Free Seductive Shadows by Marni Mann

and I attempted to sit up. There was movement by my side, a flash of color, and it pushed me back against the bed. I didn’t bother to turn my head; once I heard her voice, I knew who it was.
    “Charlie, no,” Lilly said. “You’re going to pull out your IV.” She reached for something on the table. “Nurse, can you come in here?” Her breath reeked of booze, and her clothes of cigarettes.
    A nurse wasn’t going to stop me and neither was Lilly. I needed to see Emma. Now.
    I yanked her fingers off my skin and swatted them away from me. “I don’t give a shit about my IV.” My throat was dry. Nothing was steady. I felt as though I’d just stepped off a high-speed merry-go-round, and I wasn’t even standing yet.
    “Emma’s dead, Charlie. She didn’t survive the accident. Neither did the girl that hit you.”
    I stopped moving.
    She was…what? Dead?
    No. No, she couldn’t be dead.
    I ripped the IV out of my arm and tried to swing my legs over the side of the bed. The pain hit me as soon as I turned my hip, a stabbing ache that shot down the length of my leg. That didn’t stop me. “I don’t believe you. I’m going to go look for her right now.”
    “Nurse!” Lilly yelled. Then she grabbed my face between her palms, her lips inches from mine. “I know my word isn’t worth shit, but I wouldn’t lie. Not about this. Emma didn’t survive, Charlie.”
    I shook my head as hard as I could. “No, I don’t believe you. No…no.”
    “Listen to me, Charlie.” She held my face straight and looked into my eyes. “She’s dead.” She pulled me against her chest, her arms wrapping around my body. She swayed, slowly, back and forth.
    Lilly didn’t know how to say anything delicately, and the alcohol almost always made her lie. But she was holding me in her arms, and I couldn’t remember the last time she had done that. And she knew how much I loved Emma. Even though booze permeated her breath and my brain wanted to fight what she had said, I believed her.
    As if I had been tipped upside down and shaken like a bank full of coins, everything in my stomach came up. And it projected. Liquid and food and a flood of bile poured all over Lilly, the blanket, bed, and me.
    “Nurse,” Lilly shouted. Her arms dropped from my back.
    I had reached for Emma, like Moonlight had told me to, and squeezed our hearts together. I had given her my strength and protection. Why hadn’t that been enough? I had held on until I couldn’t anymore. And yet she was dead? Really dead? But she was my best friend, my sister, my…
    Everything went black again.
     
    ***
     
    I shivered from Lilly’s words, Emma’s dead , as though she had spoken them just moments ago. I couldn’t make the thoughts stop; I couldn’t push the memories away. Tucking my blanket underneath my sides and pulling it up to my chin didn’t warm me. Neither did the flashback of waking up in the hospital for the second time. I had asked Lilly if the Hunts had gone home. I didn’t understand why they hadn’t come to my room yet. I wanted a hug from Mrs. Hunt; I needed Mr. Hunt’s reassuring voice.
    “They blame you for Emma’s death,” Lilly had answered.
    I didn’t believe her. How could the Hunts blame me when it hadn’t been my fault? I had the green light, not the car that hit us, and I would never hurt Emma. They knew that. But days began to pass and they never visited, never called the phone in my room. At Emma’s funeral, with my leg in a full-length cast, I asked Lilly to wheel me over to them. Mrs. Hunt stuck her hand in the air to stop me from approaching; Mr. Hunt put his body between us, shielding his wife from me. Emma’s brother said through gritted teeth, “Give us time, Charlie.”
    I had read the witnesses testimonies, the detailed police report, and the findings after the wreckage had been analyzed. It all matched my statement. The Hunts weren’t arguing the facts. But they had told Lilly at the hospital that if Emma had been the