Painted to Life || Julie and the Phantoms

CHAPTER 31: Blame

THE SLACK-JAWED LOOK on Luke's face anchors me to reality. My stomach somersaults as I grasp at threads to pull words together. I know what I say now will determine their reaction and more importantly whether or not we stay friends.

"What?" Reggie repeats Luke. "What do you mean by that?"

I snap out of my trance and my back goes straight as a board. "I'm not a ghost like the rest of you."

Their jaws drop fully.

"You lied about that too?" Luke growls.

"Not necessarily," I say, carefully slipping around him. I stand behind Reggie and Alex. "You assumed that I died."

"Y-you said y-you got h-hit by a bus!" Alex yelps. "T-this is so c-confusing! I don't even k-know you a-anymore!"

"Yeah, and how come I'm the only one who can see you?" Julie asks. "And you can teleport and walk through walls like them."

"I'm a spirit," I tell them. "My soul left my body when I was knocked unconscious and I went into a coma. When they shocked my heart back to life, I basically got locked out of my body."

"How does Bobby fit into all of this?" Luke interrogates. "He stole all of our music and took credit for everything!"

"The hospital bills were wracking up," I answer. "We needed money to pay them, and fast. My parents didn't have the money or the hope. Bobby had the hope. All he needed was money to keep the doctors from pulling the plug. At first we tried selling Sunset Curve T-shirts, but the excitement lasted less than a month. People stopped caring. So, Bobby came up with a plan. He took enough of your songs to make an album. Then we found a record label willing to look at the Sunset Curve demo and record without three of its members."

"Why didn't you share the money with our families?" Reggie asks, pain in his voice. "It's your fault that I don't know where my father is!"

His accusation hurts me, but I understand the reasons for his anger.

"The record label tricked Bobby into signing a contract where they took most of the money. If he split his share four ways, the projected net worth wouldn't have been enough to keep me alive," I tell them. Alex is beginning to look sympathetic, but Luke is just as angry as before. He looks like a mad puppy. Reggie is confused. "The doctors felt that I couldn't be properly cared for in a hospital. They had to move me to private care. That meant that Bobby needed to keep all of the money left to keep me."

"How can you be okay with this?" Luke blurts in a fury. "This is my life's work, not his!"

"He was seventeen!" I scream in the guitarist's face. "Bobby had just lost three of his best friends, his bandmates, his brothers, his world! He wasn't going to let the last friend go without a fight. What would you have done, huh? It doesn't excuse him, but Bobby had a darn good reason!"

The room is entirely silent. My outburst scares the crap out of Luke and he retreats to behind Julie's keyboard.

"What would you have done?" I ask him, my voice breaking. It reflects how I feel. "Luke, I know you care about me. Would you have given up everything for my life or given up on my life?"

Luke lowers his head, unable to give an answer. He's upset about Bobby's thievery, but he would have wanted to save me.

"And Reggie," I continue, turning to the bassist. I catch his eye. "Bobby anonymously paid for your father's rehabilitation. He didn't want to publicly do it and embarrass your family name or draw attention to their grief."