Status: Complete(:

Death is Black and White

They Discuss.

I'm surrounded by white, a bright light shining in my eyes. It takes a while for them to adjust to the pristine hospital room. It smells like they always do; like alcohol and rubber gloves. The only different thing about it is that I'm the one who's in the hospital bed, hooked up to a machine that makes me cringe. I can guess by the light shining directly through the window that it's early morning. 

It takes me a while to even realize why I'm here. Eventually, though, the sharp pain in the back of my head reminds me that Miranda threw our cement bookend at the back of my head yesterday...At least I think it was yesterday. How long have I been in here, anyway? 

Yet there's part of me that wonders if I'm leaving out some of the story. There's something nagging me, telling me that I should remember an important detail...

A man strolls in, wearing a pair of scrubs and a white jacket with a stethoscope around his neck. He has a few gray hairs and smile lines around the corners of his mouth. I guess you have to smile a lot if you work at a hospital. How else could you make it through the day? 

"Hi, Lydia," the guy says. "I'm Doctor Shultz."  He shakes my hand. "I hear you were in a pretty bad accident." 

"Yeah..." I reply awkwardly, my voice cracking so it's barely heard, since I just woke up. He just chuckles and I try to smile back to hide my annoyance. 

He lifts his clipboard a little and says, "Well, good news! You're not concussed. I'm really surprised, you got cut pretty deep, and there's quite a bit of bruising around the area, but no brain damage or anything. No skull fissures. We gave you some stitches and a couple staples, so I assume you'll be set to leave tomorrow if you're ready." 

"How long have I been here?" I ask.

"Just since yesterday afternoon." 

"Cool. Um, when are visiting hours?" 

"Eleven to eight," he says. "But your mom's downstairs getting some breakfast. Your dad stayed all night and your mother showed up at about six this morning so he could go get some sleep. She was here all evening yesterday, too, it took your dad some serious convincing to get her to go get some rest last night. Are you hungry?" 

"A little, I guess," I say. "What time is it now?" 

"Eight-thirty." 

I purse my lips distractedly. I swear I'm forgetting something really important. 

"Well, I can grab a nurse and tell them to get you some food. But before I leave, do you mind me asking what happened? It's kind of a procedure, since you're under 18."

I stare at him for a second, then nod slowly, straining the stitches in my head. I wince, but say, "I was arguing with my sister and she threw a pillow at me, but I ducked and it hit the bookshelf above me. A bookend on the top shelf fell on my head." 

He nods, then says, "I'm not saying I doubt you, Lydia, but if it fell, wouldn't it have hit you on top of your head? The injury was in the back." 

"Yeah, but I ducked. And bent my neck I guess." What was he? Some kind of detective? Like get off my ass.

I don't know why I'm defending Miranda. She's kind of an angry bitch, but I guess she is really pregnant, so maybe she didn't mean to hurt me and it's just hormones. I wish I knew what was going on. I wish Miranda or Sam or anyone could just show up and tell me what's going on. 

Dr. Shultz just nods and smiles. "Okay, thanks Lydia. Now I'll go grab a nurse and see if they can find you something good to eat...I hear they've got mac n cheese downstairs somewhere." 

And with that, the doctor leaves me alone with nothing but an empty white room and an even emptier, bruised mind. 

~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~

There's a knock on the door and I put down my magazine (my room doesn't have a television) as my mother, who hasn't taken her eyes off of me since she came back upstairs with a plate of rubbery bacon and a wet fried egg this morning, goes to open it. I told her the same story that I told the doctor, but she still seemed pretty pissed Miranda. I expect to see the doctor come in, but instead I see Sam, Josh and Adam all pile into the room. Sam's got a vase of white daisies to match my blatantly white room, but I don't care because none of my friends have jobs, therefore none of them have money to buy me flowers with. So however they came up with the cash, I'm grateful. 

"She's awake!" Sam cheers and goes to hug me. 

"How does it feel?" Josh asks. 

