Hell is an emergency room, Marley thinks. She has been sitting on this gurney for four hours and there is commotion everywhere. The phones at the nurse's station ring every fifteen seconds, someone is always being wheeled in, doctors and nurses are running around everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Someone is always screaming for help, someone seems to be dying. There is a woman who is wheeling a large cart that contains things that make her want to vomit. She's pretty sure she knows what they are, but she can't bring herself to ask.

She knows that this isn't normal. No emergency room is normal because every emergency is different. There is a squat Latina woman who keeps wringing her hands and pacing the halls. Her daughter is in the room across from Marley's gurney and keeps making blood curdling screams. "Are you a nurse?" her mother asks every uniformed person that passes through the hallway. "If you are, please help my daughter."

Marley doesn't speak to anyone. She tries to sleep or read one of the textbooks that she brought in her book bag, but there is always something that interrupts her reading. Two minutes ago, it was the girl's screams in the room across from her and then it was that woman with that cart who passed by for the hundredth time.

She wishes that she could slap herself awake, but she knows that she isn't dreaming. Everything is too raw and real. The blood on the doctors' plastic gloves is the color autumn leaves, the nurses' gowns are the color of spring time roses.

She leans her head back against the wall. She has a test in Latin four days from now. There's a paper in her Renaissance literature class that is due in a week and she hasn't even started.

Even worse, there's the hospital bill that she'll have to pay when she gets out of this hell hole. The university's health care plan only covers overnight stays, but what if she's here for a week or more? Her mother can barely pay the rent for the lot on which their trailer is sitting back in Lima and she doesn't have any rich relatives that can fork over a few thousand dollars.

She turns to her right and sees Kitty. She's holding a white paper bag in her right hand and some plastic cutlery in her left.

"Here," she says as she puts the bag on the gurney. "Eat. You're going to be here for a while."

"How did you get in?" Marley asks in disbelief.

"Don't worry about it."

"No. Seriously. How did they let you in here?"

"I told the nurse I was your sister."

"My what?"

"Your step-sister," Kitty rolls her eyes. "She is so stupid she had to believe me."

Marley laughs as the blonde pulls out a small plastic container from the bag and places it on her lap.

"What is this?" Marley asks.

"Chevre chaud," the French rolls off of Kitty's tongue as if it is her first language.

"Chevre what?"

"Hot salad," Kitty translates. "It was the cheapest thing on the menu."

"Thanks," Marley winces as she puts a block of sheep cheese in her mouth. "It's divine. Do you want some?"

"I'm stuffed," Kitty replies. "My dad ordered everything on the menu."

"Your dad sounds nice," Marley smiles. "I'd like to meet him."

"He's only nice when he wants to be."

"Oh. I'm…"

"Forget it," Kitty nods the brunette's apology away.

Marley finishes the salad, but she can't seem to hold it down. She runs to the nearest bathroom and locks herself in. She holds back her hair as she projectile vomits into the stool. When she flushes the toilet, she folds her head in her hands and begins to cry. If only she had listened to her mother and gone to Bowling Green, she never would have been in this mess to begin with.

She rocks herself back and forth as the tears sting her cheeks. If her mother was here, she would hold her tight against her bosom and allow her to cry. She'd take one of her large paws and smooth down her long brown hair. "There, there," Mrs. Rose would whisper in Marley's ear. "There, there."

Life was much simpler in Lima, she thinks. She felt like she belonged there. Everyone knew who she was. The local paper interviewed her when she graduated as the valedictorian of her high school class. Almost the entire town came when Mrs. Rose threw her a graduation party. Everything was different here in Los Angeles and much more complex.

Two months ago, Marley had gone to the English department lounge to eat her lunch. She had pulled out the egg and cheese sandwich from the brown paper bag and had begun chomping on it when she saw one of the professors emerge from her office. She stood in the middle of her threshold with crossed arms and stared at Marley until she put the half eaten pastrami sandwich on the rosewood desk. "Do you even belong here?" the curly-headed middle aged woman asked. "Or did you walk in on from the street and decide to eat your lunch here because nobody would judge you for those horrendous jeans?"

