I grabbed a CD from my collection and slipped it into the radio, letting No Scrubs by TLC fill the air.

After about ten minutes, Tiffany frowned. “Maybe we didn’t put enough in.” She waved her brownie at me. “Should we⁠—?”

“No,” I said immediately. “I’ve seen movies. This is the part where we think it’s not working and then five minutes later, we’re talking to ghosts.”

Tiffany huffed but put the brownie back. “Fine. But if nothing happens, I’m blaming you.”

And then, right on cue, everything started feeling…weird.

Tiffany absentmindedly played with a loose thread on my comforter while I tried to decide if I was imagining the slight heaviness settling over me.

First, my arms got heavy. Then light. Then I couldn’t figure out if they were heavy or light because I was too busy staring at the ceiling and contemplating why it looked so much farther away than usual. I turned my head to look at Tiffany, who was staring at her hands like they were a scientific discovery.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. “Do you ever think about how weird fingers are?”

“I forgot how to blink,” I whispered.

She turned her head very slowly to look at me. “You what?”

“My eyes. They’re open, but they feel closed.”

“What if we’re actually asleep right now?”

“Jesus—” I sat up so fast I nearly fell over. “What if we are?”

“Bev…”

“Test it,” I said quickly.

“How?”

“Walk through a wall.”

Tiffany stood up, wobbling a little before putting her hands on her hips. She stared at the nearest wall like it had personally wronged her, then squared her shoulders. “Here I go.”

She took one determined step forward—and walked straight into it. The thud was loud enough to make me lose it. I curled up on the floor, laughing so hard I almost choked.

Tiffany groaned, rubbing her forehead.

“I don’t think I’m asleep,” she mumbled.

“Yeah, no, definitely still awake,” I wheezed.

She flopped down beside me with a sigh. “I miss being sober.”

I rolled onto my side, looking at her. “You were heartbroken like an hour ago.”

She thought about it for a second. “I think I’m over it.”

We stared at the ceiling again. The room felt both too big and too small at the same time. Time didn’t make sense. I wasn’t sure if we’d been lying there for five minutes or five years.

We descended into giggles, but then I had a thought.

A terrible, horrifying thought.

“Tiff,” I whispered.

She sat up, alarmed. “What?”

“What if we made them wrong? What if we just poisoned ourselves?”

Her eyes widened. “Oh my God.”

We stared at each other.

Then, in unison: “Should we go to the hospital?”

This led to a full-blown spiral where we spent the next fifteen minutes panicking, convinced we were about to die.