sounded way too cheerful, eerily so. “Then that night, the first night they let us visit Lily in the hospital, you remember?” She continued without waiting for an answer. “Your mom had left, and you fell asleep in the chair. I decided to try the Ouija board. I thought maybe I could talk to her that way, you know, tell her to wake up.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “But something else happened instead, didn’t it?”
“I called to her and she came, didn’t she?” she asked. “You saw her.”
Alarm bells rang in my head. Maybe Alona had been right about Joonie after all. “J,” I said as gently as possible, “I’m glad you came to visit, but my mom’s working on getting me discharged so—”
“Oh, no.” She shook her head. “Can’t have that. Not yet.” She darted around Lily’s wheelchair to grab one of the visitor chairs. She dragged it across the room and angled it under the door handle, wedging the door shut. “That’s better.”
She turned to face me again with a scary smile. “You can see them, can’t you? Ghosts, spirits, whatever. That’s why you’re always trying not to hear things, why you’ve always got your head down, so you don’t react to them.”
Oh, not good. I tried to redirect her attention. “Joonie, what are you doing with Lily? Is she supposed to be out of her room?” She seemed to be doing okay from what I could tell. She didn’t need a respirator to breathe, but I wasn’t sure how long she could be away from her IV. It was hard to see her this way, her eyes dull, face slack. She was empty.
Joonie waved her hand dismissively. “Her body is fine. They left her all by herself in the basement to wait for an MRI.”
That explained how Joonie had gotten Lily here, though not why she’d brought her to my room.
“You know, I tried doing this the easy way,” she said reproachfully. She pushed Lily’s chair closer, her eyes bright and her cheeks pink like she had a fever. “I tried to get you to come to the hospital. And yesterday, in the cafeteria, I know she was there with you.”
“No.” I shook my head. “She wasn’t.”
She frowned at me. “Nobody goes down into the first tier to pretend to make a call, Will.”
“It wasn’t her,” I insisted. “She’s not here.”
But Joonie continued like she hadn’t heard me. “I told her to talk to you, to ask you to help. We just need you to do a little favor, Will. That’s all.”
“What do you want?” The nurse’s call button was well out of my reach in these restraints, and I guessed that shouting for help probably wouldn’t get me very far, not with whatever evaluation Miller had on file for me.
“It’s easy. I want you help me put Lily’s soul back into her body.”
I stared at her. Apparently, the part of regular Joonie was being played by
She shook her head fiercely. “Don’t tell me you can’t do it. Don’t lie!” Her face turned a violent red. “You’ve been lying this whole time.”
How long could it possibly take to discharge one patient?My mom would be back here any minute, right? She’d notice the door was stuck and call someone for help. The safest thing to do was probably just keep pretending this was normal. Sure. “What are you talking about?”
She tilted her head back with a harsh laugh. “Oh, like you don’t know.”
“Um, actually…” I shrugged, or did the best I could with my current restrictions.
“Fine. You want to make me say it. All right.” She nodded and just kept nodding, like her head was loose on its axis. “I found Lily, she was my friend first.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “So far, I’m with you.”
“But she preferred you,” she snapped.
Baffled, I tried to follow her line of thinking. “Nothing ever happened between Lily and me. You know that. We were just friends, all of us.”
“No.” She shook her head. “Not
Suddenly, it clicked. The way Lily’s presence used to make Joonie light up. How angry and hurt she’d been after their big fight last summer. How completely devastated she’d been after the accident, even though they hadn’t even spoken in months. Alona’s hints about Joonie having a crush.
“Oh, Joon. I didn’t know. I didn’t know you and Lily were …” I trailed off awkwardly. Sometimes my gift, my curse, whatever you want to call it forced me to live mostly in another world, trying not to see, hear, or feel certain things. Evidently I’d done my share of not seeing in this world, too.
“We weren’t,” she said wearily.
“Then I don’t understand.” Maybe it was just me and my repeated head injuries, but I still couldn’t figure it out.
Joonie came around the side of the wheelchair to lean against my bed and stare at Lily. I resisted the urge to scoot my lower body, at least, away from her. She was freaking me out a little.
“I kissed her once,” she said. “Did you know that?”
Obviously not.
“Last summer.” She smiled at the memory.
“Before the fight.” About boys. That’s what Joonie had said. They’d fought about boys. I closed my eyes at my own stupidity. Sure, they’d fought about boys, as in, Lily liked them and Joonie didn’t.
“What happened?” I asked, though now I could sort of guess.
“She ended it, fast. I thought she was going to run, but she didn’t. She just kind of looked at me and said, ‘I wondered.’ Then she proceeded to take my hand and tell me that while she cared about me very much, she didn’t feel
“You panicked.”
She nodded.
That I understood. Keeping a secret for so long, it starts to feel like a vital part of you. You get so used to living with it that way, the idea of being exposed feels life-threatening.
“I … I said all kinds of awful things to her. Accused her of being a tease, leading me on, which she hadn’t. I told her to stay away from me and you, or … or I’d tell everyone she kissed me, that she’d forced me.”
For Lily, one who aspired to be included, dreamed of walking amongst the first-tier elite, Joonie’s threat would have been enough.
She looked at me, her eyes pleading for understanding. “I was just so scared. It’s hard enough at home already, and if people at school found out, word would spread, and you know someone would eventually tell my dad.”
Her father hated her dyed hair, torn clothes, and piercings. I was afraid to think of what he’d do if he found out her alternative choices extended beyond her look. He was more of an Old Testament kind of preacher.
“That night was my fault,” Joonie said. “If I hadn’t pushed her away …”
I shook my head. “No, J, listen. She tried to call me that night.”
“She did?” She sounded surprised.
“She didn’t leave a message, but she tried. I had my headphones on, so I didn’t hear it ring. She still counted us as her friends, enough to call when she needed someone. I didn’t tell you because I knew you blamed yourself for the fight. I was afraid you’d think that her calling me meant she felt like she couldn’t call you. I didn’t want you thinking you were somehow responsible. It’s not your fault. She called. She…” I broke off when Joonie started to laugh, a harsh and horrible sound, full of anguish and sharp edges.
“Look at you, so earnest and innocent.” She smiled bitterly. “She called me, too, Will. Twice. I talked to her.”
I stared at her, the world as I knew it shifting and falling around me. “What?”
“Ben Rogers used her and threw her away, just like he always does, and her little teen-princess pals didn’t want anything to do with her anymore.” Joonie shook her head in disgust. “So she called me and I … I told her she got what she deserved.” Her voice broke, and her shoulders shook in a silent sob.
I shook my head in stunned disbelief. “And the second time she called?” I forced myself to ask.
“I hung up on her.”
