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mouth ,” I whined, spitting again. I grabbed a handful of toilet paper and wiped the vomit off my chin for the third time, tossed it into the bowl, and flushed.
    “I wasn’t preaching,” Jessa said, sounding mildly offended. She usually sounded vaguely offended, so we had all learned to ignore it. “I respect the fact that we don’t believe in the same God. All cultures are beautiful.” She paused. “I was just saying .”
    I rolled my eyes and pushed off from the toilet. “I think I’m done,” I said. “I think it’s all out.”
    “Oh thank Jesus,” Jessa said, letting go of my hair and getting to her feet. She offered me a hand up, and I took it. “It’s over?”
    “Yeah. It was just a little bad shrimp or something. I’m okay.” I sighed and wiped a shaky hand across my forehead. “Christ, I’m sorry. This probably isn’t how you wanted to spend your Valentine’s Day.”
    Jessa shrugged and went to wash her hands. “Not really, but it’s okay. What are friends for, if not to hold your hair while you vomit the entire contents of the North Pacific?”
    “The entire contents of the North Pacific?” I echoed, laughing a little. “Isn’t that a little extreme? It was a couple of shrimp.”
    “It was practically the whole shrimp ring, so no, not an exaggeration. Besides, did you see the size of the chunks you were blowing? You practically swallowed those things whole —hey, are you okay?”
    My stomach turned over, and I shook my head. “Nope.”
    And then I was back on my knees in a flash, throwing up nothing but bile. I felt Jessa’s hands on my hair a moment later, pulling it out of my face and out of the path of my puke.
    “Let it all out. Just get it all out,” she said soothingly, starting to rub my back again. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have… brought it up.”
    I heaved again while she laughed daintily at her own pun.

June 27th
     
     
    I COULD hear the tinny, distant voice of the 9-1-1 operator through Ricky’s iPhone, which I had dropped next to the toilet, asking me what was happening. I heaved again, harder, when I tried to say something.
    I half expected Jessa’s soft, well-manicured hands to gently grab my hair to keep it out of the line of fire, but no helpful hands came. I threw up the soda I had sipped while we ordered and what was left of my prom dinner; I’d had the chicken. It did not taste as good coming back up as it did going down, and it hadn’t been great in the first place.
    The world faded in and out of blackness as I rested my head against the toilet seat. I had neglected to put it up in my rush to empty my stomach.
    I felt a hand on my shoulder, and whispered, “Jessa?” but the sound came out garbled and wrong.
    “Where are you hurt?” asked a deep, masculine voice. I was moved gently from my position draped over the toilet to one sitting against the wall by a handsome paramedic with dark skin and warm brown eyes.
    “I’m not,” I said, batting his hands away. “I’m not hurt. It’s not my blood.”
    “Can you tell me your name?”
    “It’s Corey. Corinna Nguyen.”
    “What day is it, Corinna?”
    “It’s June twenty-sixth. Wait. It’s after midnight. It’s tomorrow now.”
    “Why are you all dressed up?”
    “It’s prom night. Look, I’m fine, okay? I’m fine.”
    The paramedic shined a light in my eyes, ran his gloved hands down my arms and over my stomach. Once he was satisfied that I wasn’t bleeding from a hidden gunshot wound, I was wrapped in a bright yellow blanket and led from the bathroom.
    It was like a real scene from CSI . Another paramedic, a young woman with red-blonde hair like Ricky, was bent over Kate’s body.
    “I already checked for a pulse,” I told her as the male paramedic led me away. “I closed her eyes.” The smeared bloody handprint on her arm and the prints my stocking knees had made in the blood pool showed where I had knelt.
    The hand on my back became firmer as the male paramedic pushed me harder.