The distinct sound of keys jangling pulls me from my sobbing. I look up as the cell door opens and my father walks in, his brown hair mussed from sleep and his green eyes showing his concern. The moment the door shuts I get to my feet and he moves to hug me. I remain stiff in his arms. While I’m relieved he’s here and can explain what’s going on, I’m still disappointed he didn’t show up for my birthday.

“Baby girl, you okay?” he asks, looking down at me confused.

“Yeah, fine. Just a little upset you didn’t call or come to my party. You promised, but I guess there is more important stuff to deal with right now.”

I don’t mean to sound like a petulant child but I can’t help but feel hurt by his absence.

His eyebrows arch in shock. “Valerie, I did call you, and I was at your party. Did you have another blackout?”

“What? No, I don’t think so. I remember bits, but not all of it.”

He sits down on the bed beside me. “I need you to tell me everything you do remember,” he says, a touch of urgency in his voice.

I recount everything I remember, even including the bits that seem to be fuzzy. He listens and when I’m finished his face is angered.

“How often have you been having blackouts since I left? I thought you said they stopped.”

“Yeah, Dad. They stopped when you left but started up again two years later. The first one after you left was when we had the car accident. Since then they have become frequent again. Sometimes I wake up covered in blood, though it was from my own wounds. I doctored myself and just went on with my life,” I explain as he purses his lips in disapproval.

“Why on earth didn’t you call and tell me? Jesus, Valerie, I could have helped!”

“How? You left to live in that community with your new family without a care in the world for me. It wasn’t until the accident that you seemed to remember I existed. Besides, Mom needed me, and I knew if you found out the blackouts were back and worse than ever that you’d try to make me move.”

He gets to his feet and paces, running his hands through his hair, frustrated. He turns to face me, a blank mask falling in place. “Look, we really need to talk but right now we have bigger problems. The media has gotten wind of the story and I’ve had to call in a lot of favors to move up your arraignment.”

I nod, conceding. “You’re right, I’m sorry. This is just all so confusing. Do you know who it is they think I’ve murdered?”

My father’s mask breaks and I see the sorrow in his eyes as he bends down in front of me. “Valerie, I am so sorry. The person who they think was murdered, the blood they found at the scene, it was Natalie’s.”

My heart stops and all sound in the world ceases as his words register. ‘It was Natalie…’ plays on repeat in my mind, the tears streaming from my face silently.

“Are you sure?” I ask, my voice sounding detached and emotionless.

He pulls me into his arms, offering his comfort. “Yes, baby, I’m sure. The DNA matched.”

I nod, stiff in his arms, and something deep inside responds to the pain and shock I’m feeling. It builds inside me to the point where my skin feels itchy and starts to burn before my dad leans away and clicks his fingers in my face. “Valerie! Don’t you dare lose it now. We still have more to get through today.”

I sniffle and wipe some of the tears from my face, forcing my body to relax. “Okay, I’m okay now. What do we do? I know I didn’t kill Natalie, so how to do we convince everyone I didn’t?”

Dad sighs and gets to his feet. “I have to go meet with the legal team in a second, but things are going to be hard because the media already knows about the story. Now, I have to go and prep the team, but you have some visitors who should be here any minute. Don’t say a word to any of the detectives unless I’m present. Okay?”

I nod and an officer comes in, as if he was just biding his time. He opens the cell for my father and I watch as it’s locked again after he leaves. “Everything will be okay, Valerie. Just, stay strong.”

He leaves with the officer and I sit here, my heart filled with pain. Natalie, my best friend, is gone. How is that possible?

Why can’t I remember what happened last night?

I pace my cell, feeling claustrophobic. The thought of never getting out of here and finding out what really happened to Natalie terrifies me.

The door at the end of the hall opens, the creaky hinges becoming familiar to my ears. The female cop walks straight to my cell, waiting at the door. “You have some visitors. I need to handcuff you until we get to the room.”

I hold my hands out in front, waiting as she handcuffs me and leads me back out into the station area. I barely focus on what’s going on, my mind whirring through different scenarios that could have happened last night. Why did my mom, of all people, call the police? How did she know I was in my room, covered in blood, when I hadn’t seen her? So many questions, yet no answers. I feel defeated.

“Oh my god! Valerie? Are you okay?” Sally’s voice draws me from my misery and tears come unbidden.

Sally and Jessica are both waiting for me in an empty room and I almost weep from relief. Neither of them are looking at me like a guilty monster. No, they both look concerned.

The female officer undoes my cuffs. “You have ten minutes before I have to take you back to your cell.” She turns to Jess. “You owe me for this.”

“Yes, fine, now leave us alone,” she says, nodding her head and making ‘shoo’ gestures to get her out the door.

