I awoke with a start. The straitjacket suffocated me,as always. But, I don't know what I expected. The days always dragged on. Staring endlessly into the abyss that is this solitary rubber room. The cold plastic was uncomfortable at first, but I don't feel anything anymore. “I had the dream again,” I said to no one. Having no one to talk to was getting old. I craved human interaction; I begged them every single day to let me talk to anyone. This feeling I have is deeper than loneliness, worse than depression, more extreme than boredom, and darker than denial. I cannot put into words how much I hate this place. I count the seconds as they go by. “Not even a bed with a sheet,” I thought to myself. I have lost count of the days that I have been here. Too many to count. And I used to cry. I used to cry a lot. Stuck here in this room, I used to cry. I've gotten past it now. Crying is useless, it's hopeless. Many days I feel my brain shutting down, powering down; it tells me that it's not worth the fight. “I'm slipping, I'm falling too fast”. Every day it's worse. Stuck here in this wasteland, nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide. Sometimes I imagine pictures up on the grotesque mattress walls. Pictures of a happier time. Then the pictures get shredded and I am reminded of why I came here. But I don't cry, because crying is useless. Lately, my mind has been racing from thought to thought, skipping around. I can't seem to catch up with it. Everyday I sit. I sit in my corner, doing nothing, just waiting; not waiting out of hope, or denial, but definitely waiting for something. Whether it be death, someone to talk to, or simply to be let out of this dreadful jacket. I am living in a place with no space. The lady with the needle is here again. I think of those first few weeks when I still had a sliver of hope that I could escape. I would fight and kick and thrash at the lady with the needle but the same thing always happened. She would slowly slide it into my neck and I would drift slowly into sleep, every time, I could feel the liquid filling my neck. It was warm, but not inviting. A hollow, tingly feeling filled me from the ends of my disgusting hair, to the bottoms of my vile unwashed feet. The dream begins. A sedative, they call it. I previously would have fought it; but now I barely even feel it. As I'm slipping and sliding into the nightmare of the evening the incident happened, I heard a voice. Telling me to give up. I heard the voices a lot. Am I the only one fighting my wars behind my face and above my throat? The dream, or nightmare, occurred every night. It took me through the horrors of that night. The complete and utter terror that filled me to the brim. As I ran down those bleachers, I felt like I was in slow motion. Blurs of color swirled past my eyes, and all I could focus on was that scream. The scream that pierced my brain, forever. My eyes blurred as I neared her, on the ground, lifeless. I couldn't handle it. I got shaky and dizzy. I told myself to stay strong, to not fall. I looked up and saw tears streaming down her face. My best friend, Megan. And I'm Emma, by the way.

***
Emma-- 9/23/15
It's a Friday night football game, I was in the student section cheering with some friends. The lights were bright and I almost didn't hear the scream but it cut through the sound of the night like a knife. I ran down the bleachers trying to trace the source. She was standing there over the corpse of a freshman girl. “What happened? What are you doing here!?” I ran over to her shaking her trying to get answers, she moved her lips but no words came out. I was scared. A million thoughts ran through my head at once. I snapped into action and grabbed my phone and dialed 911. I could hear my voice on the other line. I sounded so calm. Why was I so calm? It looked like a gunshot wound to the head. The police showed up. Megan kept repeating herself, “I just found her, I, I just found her like this.”  A policeman drapes a blanket over her shoulders and leads her away from the crime scene. I go home and cry. I sob with every part of my soul until it feels like I have nothing left to offer. And then I get serious. I analyze that night over and over for the next few weeks. It keeps me awake every night. I stop sleeping, stop eating. My friends tell me I need to get help. So I stop going to school. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters anymore except understanding that night. It was a movie that played over and over in my head. I looked at it from every different angle but no matter what, I came to the same conclusion. No matter how many times I told myself that I was crazy, that there was no way I could be right, it seemed the only sensible explanation for that night.
***
Megan-- 7/18/16
I can't believe I'm doing this. Everyone thinks I killed that girl. Everyone thinks I murdered her. Her family. Oh God, her family. So many side-eyed glances and whispers scrape up against me. I feel the sting of the whispers whispered too loud. I used to be the nice girl, the one people could talk to; the one everyone trusted. I kept my head down and my voice silent. Walking through that crowded hallway was complete hell. My black zippered jacket blended in with the hustle and bustle of that dreadful hallway. I felt like I was drowning the whole day. Struggling to pay attention, if I even tried. I wanted to go away, to run away. I hate it here.
I hear whispers from the front of 1st period science. I recognize one of the girls, Clara. She was pretty good friends with Ella, the girl I found dead under the bleachers. They have proved me innocent. I went to trial for the case; they found me innocent, which is the truth. Nobody in this whole school cares about the trial, they are only scared of the screaming girl in the black jacket.
***
Megan-- 7/18/16
5 minutes left. 45 minutes of pure hell I went through. I watched the clock through my amber bangs; I cut my hair this way so to distract me from the haunting looks. The seconds go on endlessly; each tick tock of the clock drives me closer to insanity. I'm trying not to burst. I wanted to scream, yell, and cry. None of this was my fault. I try to tell myself this over and over, hoping it will make the time go faster, it doesn't. 3 minutes. I feel it. It's coming up. I'm going to hurl. But I hold it in, and I push it back down. As the clock hits 8:40, I leap out of my chair and go racing down the hallway. I pump my arms and exert all of my energy. I'm to the girls bathroom before anyone else is even out of their classes. I fling open the stall door with force and drop down to both knees with exhaustion and barf. The pressure is too much. I can't do this. I dizzily sit up after I'm finished. I can't do this everyday. And thank God no one else walked in here.