She never ate in the English department lounge again. She went to the theology lounge instead where nobody cared what clothes you wore as long as you cleaned up after yourself.

It takes her ten minutes to calm down. When she comes out, Kitty is sitting on the gurney texting someone.

"Who are you texting?" Marley asks to make conversation as she sits back down.

"Someone that can help you."

"I'm sorry about earlier," Marley changes the subject. "The salad was great."

"You're sick. I know," Kitty nods. "Don't worry about it."

Marley wonders if Kitty's niceness is an act. Before today, they were just two people who shared an apartment suite together on campus. Marley could count the number of times they had spoken to each other on both her hands.

A doctor comes by with some interns. He asks some questions off a questionnaire and says something to the students about psychiatric emergencies. He moves on.

The hours drag by and nothing changes. Kitty goes to the nurse's station and asks for a psychiatrist, but the nurses tell her that Dr. Epstein is booked up. Kitty keeps texting that mysterious friend that is supposed to help Marley. "Come on," she hears the blonde whisper under her breath. "Just look at your screen."

As late afternoon melts into night, two male nurses ask Kitty to leave. She says that Marley is her sister, but they don't believe her. They tell her that visitors aren't allowed after six pm. Kitty insists that she's not a visitor, but it doesn't work. They call in security and she is escorted out.

Marley is alone again. The woman across the hall is still screaming and the man with the gunshot wound isn't expected to survive the night.

She notices that Kitty has left something on the gurney for her. It's a small slip of paper. "You're in good hands," Kitty has written. "Trust me."

XOXO

"Do you remember when the hallucinations started?" a dark haired woman named Dr. Rachel Berry is sitting across from Marley's bed with a large clipboard and a blue pen in her hands. Her voice is calming, Marley thinks, or maybe, it's the meds they put her on last night.

"Six days ago," Marley says quietly. "Actually, seven."

Rachel scribbles something on the clipboard.

"Can you guess why?"

"No." Marley shakes her head. "I don't know."

"Was there anything going on in your personal life that caused this?"

"My personal life?"

"Yeah," Rachel nods. "A break up, a crush, a move, or something?"

"Well, I moved across the country to go to the school of my dreams," Marley begins hesitantly. "But I don't think that it can cause whatever this is."

"Where did you move from?" Rachel asks seemingly ignoring the question.

"Lima, Ohio. You wouldn't know where it is."

"Oh, I know where it is," the therapist's face lights up.

"You do?"

"Yeah," Rachel nods. "I lived there, but it was a long time ago."

She has a million questions that she wants to ask, but she realizes that Dr. Berry isn't here to talk about Ohio and Marley restrains herself as much as she can from asking irrelevant questions.

"Anyway," Dr. Berry looks down at her notes. "You moved out here, went to school, and everything was fine until a week ago?"

"More or less."

"What do you mean?"

"I guess. Things were fine, but they weren't always fine. You know?"

"No, I don't."

"Well," Marley sighs. "I don't fit in at school and I sometimes wish that I had never gone there."

"You said it was the school of your dreams," Rachel points out.

"Yes, but I didn't realize that I had to have Louboutin heels, a Gucci handbag, and a million pieces of jewelry."

"Are you on a scholarship?"

"Yes. My mother can barely pay the rent and buy groceries back in Ohio."

"What does your mom do?"

"That's not relevant."

"I'm just trying to help you, Marley," she says calmly.

"She's…" Marley hesitates. "She's the lunch lady at William McKinley High School."

"So, it's just you and your mom and your dad?"

"I never knew him. He left before I was born."

"Do you have any siblings?"

"No. I'm an only child."

"I see… So, do you have any friends here?"

"Not really," Marley nods. "I mean I have people that I know from school, but I don't have anyone that I can talk to."

"What about that girl who was with you in the emergency room two days ago and keeps coming to see you?"

"Kitty's not my friend. She's just my roommate."

"And how do you feel about her?"

"I'm glad that she drove me here and stayed with me, but I don't think of her as a friend."

"Why not?"

"She's mean and bitchy," Marley spits out the words before she can take them back in. "She makes snide comments about my clothes, my mom, my shoes. I just think that she's being nice because she has to be. I'm crazy, right? When you're crazy, people have to be nice to you."