I watch the female cop shake her head, a small smile on her lips before she closes the door, leaving me with my friends. “How did you get here? I figured they wouldn’t let me see anyone until the arraignment thing was over.”

Jessica smiles at me, but I see the sorrow in her eyes. “The cop who brought you in here? That’s my older sister Misty, from my mom’s first marriage. She moved here a year ago. I never thought I’d ask for a favor, but when your father told us you were here we thought you might need the support.”

The tears that were welling spill over and I don’t bother wiping them away. Sally and Jess both wrap me in their arms as I sob. We drop to the floor in a huddle, each of us shedding our own tears.

When the tears stop we all stay on the floor, silent over the loss of Natalie.

“Do either of you know what happened to her? All I know is that she died.” I think about the blood coating me when I woke up and need to know more.

Sally leans away to look into my face. “You sure you want to know?” she asks, her voice hesitant. I look between Sally and Jessica, trying to decipher the looks they are exchanging.

“Yes, I need to know. Maybe it will trigger my memories,” I say, determined to find anything that will help me remember what happened.

“So you really don’t remember anything at all?” Sally looks concerned by the fact I have no recollection of what happened.

I shake my head sadly.

Jess stares at me a little too long before I snap at her. “What? Did I miss some blood on my face?” I ask snarkily and immediately regret it. “Sorry, I’m just not doing too well. It’s hard to accept she’s really gone.”

“That’s if she is gone,” Sally murmurs under her breath, and it feels like she wasn’t intending me to hear, but I did.

My head whips around so fast I probably look like something out of The Exorcist. “What do you mean? Why would you say that?” I demand, taking a step towards her.

Jess slides between us and holds her hands up peacefully. “Hey, don’t get mad. She just means we have some stuff to share. Come on, let’s sit down and we’ll explain everything that has happened in the past few hours.”

I hang my head in shame for acting like a lunatic, but if there’s any chance Nat’s alive I need to know about it.

“Okay, spill. What happened after I was arrested? How did you guys even know I was arrested?”

Sally tucks her hair behind her ear nervously. “Well, we didn’t find out until we saw your mom on the news. She was being interviewed about Natalie’s death and told reporters she knew you had something to do with it because she watched you come home in a daze, covered in her blood.”

“Wait, my mom was on the news?”

“Yeah, man, there’s a lot of media coverage of her death. Here’s the thing, though. We drove past where the accident happened and Sally noticed something … strange. We may have snuck around for clues,” Jessica admits, not caring that she may have compromised a crime scene.

Then again, if our positions were swapped, I would have done the same for either of them.

“So, what strange thing did you notice?” I ask, wondering what they could have found.

Sally shuffles foot to foot as she glances around nervously. “When we saw the scene, I thought for sure someone had been killed. Natalie’s car was still there and it looked as if a bomb had hit the front of it. But I guess that’s to be expected from the way the tree was destroyed. What wasn’t normal was the blood. It took a lot of sneaking for us to get close, but when we did I noticed something … off.”

She pauses, making me want to shout at her for answers, but I know Sally’s mind. She is processing it as she speaks and it’s best not to interrupt her if I don’t want her to get side-tracked.

“Do you remember the science project we did during our last semester of senior year?”

I remember. We wanted to show the physical differences between synthetic blood versus real blood. Things like coloring, smell and even texture. A jock in our class had made a snide comment before we started our project, saying that without proper equipment you couldn’t tell the difference between the two. We decided to prove him wrong and grind home the point by developing different versions of synthetic blood; the kind most commonly used in movies and one we developed ourselves. Our formula was as close to real blood as you could get, it could easily fool someone at first glance but ultimately could be debunked if someone was paying close enough attention.

“Are you saying the blood that was on me, the blood that was at the crime scene, was synthetic?” I ask, unable to mask the hope in my voice.

“Yeah, it wasn’t as sophisticated as ours, but the majority of it was fake. There was real blood intermingled with it so I can see why initial field test results and the crime scene technicians didn’t catch it. I don’t know what happened last night, but I don’t think you killed Natalie. I think someone hurt you, then kidnapped her and staged the scene so you’d take the fall.”

“Well, what do we do? Do I just sit here and wait? What if she’s out there being hurt?”

Jessica shakes her head sadly. “We have no choice but to wait for all their results to come back in. Your dad said hopefully the evidence will be enough to clear you; until then we just wait.”

A knock on the door, followed by Jessica’s older sister entering, has me moving to the give the girls each a hug. “Thanks for coming to see me.”

They each respond, giving me a tight squeeze before Misty puts the cuffs back on me. She pulls me to the door when Jess stops her. “Wait, Misty. Please just be gentle. She’s my friend.”