***
Megan-- 7/18/16
It's lunch… Great. At least the lunch ladies have no idea who I am. I shuffle across the tan and red tiles of the cafeteria floor. It reminds me of the doctors office, bland, tan, and boring. I have had tears in my eyes all day. I wish I could control it, but I can't. I keep hearing them whisper, all of them. Oh no, here I go again. Tears come spilling out of my eyes, but it's silent. I'm gonna barf. No no no no. Not again. I go for my second sprint of the day to the bathroom. As I run into the bathroom I crash into another girl, but I don't care.

Emma-- 7/18/16
The rest of the year was torture. I knew that the right thing to do was to stick by Megan. I knew that she hadn’t done it. I mean she couldn't have. Why would she have. I still had a few other friends but they were growing tired of my conspiracy theories. They were more interested in trying to figure out how Megan could have done it. That was the last thing I wanted to hear.
“Come on Emma, we’re going outside for break,” one of my friends called.
“I'll be there in a second,” I shouted back. I needed to find Megan. I knew that she would be struggling today, she was all anyone was talking about. Even a year later. I was growing farther and farther apart from her. It’s hard to be friends with someone when everyone thinks she's a murderer. The one thing that scared me was the fact that she might have actually had a motive. That girl under the bleachers was dating her ex. Her ex that I knew for a fact that she still had feelings for. But she couldn't have murdered her over it. Could she have? No, no I'm just crazy. That's impossible. Right? Yeah, impossible. I snapped out of it when a girl with short amber hair and bangs that covered her eyes slammed into me. It took me a second to realize that it was Megan.
***

