Lying back against my starchy white pillows, I tried to listen to Julia as she read me the best of the worst articles out of the Seventeen magazine she had bought from the gift shop. Normally we would not have been interested but Julia was reading each article in a new grossly exaggerated accent which I would have found even more hilarious if I wasn’t drifting in and out of a drug induced nap.

Julia was cracking herself up attempting to read an article about spring fashion trends, backwards, when the door to my hospital room opened. I looked up groggily, expecting to see a doctor or nurse. Even seeing one of my parents wouldn’t have shocked me but what I did see sobered me right up.

Standing in the doorway, halfway in-between the greenish light of the hallway and dimmer yellow light of my room, Luke looked hauntingly pale as if all the life had drained out of him. If I hadn’t known him I would have assumed he was another ghost. I was actually quite relieved that so far no hospital ghosts had found me and tried to join my little spirit family. Luke stood there silently for a long moment, presumably deciding if he wanted to come in or not. His gaze was strong and cold. I couldn’t look away from his troubled eyes. Finally he spoke, not to me, but to Julia.

“Jules, can I talk to you? In the hallway?” He motioned backwards with a jerk of his head.

“Uh, sure. Sure. I guess so.” Julia got up and followed him. I could hear her harsh whisper to him as they pulled the door shut, “What the hell is wrong with you?”

It could have been the drugs but it felt as if they were gone for hours instead of minutes. What could he be saying to her that he couldn’t say in front of me? My heart started racing in my chest as the temperature of the air around me started to drop significantly downward.

“Come back!” I tried to shout to Luke and Julia but my words were scratchy at best as if some unseen force was forcing them back into my mouth. My hands flew up to my throat and touched my neck and mouth, all seemed normal enough. I shut my eyes tight, hoping the whole thing would just go away.

I opened them, and saw Rusty standing by my bed side. He was looking down at me with the fatherly concern I hadn’t gotten from my own dad. His eyes held such sorrow but I didn’t want to talk to him. I shut my eyes again.

Everything came clamoring back to normal though when the door reopened. The blinds over the skinny frosted window on the door shook gingerly. Julia came in fist, looking just as pale and sickly as Luke had looked before. She and Luke both stood at the foot of my bed and exchanged an uneasy look with each other before turning to me.

Julia swallowed several times, her bright eyes filling with tears that she fought back with all her might.

“What? What it is it?” I asked. The suspense was getting overbearing. For a while no one spoke. The only noise that filled the room was the ticking of the incorrect clock on the wall. Luke eventually overcame his inner struggle for words and laid it on me. Once he did I wished he’d never opened his mouth.

“I don’t understand you Vivian. Sometimes you acted like you could care less about me and other times . . . but I gave you space because I knew you had been through so much. Even after Julia told me that weird stuff about how you think you see ghosts, I was willing to believe . . . but . . . Who is Molly?” he asked me.

My head was still foggy from the medication; maybe I hadn’t heard him right.

“Luke? What are you talking about?”

He took off his glasses and wiped them with the corner of his shirt, hung his head briefly, then looked back up at me to continue.

“Who is Molly? Vivian just tell us.”

Now it was my turn to fight back tears. What was going on here? Why was Luke trying to confuse me?

“Julia, what is he talking about? Julia, please?”

My best and only real friend I had left, usually so full of light and exasperating happiness, stood in stoic silence. She watched the hands of the clock go around rather than make eye contact with me.

“I told him not to do this. Your parents told him not to do this. But does he listen, no? Go on, make a scene Luke.”

Luke rolled his eyes at her and brought his gaze back to meet my stunned expression. “I’m not making a scene. I’m just asking a question.”

“Well she doesn’t know what you’re talking about!” Julia practically shouted, now looking him squarely in the eyes. “Just let it go for now, until she’s better,” she added in a whisper.

“Hello?” I waved my hand frantically in front of my face. “I’m right here! Remember? Will someone please tell me what’s going on?”

Luke stepped back, suddenly studying the pattern on the title floor. His cheeks were flush with embarrassment like he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been doing. Julia swiftly took over, realizing that it had already been taken too far to go back now.

“Luke was talking to your parents out in the waiting room. He told them that he didn’t think you were doing so well, you know, getting over your sister’s death. That you cried in school and all of that . . .”

“Yea, that’s not exactly a secret,” I spit back, growing angry at this drawn out intervention scene.

“Vivian, your parents told Luke that you don’t have a sister. That you’ve never had a . . . sister.” Julia choked back more tears on that last word. I could tell that she didn’t quite know if she was freeing me or condemning me.

“Get. Out.” My breathing was ragged. I felt like I was hyperventilating. “Get out now! Get out! Get out! Get out!” I started to scream it over and over. I couldn’t make it stop. The words just gushed out of my mouth getting louder and louder. My friends didn’t move though, they looked trapped like cattle getting ready to be slaughtered. They could see the hammer but there was nowhere to run away to.