew about the baby?" I spoke so loudly that a few nurses glanced at me. Jay shut his eyes and took a deep breath, but I couldn't calm myself, even if I wanted to. He opened his mouth to respond, but I interrupted again. "You know how old she is, right?" He nodded, his lips parted, ready to answer, but I wouldn't let up. "Of course, you know. She was a freshman when we met."

"Helen, what're you talking about?" He cut me off to ask. He made a face like I was rambling on about nonsense. "Isn't she an adult?"

"She's a teenager." He looked upward in thought. I assumed he might've been doing the math in his head, so I said, "She's only nineteen, Jay." He looked at me with a straight face. "What? That's still a teenager; it's weird."

"I'm not gonna argue your logic." He threw his hands up. "I mean, she's your sister, so I can't tell you how to feel, but just know, I think it's ridiculous." I blinked and my head jerked back. I looked at him from his mohawk to the chain on his belt loop. "She has a solid career, a huge paid-off house down the street from me, and a nice car. Maybe I'm missing context—you do know her more than me, but she seems more responsible than the average adult."

"More responsible than me," I asked, but it was more like a statement.

"What? No," he quickly answered, almost sounding offended that I was offended.

"No, no, it's fine." I lifted a hand to stop him. "You seem to know what's best for my sister and what it takes to raise a family. You perfectly described what I'm not and what I lack."

"Jesus Christ," he mumbled, then stood up. "Helen, you've been through more than many your age and mine." I rolled my eyes again and folded my arms. I felt like he was deflecting and was about to use Kristin's death as a tool to distract me. He sighed, then asked monotonously, "What do you want me to say then?"

"Nothing," I mumbled, and then he crossed his arms.

Sternly, he told me, "Helen, I'm not leaving until you tell me what you want me to say."

"I'm fine." He lifted his eyes to the tiled ceiling. He took a deep breath and pressed his tongue against the side of his mouth. "I don't want anything from you."

"Oh my God," he chuckled in disbelief and annoyance, bringing his attention back to me. "Could you stop being so -"

"You know what? Fine!" I dropped my hands, and they found their way under the blanket. "I want things to go back to normal," I yelled. "Can you send us back to 2005 or bring her back to life?" He looked away, then at his black platform boots. I stole his attention again when I asked, "If that's impossible, can you make that thing stop tormenting me every fucking day? Can you make me not afraid to sleep—maybe rewire my fucking brain so I don't think that sleep and death are the same?"

We had nurses staring us down and visitors slowly passing my door. They watched us like we were a car wreck or like my neighbors did. I could hear machines beeping and a clock ticking somewhere. My heart was pounding against my chest, making me breathe harder, thus making my face heat up. I'm sure I was as red as a tomato, but Jay didn't say anything about it. 

He didn't say anything at all. He just scratched his bushy unibrow with his thumb, so I calmly said, "I didn't think so." My eyelid began to twitch, so I brought my index finger and thumb to my nose and traced along the camel-hump-like bridge. Looking toward the doors, I said, "Maybe you should just go," and after staring at me for a few beats, he did as I suggested.