Emma-- 7/18/16
“Megan! I've been looking for you. I didn't see you at lunch,” I said and I placed my hand on her shoulder, she shrugged it off and mumbled something about the bathroom. “Seriously Megan, I'm worried about you,” I tried to sound as sincere as possible.
“Please Emma you don't need to worry about me, I'm fine,” she gave me a fake smile and rushed past me. That was weird. Why is she acting so weird? It’s been a year and she still isn't talking to anyone. Maybe, no, no stop thinking Emma. Your mind is going places and your stomach won't be able to keep up. I realized I was standing next to the bathroom anyway so I let my mind wander into the deep dark places that I had learned to stay away from. “Think about it Emma, she had a motive, she was still in love with him and then this random girl showed up and took him away. Think about it, you barely looked at the body, was there a gunshot wound? I never heard a gunshot. I closed my eyes and looked back on that night, the rocks under the bleachers, the rocks that were just big enough to hit someone over the head with. She could have just been trying to hurt her, but accidentally hit her too hard. That makes too much sense. Stopstopstop. Too many thoughts. My head is being crushed and my stomach feels like it wants to jump out of my body. I snap back into reality and I'm bending over a toilet puking my guts out. I'm exhausted. I cry for a while then decide to go home. This is more important than school. I call my mom and on the car ride home I decide something, Megan killed Ella under the bleachers that night.
***
Megan-- 7/18/16
I can't be like this. I run to the nurse’s office all the way across campus. I'm out of breath by the time I get there. As I walk into her office, the nurse looks up. Her face displays deep concern and worry. She's trying to hide it; but she's not very good at doing so. I've been seeing that look across all of my classmate’s faces. It's very unsettling. I used to feel at home in this place. Lots of friends, the teachers liked me, I was a good student, good athlete. Basketball was my sport. Yep, I used to have friends. But now it seems Emma is my only friend, it sucks living this way. Oh right, the nurse. “Hi Mrs. Lamont. I threw up during lunch and I wanted to call my mom to see if she could come get me.” My voice wasn't much higher than a whisper and it cracked with every word.
***
Megan-- 7/18/16
Ring...Ring...Ring. On the third ring Mom picks up the phone.
“Mama?” I whisper into the phone.
“Yes baby? Are you okay? It sounds like you’re crying?”
“I am. I threw up again.”
“Do you want me to pick you up?”
“Yeah. Please.”
“Alright, I’ll be there after my meeting is over.”
“Okay.”
“I love you.”
“Love you.”
I like how we tell each other that we love each other. It's one of the very few things that's  the same in my life ever since the accident happened. There was very little that still was the same. I lost all my friends, except Emma. I was now doing poorly in school, because I couldn't focus. The moment I found Ella was the moment everything in my life turned grey. I dress in dull colors to stay away from the whispers and the scowls. I almost never talk anymore, except to my parents and occasionally Emma. Being this way hurts. It sucks. My head hurts and my jaw is sore from clenching my mouth so the screams don't come out. It hurts living this way. Everyday I am pounded with questions and accusations of what I did. Or how I did it. Or why I did it. But I didn't do it. That's what people don't get. I used to tell them that I didn't do it, back when it first happened. But they thought what they thought and I couldn't change their minds, no matter how hard I tried.
***
Megan-- 7/18/16
I spend the rest of the day in my room with just my thoughts. I try to sort through my thoughts, and try to set everything straight inside my mind. I sift through my thoughts and try to forget the ones that hurt me. I pull the curtains closed in my room. I have blackout curtains, so my room is like a cave whenever they're closed. I like it this way. I like when it's dark, so I don't have to see anyone. By now, I've gotten used to not talking to people. Like I said, I used to be popular and have friends that I would talk to, but that's all gone now.
My parents sent me to a therapist when this all first happened. I hated it. Because she made me talk about it, twice a week for a couple months. They had to drag me into the office. Then they would sit me on a little couch with the ugliest fabric you could imagine, with a box of tissues on the table next to me. I was very rigid whenever I went. The therapist, Dr. David would tell me to relax, to lay down if I wanted. Of course I didn't. I was trying to be strong at this point. I would guess that it would be about November of 2015. I quickly learned that being strong was really, really hard. He would ask me the generic questions, “So, Megan, how are you feeling right now?” I didn't answer. “Well, school’s pretty hard right now, huh?” There was no way I was gonna answer that. “How's...Emma? That's her name, right?” I didn't answer that one either, she's my best friend and he doesn't need to know about her. Emma has supported me through all of this. She's the one keeping me somewhat sane. She's stuck with me when all of my other friends left me. Emma is important, but there's no need to worry about her.
***
Emma-- 8/19/16
The next few weeks were so stressful that it took everything in me to get out of bed and come to school. I was afraid, it's crazy how you can see someone completely differently when you make up your mind about them. She was no longer the girl who definitely didn't murder out of revenge, the girl I sort of had the obligation to protect. She was the girl I needed to stay away from, if I wanted to survive. But then another thought came into my head, if she murdered that girl over some guy, what would she do when I stopped being that one person she could always count on to talk to? Not that we had been doing much talking lately, but still, how is she going to react when I stop all contact with her? Okay new plan, stay friendly, but not too friendly. Don't let her know that you know the truth, that she murdered Ella. Wow. That still sounds so strange. But it has to be true, also I've made my mind up and knowing me there's no going back. I approached school with caution. Oh crap, I'm gonna be sick. Hey calm down it's ok it’s just another day. She's not going to notice that anything is different. Maybe she'll be absent, yeah, I think she mentioned not being at school today for some reason. I drew in a deep breath and walked into school only somewhat more confident than when I stepped out of the car. Oh no, there she is. Ok, she's not looking at me. I'll just go see a teacher instead of going to the gym. Yeah I think I need help on that math homework. Now I was walking towards the academic building when I started to worry about what she would do when she realized I wasn't there in the gym to study with her, which is what we usually did. What if she comes after me? What if she's angry. Oh no. I'm going to be sick. I can't do this. I’m going home.

