My nose twitched as I felt the nearing presence of my coffee. Some people might say that coffee at night is bad, but I disagree. Something about night coffee makes it taste better. The door swung open and Axel walked in, struggling to hold two cups of coffee along with his phone and using his legs to shut the door.

"Let me take that," I said leaping towards him and taking the coffee, "although you could've just put the phone in your pocket." 

"Slipped my mind," he said indifferently. "So," he started, climbing onto my bed "what's your plan?" 

"I don't have one yet," I replied sheepishly "I was hoping you could help with that"

"Me? I don't even know what you wanna accomplish" 

"Axel," I chided "I just explained it to you this afternoon" 

"Right, so you want to trace back that day's events," he tried to summarize. 

"Not just that. I want to find out what caused my blindness to revert along with how it's related to these visions." I completed. "And I expect honest answers" 

I hated how malicious I sounded, but could I help it? It wasn't my fault he was dishonest with me. If I wanted him to be my partner, I needed to make sure I could trust him. I waited for him to respond, say something goofy like "When have I ever lied to you?" or just laugh it off, but nothing. He stayed silent for a few minutes and I immediately regretted what I'd said. 

To change the topic, I took a sip of the coffee and said, "This tastes amazing. Great job Axel," 

"The machine did everything," he said. I couldn't tell if he was still upset, but we had to move on. 

"So, I'm going to start with some basic questions," I told him "What was I wearing the night of my coma?"

"I-" he stuttered. It wasn't like Axel to notice these things, but he had to try. It would be helpful to know if I'd changed my clothes sometime before my coma.

"It was some kind of pants and shirt-" he stopped when he noticed my glare. "I don't fucking remember ok? But your parents stored it somewhere, ask them." 

Ask my parents? I'd rather not. I signalled for Olivia to come and asked her about the dress. She told me it was in the top rack of my closet. Axel helped me out of my room and into my closet. I stretched my arms forward to reach the main switch. The moment I pressed the switch, six sconces, three on each side lit up, making the room visible. My mom might suck at a bunch of things, but designing the house was one of the few things she did right.

In the centre of the room, stood a small cushiony stool for putting on footwear. On the left, were the clothes for special events - gowns, tuxedos etc. The right side was reserved for (not so) casual wear. Straight ahead of the stool were shelves for accessories, coats, footwear etc.

"Which shelf is it?" Axel asked.

"The top one," I said, pointing right. He pulled the stool towards the shelf and I cringed at the sound of the floor creaking. He stood on the stool and dug his head into the shelf, coming out with a small box labelled 'Irene, 19.08.2018.'

"I think this is the one," he said, getting down the stool and placing the box on it. It was sealed rigidly with duct tape. "We need a pair of scissors."

I glanced at Olivia and she immediately went to bring us a pair. Axel held on to scissors and began aggressively poking - no, stabbing the box.

"Calm down," I said. He'd never behaved this way, certainly not over a cardboard box.

"Too many layers of tape" he defended himself. It didn't matter now. The box was open. I dove my hand into the box and picked up the first thing it contained - a pendant. Useless. Next, I found my sneakers, tied together using the laces. Also useless. The next time I dug my hand in, I felt a soft silky substance. I pulled it out - it was a floral ruffle-sleeved top, with blood on one side.

I turned to Axel, "What's this?"

"Blood," he replied.

"If you'd just mentioned it earlier, we wouldn't have gone through this extra effort," I said, trying not to show the irritation in my voice.

"You obviously knew prior, or else you wouldn't have checked this" he rebuked. I scoffed but knew he was right. I hadn't wanted to confront him directly, and having this scenario 'coincidentally' arrive was much easier than bringing it up. 

"Why'd you lie?" I croaked. 

"I knew you'd worry and do something like- well, what we're doing right now," he said, forcing a weak smile on his face. "I guess I should've known you'd find out some way or the other"

"Do- do you know anything else?" I asked. He sat down on the couch and I followed him.

"I saw you a while before you were estimated to have 'disappeared'" he said. I could tell he was hesitating to speak further. I smiled at him and hoped it was enough to reassure him. "I never told anyone, not the cops, not your parents, no one." 

"Why not?" I asked. 

"Your parents were convinced it was a murder attempt after seeing the blood and all, they had the entire PD working towards your case and had a heavy sentence for the culprit. And you know my family situation at the time, we couldn't afford any defence. And the case was moving on with no leads for months, I didn't wanna mention it and risk them closing the case off with me-" he rambled and I held his hand. 

"It's alright, Axel," I soothed, "I understand. If I was in your position, I would've done the same"

Axel looked grateful, but honestly, this was the bare minimum. If I blamed him for gatekeeping information after watching him struggle with his family issues for years, then I'd just be a bitch. 

"And I'm sorry about your mom," I coughed to hide my embarrassment, "I was so caught up in my drama that I totally ignored you" 

"It's alright, Irene" he chuckled, "It was a long time ago when you were still in the coma. I try not to think about most times"

I could tell he didn't want to discuss it any further. He never talked about it, even when we were in school. I thought after his mom's death, he'd feel like opening up a little more. I wanted to urge him to talk about his feelings or whatever, but he had boundaries and I respected that. 

"You can stop looking at me like that now," Axel chuckled, "I'm fine, really."