I purse my lips. "Painful. They had to stitch and staple me, I'm still really grossed out." 

They all smile and shuffle their feet like all hospital guests do. Except for Josh...I guess he's used to tragedy after all his family has seen. After another moment of silence passes, Adam finally speaks up. 

"Lyd, can we talk to you..." he glances at my mom. "Privately?" 

My mother raises an eyebrow at me. "Anything you guys have to talk about can be said around me," she says in her no-nonsense voice.

"Not really!" I protest. "Come on, you've been stuck in this hospital for hours, why don't you go out to lunch or something?" 

"What? No, I can't leave you here alone," she argues. 

"What am I gonna do, Mom? Run away?" I lift up my arm with the I.V. in it. 

She sighs heavily. "Well who will I go to lunch with? I don't want to go alone..." 

"I dunno. Ask Grandma. Or Doctor Shultz." 

She rolls her eyes but gets up anyway. Adam waits a few seconds until she's out of hearing range before he speaks again. 

"I'm sorry, Lydia." 

I cock my head to the side. "For what? Throwing a bookend at me...? Because you were..." 

He cuts me off. "No, for being an asshole about...Lotty." 

Everyone seems to be really cautious around me. Like at any moment I might blow up on them, like yesterday. I can't say I blame them. 

"But...why?" 

Everyone's really quiet for a minute. Finally Sam pipes up. "Because it was her!" 

"What? Okay guys, making the girl with the head injury feel crazy isn't really helping things here. Can we be a little less vague here?" I say.

"Okay, so the bookend? It was at the other end of the room from you and Miranda. There's like no way she could have thrown it at you, and we have no reason not to believe her word that it wasn't her. Bryan wasn't in the house. We were in your bedroom. So who was it then?" Sam's pacing the small room.

My agitation is slowly shifting into anger. "You know, I'm beginning to think this Lotty shit is all wrong. I think...ugh. Can we just give it a rest? My winter break is already being limited by my damn head, I don't want to spend the whole of it ghost hunting. Okay?" 

"But Lydia," Adam says. "I've spent the whole year thinking you guys were full of shit. But I honestly think you're on to something here!" 

"Yeah," Sam interjects, "some ghosts feed off of negative energy. And your fight with Miranda wasn't exactly positive." 

"Well..." I stutter. 

"Guys." Everyone stares at Josh, who has kept quiet this whole time. "I agree with Lydia..." 

My face perks up.

"Sort of," he finishes. 

My jaw drops. "Well what's that supposed to mean?" 

Josh ignores my rudeness and carries on. "I've been to a lot of places. And as I'm sure Sam knows already, a lot of cultures believe in different aspects of death..." 

Sam nods. 

"Well," he continues with a patient and slow tone, as if he's breaking some sort of bad news to me, "I think we should stop all this. Not because this 'Lotty' you guys talk about isn't real, but because...I think Lotty's more than a ghost. I think she's a demon." 

"A what?" I shriek.

"A demon?" Sam gasps, her face white.

"Well up until now, I believed just what you guys did. That Lotty was a child who passed away young and wanted company, or help crossing over, or something. But I had my doubts. Like, the image you saw in the mirror? That's not your average ghost. And now that she's tried hurting you, I get the feeling that this is more serious than a little girl wanting a friend." 

Everyone's silent. What if he's right? Suddenly my stomach feels on edge, and everything in the room looks hazy. I don't understand how any of this could be real. 

"There's a lot of signs," Josh says. "I mean, maybe it's too early to get a priest involved, but I don't want it to get to the point where it's too late...maybe if we just let all this go, she'll go away..." 

"Fine," I say curtly. The tension in the room has edged up about nine notches. "I need some sleep. Thanks for the flowers." 

I roll over and wait for them to leave.
♠ ♠ ♠
Just got back from camping, with no wifi or service. I kept waking up at like 8 and couldn't get back to sleep, so I would write this till my friend woke up! Tell me whatcha think!

I'm getting my wisdom teeth put in an hour. Holy shit. :o