***
Megan-- 8/19/16
I see Emma walking towards to Academic Building, but she looks pretty green. Ew, I think she just hurled in the trash can. She stands back up and runs to the nurse's office. I want to say hello, but I don't want to get barfed on, so I stay out of her way. As she's running to the nurse, I see her glance in my direction, we meet eyes and I raise my hand to wave, but she does it. She has the same panicked look on her face as the kids in the halls. I can't describe how angry I am right now. Has she turned on me too? No. She was the one person in this whole freakin’ school that I could trust. So why did she have the terrified look? What did I do? What did the other kids say to her? All of the kids were really supportive of her, they would make her cards and sent her sweet texts and emails, saying how sorry they were that she had to go through that trauma. Did anyone do that for me? I think not. I remember one text I got from a girl named Grace. Emma, Grace and I were so close. We would have sleepovers every weekend

***
Emma-- 9/4/16
There is a girl walking around my school's halls, sitting in the same classes as me and she's a murderer. Even if it was an accident it doesn't matter, she's a murderer. And she has to be stopped before she does something again. I'm her next target. I know it, that just makes the most sense. If I tell anyone they'll think I'm crazy. But I know the truth. I know what happened, and that's all that matters. I have to stop her and there's only one way I can really do that. One way I can make sure she never hurts another person.                                                               

Emma-- 9/21/16
It was a Friday night football game, but I wasn't watching. I was waiting, waiting for her to show up. I still can't believe I convinced her to come. There's this piece of me deep inside, trying to get free and tell me that I'm wrong. That she's innocent and that I should give up and let her be. But as always I push it so far down so that I can't hear it any more. And all that's left is the fact that I have to stop her from hurting another person, even if it means I have to hurt her. I look down at my phone, she said she would text me when she got here. Still nothing. I can wait. Ten minutes pass and I'm beginning to think she won't show. Just as I'm contemplating leaving a buzz comes from my pocket. She's here. I race down the bleachers, my heart pounding in my ears. I have to do this. I have to. I've been struggling with the concept of taking someone’s life. There have been nights when I decide to rip up the pages on which I've written my plan. But then there were the nights when I wrote it all back down again. It's funny how writing something down makes it seem so much more real. And those nights greatly outnumbered the ones where I doubted. This was non negotiable. I'm under the bleachers now and I swallow the throw up that starts to arise. There's gravel under the bleachers, but some of the rocks are larger than others. I pick up a fairly good sized one and slip it into my pocket. I think it's fitting that what she did the girl a year ago should happen to her. The punishment fit the crime. My heart rate is picking up. Not in my dream but in the rubber room. I can feel myself starting to wake up. But I'll still have to watch myself do it. My body won't let me wake up. It's making me suffer for what I did. But I had to. I focus on the dream, now that I'm slipping in between two worlds it almost feels nice to be in the one where I can still to talk to somebody. Even if I'm about to murder her. I can see her small dark frame from far away. I take a deep breath and prepare, running my exact words over and over in my head. I could see her now fully. I begin.
“Hey Megan I think we should talk about something,” she looked nervous. It could be because I was acting weird but it was most likely because we were standing in the exact spot where it happened last year.
“Emma I don't feel good. This was a bad idea. I want to go. I don't know why I came here in the first place.” She turned to walk away but I grabbed her by the arm. “Emma stop. What are you doing?”
“Megan, you are dangerous, you are a threat to this school and the people that go here. You might not realize it now, but you will soon enough,” I said sternly. I didn't understand why she was trying to break free from my grip. Didn't she understand that I was trying to help her? That this was the only way to make her stop suffering. “I've seen you at school. You look miserable. Well I know a way that I can make it all go away. Let me tell you,” I pulled her in pretending to whisper something in her ear. “I'm sorry.” With one quick motion I brought the rock down on her head. She screamed. I ran.