EVEN WITHOUT OPENING MY EYES, I knew it was light outside. I must have overslept, I thought with a jolt. I must have slept through my alarm. I struggled to wake up fully, to get moving, but I found it surprisingly hard to surface. Things were off, somehow.

I tried to concentrate, to pinpoint what was different. The first thing I noticed was the throbbing pain in my hand. The second thing I noticed was that I had my arm wrapped around something large and warm. This was confusing, so without opening my eyes, I used my undamaged hand to poke it.

The thing jerked away. “Ow,” it said. “That hurt.”

I opened my eyes. “Sarah?”

“The one and only,” she said. She sat up and stretched. “Oh, yes. God, it feels good to move. You were latched on like a damn spider monkey.”

“Why are you sleeping in my bed?” I asked her. My voice came out rough and gravelly.

“We’re not in your bed, Jess.”

This made no sense, so I raised myself up on my elbows as best I could and glanced around.

Huh. She was right. This was most definitely not my bed, or even my bedroom.

“Where am I?”

“You’re in the hospital. You’ve been coming in and out of consciousness for a while now. You talked to your parents an hour or two ago—well, mumbled to them a little. They went to get some coffee, now that you’re out of the woods, but they’ll be back soon.”

“Okay,” I said. I don’t remember that, talking to them, but I believe her.

She tilted her head. “Do you remember anything? About what happened?”

I closed my eyes. There was a lot of gray, and my thoughts had a hard time coming together. I remembered asphalt and pain and…“Charlie? The flask?”

“Yeah,” she said. “That’s right.”

More started to come back, yet…I stared at her. “I thought it was Mona there, not you.”

“It was. She called me from the ambulance—had me call your parents. We all thought you were still in your room.” She paused. “Migraine, my ass.”

“I needed to check something,” I said. “It was important.” I paused. “Do you know if they tested me? Did they find the drugs?”

“Yeah, they did. Although from what I heard, they barely needed to—they’d never seen someone that far under before. They had to pump your stomach.”

I considered this. Now that she mentioned it, my stomach and my throat both hurt as well. A lot.

“What about Charlie? Do they believe him?”

“Jess, half of the people attending the game came out to the parking lot after Mona started yelling—they all saw Charlie beating the crap out of you. His credibility is pretty shot right now.”

“Okay,” I said. “Okay.” I paused. “Is Mona here?”

“No, she was for a while, but she needed to go home. Also…”

She stopped.

“What?”

“She came here in the ambulance with you. She told me that you were talking for a while on the way here. Do you remember that?”

I shook my head. It was all gray. Sarah was watching me closely. Too closely.

“What? What did I say?” I asked.

For a second Sarah paused, her face twisting a little. Then she shook her head.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Mona said she couldn’t make out the words.”