"We don't use that word," Rachel corrects her gently.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Berry. Mentally imbalanced."

"So there's just you, your mom, and Kitty. No one else? A professor? A relative?"

"No."

"When you had your hallucinations," Rachel goes back to her notes, "Did you notice anything about that woman who chased you down University Hall?"

"She wore Victorian clothes," Marley explained. "She had this huge plumed hat with a very thick black veil over her face. Her dress was corseted and had petticoats underneath. She wore these gloves that went all the way to her elbows. She had a dagger in her right hand and it was dripping with blood."

"Your own blood?"

"Maybe," Marley nodded. "I'm not really sure."

"Did you ever see her face?"

"Yes."

"Who did she look like?"

"She looked like… Kitty." She takes a deep breath. "Except she's much taller than Kitty is. She wears these really high heeled shoes."

"Why do you think that girl looks like Kitty?" Rachel asked.

"I don't know," Marley shrugged. "I didn't create her. I didn't ask for her to have Kitty's face."

"Are you attracted to Kitty?" Rachel asks.

"No. I mean I don't know."

"Is she attracted to you?"

"I don't know," Marley stammers. "She's never said anything like that to me."

"Have you ever had an affair with a girl?"

"No." The questions are making Marley nauseous. "I'm sorry, Dr. Berry. I can't talk about this anymore."

"Why not?"

"I feel like I'm going to be sick," the brunette confesses.

XOXO

Kitty Wilde is a woman on a mission. Ever since she drove Marley to Cedars Sinai, she has done everything in her power to make sure that everything is fine when her roommate comes back on campus. She has gone from department to department and professor to professor making absolutely sure that her grades will not be impacted by her hospitalization. She phoned the school's insurance company and asked them to forward all of Marley's bills to her father as well as anything else she might incur by her visits to her therapists.

As she sits on her bed in the empty apartment, Kitty can't help wondering why she is helping this girl. The obvious answer is that she is being a Good Samaritan. She saw someone in trouble, she helped her out. That's what Jesus would have done, but there has to be something else there. It's not simple charity that makes her care about Marley. There is something else.

Earlier this school year, Kitty wouldn't have cared about Marley even if you put her at the same lunch table as the brunette. The girl was poor, after all. Her mother worked as a lunch lady. Her father was probably an alcoholic, a drug addict, or both. She couldn't stand the girl's ratty Walmart wardrobe or the leather outfits that she wore from time to time.

Although they shared the same apartment, they had spent the last two months living separate lives. Kitty went to her sorority meetings, got drunk, played strip poker with hot guys until the middle of the night and tried to have the time of her life while Marley sulked in her room and studied for her exams. They had nothing in common. Kitty was Bruno Mars and Christina Aguilera, Marley was Mozart, Beethoven, Sinnead O'Connor, and The Beatles. There wasn't any middle ground.

When Marley had called her, however, Kitty had kicked everything into high gear for her roommate. She didn't care that her father would be pissed when he saw hospital bills that weren't his daughter's. She didn't mind that she would fail her French exam because she had spent the last two afternoons with Marley at the hospital. Marley was in need and need was something that always trumped everything else in Kitty Wilde's life.

She hears the phone ringing and picks up without looking at the ID.

"Kitty, I need to ask you something," it is Marley and she is talking a million miles a minute. "It'll only take a little bit of your time, I swear."

"What's going on?" Kitty asks as she straightens out her pillows so that she would be able to lie there more comfortably.

"I had a session with Dr. Berry today and she asked me something really personal."

"Yeah?"

"She asked me if I was attracted to you."

"Why would she ask you that?"

"Because that woman I saw looked exactly like you."

"Are you attracted to me?" Kitty asks.

"No. Are you attracted to me?"

"Are you kidding me?" Kitty screams. "If I found you attractive, it would be a sin that cries to heaven for vengeance. What do you think I am? Some uniform wearing Catholic schoolgirl that's so horny that she'll fuck the first person she sees?"

"It was just a question," Marley's voice had become soft. "I never meant any harm. I'm sorry."

A/N: Here's the proper first chapter. Please let me know what you think in a review.