Her sister laughs at her. “I have a job to do, Jess. If I give her special treatment then I get called out. Until we know for certain she’s innocent I have to treat her as the killer she’s presumed to be.”

No more words are spoken and I’m led back to my cell, but Misty is a lot less harsh than she was the first time. Once she leaves I start to pace. Adrenaline is coursing through me with no way to release the pent up energy.

I pace in my cell for god knows how long when a new cop walks down the hall. He leads a woman to the cell next to mine and shoves her through the door.

He locks her in and comes out to undo my cell door. “Stand against the wall with your hands behind your back.” He roughly grabs my hands, cuffing me.

“Hey! Could you be gentle? I’m not resisting.”

He doesn’t listen, harshly guiding me down the hall and through the door into the station where my dad waits for me. Dad walks beside me as the police officer leads us into yet another white-walled room with a two-way mirror. The officer undoes my cuffs and leaves me with my father.

“Ok, baby girl, there is a lot we need to discuss. Tomorrow morning we’ll be going to court. Now, my team has looked over the evidence the police have, and it’s not much. The most they are going on is the fact that your DNA and Natalie’s were in the same car. We can easily explain that because you two were best friends and hung out all the time. The thing that has made the case a little more difficult is the fact your mother is a witness for the District Attorney.”

My father remains emotionless as he talks, all the while rearranging papers that he pulls out of his briefcase. He pauses, his hands gripped on the last pieces of paper, hesitant to show me whatever it is. “These pictures,”—he gestures at the papers he holds—“honey, these are pictures of the crime scenes. I thought it might be a good idea to let you see them in a private environment rather than a courtroom. But if you aren’t ready, it can wait.”

“No, I need to see them. Maybe it will trigger memories of what happened.”

Dad sighs and lays them out on the table one at a time, much like I imagine a police officer would. The whole front of Nat’s pink car has been crushed as if she hit something. It looks the same as when my mother and I hit the tree when I was sixteen. The only difference is that the whole front of the car has blood spattered everywhere. The ground is soaked with just as much blood and bits of my dress are clearly visible on the front of the car. How could that have happened? Did I hit my head? No, I couldn’t have, because I have no injuries. None of this is making sense.

“Dad, Sally told me most of the blood is fake.”

His eyes narrow. “And just how would Sally know that? The crime scene has been sealed.” I open my mouth to respond when he holds up a hand stopping me. “Wait, I don’t want to know.”

I close my mouth with a small grin. He knows whatever she did wasn’t exactly a good way to find out what she did and doesn’t want to implicate himself.

“Right, sorry, we got a little side-tracked. Tomorrow your case is going to be presented before the judge and if things go our way, you should be out of here. The judge has pre-emptively put a gag order on the courtroom so no press will be present, but there’s something else I need to tell you.”

He pauses, taking in a deep breath before fixing his sad eyes on mine. “Your mother may mention this in court to hurt you and I feel you need to know. No matter what, though, I love you.”

I frown, unsure where he’s going with this. It sounds like he’s saying goodbye. “Dad, you’re freaking me out.”

“I know, honey, I’m sorry.” He blows out a puff of air and speaks quickly. “You’re not my daughter biologically. You’re adopted.” He leans back and covers his face while I sit, absolutely stunned. To think it is one thing, but to have it confirmed is another. I push to my feet, the metal chair slamming as it hits the ground. I walk backwards, my heart racing.

“Honey, you okay?”

I nod quickly, taking slow, deep breaths, feeling myself on the verge of a panic attack. As my breaths become more labored, I sink to the floor and wrap my arms around my knees, tears silently falling. It feels like the world is playing some cruel joke on me. Why me? What did I do to deserve this?

“Oh, baby girl, I am so sorry. I didn’t ever want you to find out like this. You don’t deserve any of what’s happened. I promise, we will fix it.”

At my father’s words I realize I spoke out loud. Not that it matters.

I look up at my father and the pity in his eyes almost breaks me. Has no one in my life been truthful? Something inside me builds and my father walks over, lifting me to my feet. “I promise you, Valerie, you are my daughter. Please don’t think differently. I only wanted to tell you because it’s likely your mother has told the DA. I couldn’t let you be surprised by such crucial information.”

His watch beeps and he looks down with a grimace. “Sorry, honey, but I have to go.”

The door opens and the officer who brought me in walks in carrying cuffs. “Time to go back to your cell,” he says gruffly.

I turn, holding my hands behind my back, used to this treatment. Once I’m re-cuffed he pulls me to the door and my father meets my eyes. “I will get you out of this, Valerie. I swear.”

I’m led back to the cell and uncuffed. My mind spins round and round over all the information that’s been piled on me in such a short time. I lay down on the small cot and close my eyes, trying to process. I can only hope sleep will make everything clearer.