These Lying Eyes by Amanda A. Allen

watching cars come and go, seeing people with smiles and balloons and those with tense, pale faces. They untangled their hair with their fingers and let their thoughts run free.
     
    “You know what’s happening,” Mina finally stated.
    “Yes.” The word was calm, even.
    “Are you going to tell me?”
    “No.”
    “Why?”
    “Because…” Another long silence followed before Zizi finally said, “You need to own it.”
    Mina frowned for a moment before she said, “The answer?”
    “Yes.” Zizi said.
    Mina considered as she turned off the hospital machines. Once they wouldn’t alarm, she pulled out her IV and made her way, unencumbered, to the bathroom.
    It was a surprise to Mina that she wasn’t upset by Zizi’s answer, but she wasn’t. Zizi was right; Mina wanted the answer to be hers. There was a part of her who wanted to berate herself for what she’d suffered. If only she’d accepted the many times the sprites had been willing to volunteer the answer. But, after all this time, she couldn’t.
    Mina wasn’t in the same situation now as she had been when she researched imaginary friends. To her surprise, she found she knew herself better now, trusted herself more.
    “The nurses will be swarming you in minutes.” Zizi said as Mina turned on the shower.
    “I find that I care less now that I know people have been holding out on me.”
    Zizi snorted a laugh, but she was right.
    Before Mina’s hair was fully wet someone was jiggling the handle and knocking at the door. Mina ignored them and the pounding in her head to rush through her wash.
    Just as she left the bathroom, the doctor from the night before came into her room. He was just in time to stop a tirade from the nurse. Even still, the woman in teddy bear scrubs stared disapprovingly while the doctor shone a light in Mina’s eyes, checked her reflexes, and prodded the back of her head. His hair was graying, his eyes surrounded by the beginning of laugh lines, and his shoulders were broad even though he was chubby. He reminded her of a teddy bear, but she could still hear his voice yelling at her mom in her head.
    She liked him. She grinned until his fingers found the bruise on the back of her head.
    “Ow!” Mina yelped.
    “You got quite a knock there.” He said. He stepped back, but breathed deeply. If he’d been any closer to her, she’d have been sure he was smelling her. His nose crinkled, and then he pulled from his pocket a pair of small square glasses.
    Once he put them on, he just looked at her.
    “Nurse, I think our patient is ready for some breakfast.”
    He waited until the woman left and then turned back to Mina staring at her until she fidgeted.
    “How are you feeling?” He asked finally.
    Mina looked down, stretching her neck to gain a little time. What to say? What to admit? When she glanced back at him through the corner of her eyes, she paused. His glasses were covered in transparent colored emblems that she hadn’t seen the whole time she’d stared up at him.
    Mina paused, wondering what his glasses would tell him. She found herself telling him, “My head hurts. I’m tired. I’m scared about what’s going to happen to me, and I want to go home.”
    The words were so quiet, Mina was surprised they’d come from her. But once she started, she’d been unable to contain herself.
    Did the glasses have some power over her? But no, Mina thought, it was more that he’d asked her with a faded smile on his lips and a friendly look. It was that she knew he’d spoken for her even though she hadn’t really understood what he’d said.
    “Well,” he said with that slow friendly movement of his lips.
    And suddenly, with that simple movement of his lips, she thought she could trust him.
    “I don’t think you need to worry. I suspect that your…” He paused delicately. “Episode.”
    “You mean when I was super crazy at school?”
    His brows rose, but he said, “I think it may have been the result of some vitamin