"How is David?" I asked. David is Axel's younger brother, who luckily survived the car accident which killed their mother. 

"Has he ever been fine?" Axel seethed. Ok, another sensitive topic touched. Fuck, now I felt terrible. Axel was clearly struggling, he always had, it's why he always avoided being at home and hanging out with me instead. But I never knew how to help him, and still don't. What could I say that would make him feel better? 

"Anyway, I should get going," he said, standing up from the stool. 

"Wait- stop!" I stammered. He raised his eyebrows. "I'm really sorry Axel-"

"Don't apologize," he said calmly "what could you have done?" With that he slid down the rope, not letting me get another word in. 

"Ms Henderson, it's time for dinner" I heard Olivia call. 

I felt uneasy for the entire duration of my meal. Was I a bad friend? Axel told me multiple times he was ok and he wasn't upset, but should I have let him go? Shouldn't I have given him comfort, whether he asked for it or not? But that felt like a violation of his privacy. He had the right to not want to talk about his home life, we could bond over other things. If he really needed advice, he would've gone to a therapist.

I repeated that in my head unremittingly until it felt real.

Dinner passed by in a blur and I hardly remembered Olivia helping me up to my room. I opened Axel's chat window, offline. That's new. 

I whacked my head and decided to focus. No one knows Axel better than himself, if he says he's ok, it means he's ok. I decided to do some investigation on my own. 

Denise was one of the people in that news report, but she left Crystal Falls right after graduation, so I'd have to contact her some other way. I opened my social media account and typed in 'Denise Ackres' on the search bar. Sure enough, her account showed up. I went to the messaging window and typed, 'Hey Denise, it's Irene... it's been a while'. 

While waiting for a response, I wondered what I'd say to her. 'Hi Denise, I'm no longer in a coma but need your help sorting out some pretty crazy shit happened in my life right now'? No, no, that's too straight. I'd do small talk first, like how's your job, what did you study, etc etc and then ask about the coma. 

I looked up at my phone screen after hearing a vibration from my phone. It was Denise. 'Omg, hi! It's been so long! How are you? We should definitely catch up'. I responded with, 'Totally! u down for a video call right now?'. She agreed and after setting up my laptop at a good angle, I called her. 

"Hi," I heard her say, stretching out the 'I'. She looked a lot different than I remembered. Her hair was to her hip, she had a tattoo on her neck and completely changed her dressing style. 

"Wow," I managed to say in the shock "you look different" 

She laughed, loudly. "The things you have to do for a high-paying job. Anyway, forget about me. How have you been? When did you wake up? And wait, I look different? You can see me?" If I didn't stop Denise at that moment, she would scream so loud, my laptop screen would break. 

"Woah, chill," I said "I woke up from the coma a little more than two weeks ago and when I did, my vision was back" 

"How are you so calm about this? Irene, this is awesome!" Denise shrieked.

"Well, technically, I've had two weeks to cope with the excitement and the horror," I said, muttering the last part. 

"Yeah, being in a coma for five years sucks and all, but look on the bright side! You can see again!" She yelped. 

"That is true," I said feigning excitement. If only she knew how much everything sucked right now. 

I made small talk for a while, turns out she studied accountancy and was working for a firm in a big city. Believe me, I really tried to hold the small talk, but I couldn't. Not when I knew there was something else I wanted to speak about.

"So, Denise," I twirled my hair "do you remember the night of my coma?" 

She suddenly went silent. "I- It's just-" 

"Are you ok?" I gulped. 

"It's just hard for me to talk about," she replied. I tried to smile although I was internally rolling my eyes, even I didn't feel as bad as she does. 

"You can tell me," I said, still smiling.

"Of course, I remember that night," she said "I couldn't forget even if I wanted to. Not after we were called in for interrogation so many times and made to repeat the same things, over and over"

Interrogation. Axel had mentioned the case was ongoing for a while. Denise must've been called in as well. 

"I don't know if you remember this," she said "but we had a sleepover planned in my house that night. You, me, Andrea, Tiffany and Cecile. I swear, it was going well. We laughed, watched movies, gossiped, ate doughnuts and went to bed. The next morning, you were just... gone."

A sleepover. That must be the vision I had about Denise earlier in the afternoon. I noticed her face go red, and her voice began cracking. Shit.

"We have no idea how you ended up near Lake Albert, but the cops just wouldn't let it go. We were their only lead, and we were called in more times than I can count, my house was searched more times than I can count, I-" 

"Denise, it's ok," I said, trying to soothe her. 

"No, it's not ok! You weren't the one whose peace was ruined every day!" She said, having a full breakdown at this point. "I didn't just leave Crystal Falls, Irene, I ran from there" she spat, "I ran because of the torture your family has put me through" 

From the corner of my screen, I saw a man enter her room. 

"Fuck you!" Denise roared.

"Den, are you ok?" A man asked. He must be her boyfriend, I thought. The main held Denise's arms, trying to calm her down, but was pushed away. He took one look at the call and immediately cut it off and I was left staring at the screen as blank as my face.

I didn't know my friends faced that. I didn't want them to face that. Yet somehow it felt as though the blame was on me. Did I ask to become blind? Did I ask to fall into a coma that day? How could I be blamed for things I wasn't in control of? 

Yet somehow, I was.