They Call It Magic...

Chapter One

My heels clicked on the tiles of the hospital floor as I made my way down the hall. I wanted to feel shocked and surprised about being here right now, but when your best friend had landed herself there a few times before, it really doesn’t take a lot to surprise you. I turned a corner to the room where the nurse said Mona would be but for some reason I couldn’t make myself go in yet.

            “What in the world did you do to yourself this time, Mona?” I asked the empty air around me.

            “Qudditch practice,” a voice chirped from behind me. I turned around to see a barley-recognizable girl with her arm in a sling and bruises covering her face coming out of a room behind me. Her normally long hair was shaved almost to the scalp on one side and chopped into a crazy bob everywhere else.

            “Is that what you told your parents?” I asked her.

            “I was cleaning out the gutters with a broom when a bird flew right over my head and I fell off the roof,” she shrugged.

            I rolled my eyes at her and was about to embrace her in a hug before realizing that it would probably hurt her. “I’m glad you’re okay but you have to stop doing stupid things like this,” I shook my head.

            “It’s not stupid, Valorie, its fun,” she argued. Mona pushed her hospital room door open and I followed her inside without asking if it was okay to come in. She plopped herself down on the bed and I sat down beside her.

            “Do you know how many times you’ve been in the hospital or had me take you to one of those twenty-four hour clinics in the past four months?” I asked.

            “No…” Mona shook her head.

            “Six times, Mona, six freaking times. Your parents are going to find out eventually, you know.”

            “Not if you keep helping me cover it up.”

            I stared at her in disbelief… “How many more accidents will it be until something bad happens? How much longer until something fun turned into something deadly?”

            “I thought you were my friend!” Mona gasped. “You know how much I want to go to that school, how long I’ve been waiting to get a letter!”

            I hadn’t realized I had said my thoughts out loud until after it happened; I had never ever said anything like that to my best friend. “I’m just worried about you because you’re my friend and I love you.”

            “You’ve never believed me and I guess you’ve never supported me either...”

            I glanced around the room for the first time and realized that Mona was in a private hospital room; I was in such a rush to get to her that I didn’t notice she wasn’t in a temporary hospital room that you get during emergency room visits. “Mona…what are you doing here?” I asked with a shaky voice.

            Mona grabbed her iPhone from the shelf over her hospital bed and opened her Instagram app. Her fingers tapped away at the screen and then she handed me the phone; at the top of the screen was a red alert that read “Invalid username/password”. It took me a while to realize what it meant ant then it all just clicked into place.

            “My parents found out,” she shook her head. “They read every single post on my account and then changed the password because I guess they had no clue how to delete it.”

            “I’m sorry,” I shook my head. But was I really? Wasn’t it a good thing that she couldn’t get back into that stupid account and continue obsessing over things that didn’t exist? Instagram was meant for taking cute selfies and telling your friends about the amazing meal you just had. Not talking to strangers about fake and unrealistic stories.

            “They don’t know I know yet, but I figured it all out once I woke up here. I don’t know when they’ll be back but I got to get out before they do.”

            A few months ago, I would’ve wanted nothing but to get Mona out of the hospital, but things had changed. We were both going to be juniors in high school in less than two weeks and I was determined to make sure she was with me the whole time. I was tired of being making myself sick and scared over the fact that my best friend was so interested in a fictional world that she would put her own life at risk. We had been friends since we were ten years old and her obsession had only gotten worse over time. Maybe tonight I would finally work up the guts and, as much as it hurt to think about it, betray my best friend to her parents. I had to put an end to the madness that was swirling around in her mind.

            “What are you thinking about? Do you know how to get out of here?” Mona asked.

            “I’m going to call us a cab,” I lied. I stood up and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind me. Pulling out my iPhone, I dialed Mona’s mom’s cell number and waited for her to pick up.

            “Hello?”

            “Hi, Mrs. Parker,” I replied, walking down the hall and away from Mona’s room. “I just saw Mona and she showed me her phone… Being her best friend, I’ve been helping her hid this Harry Potter obsession for years. Mrs. Parker, she thinks it’s all real and everything we have told you about her injuries have been lies. I loved her so much that I thought it would be better for her that way but I was wrong. She’s not okay and I want my best friend back.”