Truth Or Dare

Chapter 26.

She's different. And not the good kind. Bad different.

Her hair is all messy, her eyes are bloodshot and wide as saucers, focused on us. Her stare is terrifying, my skin crawls as she remains unblinking. They have an evilish glint to them. Her lips are pressed in a thin line, so pale they're almost non existent. I can almost hear her teeth grinding. She's wearing a long baggy white gown, like the patients in mental institutions wear in movies, and a light blue cardigan on top of it.  All of this does feel like we are in one. A movie that is.

She doesn't move from her spot as if she's glued to the bed with her back pressed against the headboard and a pillow on her lap.

"Hey." Hayden lowers herself on a chair next to her bed.

We all make ourselves comfortable around the room. As comfortable as we can be given the situation.

"How have you been? Are you happy here?" I ask tentatively knowing it's a stupid question. Her doctors told us to not say anything that might trigger her and honestly seeing her like this, I don't think anyone has the heart to attack her. She looks up at me with a glare that almost makes me shit my pants. I gulp. "I mean are they taking good care of you?" I rephrase my question quickly.

She looks back at the spot on the empty wall ahead of her.

"We just wanted to come see you Skylar. To tell you that we forgive you."

"We don't blame you. We understand." I add to Jane's statement.

Skylar lools away from the wall and focuses looking at her pillow instead, then from the corner of her eye she tries looking at us without raising her head.

"You were our friend once. We need to forgive you." Jane continues with tears filling her eyes.

"So basically,   just wanted to see how you were and to keep you updated on us." Hayden smiles.

It breakes my heart. I'm not used to seeing her like this. Skylar was this sweet, innocent bubbly girl who wore sundresses all the time, and laughed all the time. She wanted to be the homecoming queen. This isn't her. Neither was that girl that night.

The Skylar we know, or rather knew, will only exist in our memories now.

"It's been two months in." Ashley says rubbing her barely there bump. "There's not much showing, but there's something there."

"We don't know what it is yet, but we think it might be a girl." Alain places his hands protectively on Ashley's tummy.

Skylar is still not unresponsive. We all look at one another and decide to just continue on talking, hoping that maybe we'll get a word out of her.

"Jane and I started dating." Mason pipes up. "Yeah, it has been great. We're really happy." He intertwines his fingers with her's.

"I quit my job Skylar. I started writing a book and it's almost done. It's gonna get published in a few weeks." Dylan speaks next.

"We brought you something Sky." I place a plate of her favorite brownies that Brinn used to make, on the table next to her.

"I know they're your favorite. I baked them, just like I used to." Brinn says as Brian puts his arm around her waist for comfort.

Suddenly Skylar stands up from the bed and goes over to the dresser, takes some sort of a diary out of the drawer and hurries back to the same position as before.

"What is that, a diary?" Matt asks her sweetly, with a smile. Skylar looks at him for a second then back at the diary in her hands.

"So we're graduating next week." Hayden changes the subject. "It's a shame you won't be with us. We always talked about prom together. Since we were-" She trails off starting to cry, as do Jane, Ashley, and myself.