Tara was the one who called and told me about the accident. I drove to the hospital in a daze. From the tone of her voice, I could tell it was bad. Strangers don’t just call other strangers about accidents if things aren’t bad.

When I finally got there, I saw a girl laying in a hospital bed. She was Brielle, but at the same time, she wasn’t Brielle. Gone was the exuberant, feisty girl who became one of my closest friends over the last few months. Gone were her laughter and her smile. Instead, what remained was some sort of fragile shell of a person she once was.

And then Tara told me about the pregnancy. About how she was going to keep the baby. My baby. A million thoughts swirled around in my head. Thoughts that I was ill-equipped to deal with. Thoughts that I had to simply put out of my head just to get through the days.

Brielle lay in an induced coma for three days. We didn’t know if she was going to live or die. I stayed the whole time. When I called O and told her what happened, she came to stay with me. She didn’t have to. I asked her not to, but she insisted. It was like something was different about her too.

“I love you. I love you,” I said to Brielle when she first opened her eyes. I didn’t say it when we were together and lived to regret it. So now that she was awake, I wasn’t going to miss my chance again.

“I love you,” I say to her again this morning. “I want you to know that I always did.”

She smiles at me. She knows about the baby but doesn’t say anything else about it. We try to focus on today. I try to make her laugh. I read funny stories to her from my phone. I show her funny videos of cats and dogs. Finally, she cracks a smile. A few hours later, she manages a laugh.

My sister had wanted to see her for the last two days. Ever since she woke up. But I didn’t want her to. Things between them got so bad and so complicated, I didn’t want Brielle to be uncomfortable in any way. Finally, after Brielle finally laughs, I decide to ask her about it.

“O is here. She has been here this whole time. For the three days that you were in a coma and the last two days that you were awake.”

“Really?” Brielle looks surprised.

“Yes. And she wants to see you.”

Brielle shakes her head.

“Please?” I ask again. But Brielle again shakes her head.

“She doesn’t want to see you,” I say to O, who’s waiting outside.

“No, I have to see her.”

“You can’t.”

I’m adamant, firm in my position. “If Brielle doesn’t want to see you, then that’s it. You can’t.”

I think she believes me. I think that she accepts Brielle’s decision. But I should know better. As soon as I start to walk over to the vending machine to get a cup of some terrible hospital coffee, O marches right into Brielle’s room.

“Brielle, I’m so sorry,” I hear O say.“I’m so sorry about everything. I was such a bitch to you. I don’t know what came over me. But I shouldn’t have acted that way.”

I come back to the room to pull O out.

“You can’t be here,” I say. “She doesn’t want to see you.”

“I know. I’m leaving. I just wanted you to know that. Okay? I feel terrible about all this.”

I’m about to drag O out, but Brielle stops me.

“It’s okay,” she whispers and sits up in her bed. “Go on.”

O apologizes in the way I’ve never seen her apologize before. I’ve never heard her be so sincere and honest. She talks about how awful she felt after her boyfriend dumped her and she wound up pregnant. She talks about how lost she’d felt and how coming back home was the only place she felt safe. And she talks about how much she hated Brielle for being there.

“I’m sorry, okay,” O sits down on the bed next to Brielle. “I was awful. I just wanted to apologize for being so awful and ask you to forgive me.”

Brielle takes a moment.

“Okay,” she finally nods and smiles. “Okay.”