Crime scene

I have found myself and two of my friends — X and Y — in the hospital, though I don't think any of us are sick or hurt. X is wearing hospital garb, though, and reclining in one of the room's twin beds. She seems in good enough spirits, and I find myself wondering where her boyfriend is, as they're usually together. I also notice that Y has a sister there with us, although in real life he doesn't have a sister at all. I also realize that Y's dream sister is the real-life sister of my first boyfriend Jeremy (I'll call her C.A.).

We're hanging out in the hospital room, being generally goofy and making each other laugh, which is what we normally do in real life. Y does or says something — I don't remember which — that is so perfectly amusing that I can barely contain myself and lean over to give him a quick smooch. He quickly turns and presents his cheek to me, and then reconsiders and kisses me on the mouth. We don't think another thing about it, but X gets really upset and starts berating us. She storms out of the room. The three of us are left wondering exactly what we did to incite such a lecture.

Somehow we discern that there's a commotion going on outside. We leave the hospital room and follow the labyrinthine corridors to the hospital's back exit. There are tons of people doing exactly what we're doing — going toward where the action supposedly is. We reach the outside and continue walking along the sidewalks of a residential neighborhood. I see my mother walk right past me, and I stop her "Mom! momomomommom! Hey!" — and hug her and walk with her, even though she's acting incredibly distant and very much unlike how my mother would act if she randomly saw me out somewhere.

As I'm walking with her, I notice I'm leaving Y and C.A. behind, but I figure I'll catch up to them later; it's my mom! We finally arrive at where the supposed action is and I realize there's been a horrible murder and everyone is standing around gawking at a crime scene. I briefly glance in the direction of a house surrounded by police tape, and see a body under a white sheet on a stretcher. There's blood flecked on the sheet and pooling on the stretcher below. I look away and don't notice anything else about the crime scene.

I infer from the conversations around me that there had been a horrible knife fight in the house, and many people had been carved up. No one seemed to know the victims. Or the killer. I notice that Y and C.A. are gone, so I tell my mom bye and head back to the hospital to tell them what I found out. Once inside the hospital, I can't for the life of me find the outpatient corridor. It's a swank hospital. Think something done in the design style of CSI: Miami, except classy. I rush past the nurses' station and head down a hallway toward surgery. I double back. I head down another hallway, and find a fucking aquarium. Double back. Two more false starts down unfamiliar halls and I finally find the outpatient hall beneath the stairwell. I don't remember which room we had, but I find one that has a post-it with "Lindsey Turner's blog" written on it. Um, okay.

I go inside, and Y and C.A. are there, but X is still nowhere to be found. C.A. has blood all over her face, except it's theatrical blood — bright red and goopy — so I don't think much of it. I tell them all about what I know about the crime scene, and C.A. asks me if I saw the other bodies. No, I said. But she did! She said one of them had "xoxo" carved into the chest.

Somehow I missed that.