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Phoebe paused as she caught the mix of emotions on her parents' faces—disbelief, sadness, even a flash of anger in her mother's eyes. Kenneth had started to rub his chest. Nothing she was about to say was easy for them to hear.
"At first, I was scared. I thought I was losing my mind from grief. On the other hand, I was certain that Jenna wasn’t a figment of my imagination. Neither one of you would believe me. I also didn't want to be medicated for the rest of my life. I didn't want to take the sleeping pills, and the antidepressants made me feel as if I was in a room full of fog. None of the prescriptions made her go away, either. I knew the only way to stop the cycle was to lie to you. And I'm sorry about that. Truly sorry."
Phoebe gave her parents a chance to respond, but neither one of them seemed inclined to speak just yet.
"I know how all this sounds. Trust me, I've doubted my own sanity over the years,” Phoebe admitted truthfully as she once more wiped the palms of her hands on her jeans. “After years of me and Chloe looking into urban legends and folklore, I can say with one hundred percent certainty that the supernatural exists. I truly believe that now. I also believe that Jenna's spirit has been trying to communicate with me."
Kenneth rubbed his chest more vigorously as he shared a long, indecipherable stare with his wife. Phoebe felt a pang of guilt adding to their grief, but she had to push forward.
"Jenna's death was no accident. Her spirit wouldn't still be trapped here if it was." Phoebe's voice caught, but she forced herself to finish what she had rehearsed for the past three months. "Jenna is trying to tell us that someone killed her that day at the pond."
Her father winced, pressing harder on his chest.
"Kenneth?" Lilith murmured in concern as she quickly stood from the couch. Phoebe and Chloe both stepped forward. "Kenneth, are you alright?"
Kenneth's hand fisted the fabric of his shirt over his heart. His breathing was labored with short, ragged gasps as he leaned forward in his chair. He shook his head in response to Lilith’s question, his features pale and clammy.
"Can't...breathe..." Kenneth wheezed.
Phoebe's heart hammered hard against her ribs as she comprehended the severity of the situation. Her father was having a heart attack, and it was all her fault. Guilt and panic rose within her even as she tried to remain calm.
"Chloe, call an ambulance, now!"
Phoebe's mother didn't need to say a word as she held her husband's hand. "Just hang on, Dad,” Phoebe pleaded as she knelt beside him. “Help is coming."
Chapter Five
Chloe
The hospital's waiting room was quiet except for the occasional sniffle or murmur of conversation by the other occupants. The sterile white walls and cold linoleum floors gave the large room an empty, lifeless impression. It didn't help that the sharp scent of disinfectant prickled Chloe's senses and basically assaulted the lining of her nostrils with its pungent odor.
She pulled out a tissue from a box sitting on an end table next to a stack of worn magazines. After wiping her nose, she balled up the tissue and shoved it inside her oversized purse that contained everything she could ever need at a moment's notice.
Chloe sighed softly and leaned back in the rigid chair, the hard surface digging into her back. She tried to distract herself by counting the ticks from the second hand on the large clock hanging on the wall, but she couldn't stop her thoughts from straying to the reason they were at the hospital in the first place.
"This is all my fault, Pheebs," Chloe murmured while keeping an eye on the door. She, Phoebe, and Lilith had been waiting impatiently for the past hour for an update on Kenneth's condition. "I shouldn't have blurted everything out the way I did."
Chloe continued to flick the toe of her knee-high black boot. She needed a way to expend all her pent-up energy, or she would find herself caving in and raiding the vending machine. Phoebe would never let her live it down, and then Chloe would add five pounds to her already short stature.
Cheating on her healthy lifestyle wasn't an option.
"I shouldn't have lied for eleven years," Phoebe whispered back, even though Lilith could hear every word that was being said between them. "I guess that makes me the winner."
Lilith sighed loudly in annoyance, as if they hadn't heard her first fifty exhalations since they had taken a seat in the waiting room. The woman had yet to make a single comment regarding Jenna’s death. Immediate guilt flooded Chloe's body at the snarky thoughts that had drifted through her mind. Lilith's husband had probably suffered a heart attack, and she was upset and scared over the possibility she could lose him. It was understandable that she needed someone to blame.
“I shouldn’t have told them about seeing Jenna during my near-death experience.” It had taken Chloe years before she had revealed the truth to Phoebe. The way in which Chloe had shared such a personal and vulnerable experience with Phoebe’s parents hadn’t gone exactly as planned. “I messed up, Phoebe.”
Chloe peered out the large window of the hospital’s waiting room to give herself something else to look at besides the man holding a bloody towel around his hand. She focused her gaze on the parking lot, watching the cars go by on the busy street just beyond the hospital's entrance. Anything to avoid looking at the dark red stains spreading across the once-white towel.
Blood always made her rather faint and nauseous.
Even though Chloe knew it was an irrational fear, she couldn't stop her stomach from lurching every time she witnessed blood dripping or oozing from a wound. The metallic, salty odor was enough to make her gag. She kept her eyes averted, studying the non-threatening view of someone trying to back into a parking space. It was nice to know that she wasn't the only one bad at such a skill.
An ambulance drove by quickly, its red lights flashing brightly against the dark asphalt. Lilith had ridden in the back of one with Kenneth, while Phoebe and Chloe had followed behind in the SUV. As far as she was aware, Lilith hadn't spoken to either one of them since they had walked into the waiting room.
"Aunt Trish and Uncle Billy are pulling into the parking lot now," Phoebe said after glancing at the screen of her phone. “I called them on the way to the hospital.”
There was literally no acknowledgment from Lilith.
