12

Nikki

The past few days have been like living outside of my body. I heard everything and felt everything. It was like I was seeing everything with my own eyes. Brooke, Jimmy, Jeremy, Emma and Skylar walked into the hospital, but when they walked into my room their mouths dropped open.

"R...Re...Renee?" Brooke asked in surprise. Renee stood up and walked over to them.

"Brooke, you were right, a real friend puts her own fears aside to help a friend." She couldn't believe her ears, after all that resistance and huge arguments, Renee listened to her.

"That doesn't make it right! You called me stupid!" Brooke said angrily. She knew she shouldn't be looking for a fight, but that part of the argument was clearly still bothering her.

"Wow!" Jimmy, Skylar, Emma and Jeremy said at the same time. Jimmy walked over to Brooke and put his arm around her shoulders.

"If there's one thing I know for sure Renee…it's that Brooke is definitely not stupid." Brooke gave him a grateful smile.

"I agree!" Emma, ​​Skylar, and Jeremy said. They crossed their arms demonstratively.

"I should never have called you stupid," Renee said. Remorse was clear in her voice, something you didn't often hear from her.

"You're a little late to realize," Brooke shot back angrily. Auriana and Jake walked into my room a short time later and they almost saw Brooke and Renee fighting.

"What's going on?" Jake asked, surprised.

"Brooke and Renee are fighting because Renee called Brooke stupid."

"Brooke isn't stupid!" Jake said. He had known Brooke as long as Renee had.

"Renee…you've been friends since elementary school, so why are you fighting right before Scarlet's surprise?" Auriana asked. She sank into a chair by the table, her head still pounding from all the memories that had come flooding back at once.

"Wait…Auriana, say that again," Emma said, seeming to have forgotten the bickering pair.

"I said Brooke and Renee have been best friends since elementary school." The room fell silent as my friends looked at her in surprise.

"Do you remember everything?" Jeremy asked. She nodded cautiously.

"Yeah, after Jake…" She swallowed the rest of her sentence back in.

"After Jake what?" Renee asked. Jake and Auriana looked at each other for a moment before she turned her head away again.

"After I kissed her…"

"KISSED?!?!?" Renee asked in disbelief. Auriana remained silent and looked out the window.

"…she got her entire memory back," Jake finished his sentence. Renee couldn't believe her ears.

"Wait…you kissed Auriana?"

"Yeah," Jake sighed, running a frustrated hand through his dark blond hair.

"Auriana, can you sing the chorus to "This is us?" Renee asked. Auriana shrugged. Auriana thought for a moment before she began.

"We won't let the past defy us, that's not who we are, anymore. We let the words cut us down once, we're not ashamed of our scars. We are strong, we are brave, we are who we're meant to be, this is us. Watch out 'cause we are marching on, can't break us down, together we'll stand. No longer scared to show you who we really are, this is us." Emilia walked into the room and clapped.

"That was awesome," Emilia said, "you know what? There's a little girl's birthday coming up in the oncology ward...would you guys perform for her?" My friends looked at each other for a moment.

"Just the girls, right?" Jeremy asked. He loved performing, but little kids weren't exactly his favorite audience.

"You can join in, too," Emilia laughed. She walked to the other side of the room and wrote down the monitor's readings.

"We'll do the music," Jimmy said. He gave Jake and Jeremy a high five.

"We're performing!" Brooke cheered.

"I'm writing the lyrics," Emma said.

"And I'm choreographing the dance," Auriana said.

"I'm designing the clothes," Renee said. Brooke crossed her arms.

"Who says you're in?" She still couldn't forgive Renee, even now that Auriana and Jake are getting along better.

"Brooke, can I talk to you for a minute?" Jimmy pulled her into the hallway.

"Nikki better wake up from that stupid coma soon," Emma said. Coma?!, I thought, That's why I can't move. Yes, I knew I was still in the hospital but no one had said anything about a coma. I thought I still hadn't woken up from the anesthesia.

"Yeah…" Skylar walked over to me and whispered, "…Nikki, if you hear this…you need to wake up…we need you!"

"What if she…" Jeremy's voice broke.

"Jeremy, don't you dare finish that sentence!" Renee threatened with tears in her eyes. Oh no, Renee, don't cry. Although I couldn't see it myself, I could hear it in her voice. Auriana, Jake, Jeremy, Skylar and Emma also had tears in their eyes. I don't like hearing my friends cry, I have to wake up for them! I thought.

"Auriana is right, you have to make it up to her, we still need her," Jimmy said. Brooke could be stubborn when she wanted to be, and she didn't give up easily.

"Don't care." Renee was exactly the same, and never gave up.

Jimmy

"Brooke…" I grabbed her hands. Brooke's cheeks turned red.

"Make it up for the others, for me, for yourself." Brooke thought.

"Maybe you're right." I looked at her intently.

"Maybe?" I asked, almost laughing. Brooke burst out laughing.

"Okay, you're right."

"Thank you," I said, looking into her blue eyes. Brooke looked into my eyes too. She leaned toward me.

"Hey, are you…oh sorry…" Skylar said. Skylar walked back inside but Brooke and I hadn't even heard her. Brooke's lips were inches from mine. Her soft warm lips touched mine as I grabbed her waist and pulled her closer to me. When we finally let go of each other we both couldn't believe what we'd just done.

"Did we just…" Brooke didn't finish her sentence. I nodded.

"But you liked Skylar, right?" Great, apparently everyone knew about that. Apparently I wasn't as subtle as I had hoped.

"I guess I like you better." Brooke smiled. We walked back into the room hand in hand. Jake put an arm around Auriana, which she immediately shook off.

"Okay, how does this sound?" Emma turned on the music.

"I'm just an ordinary girl with something magical. At first, I was scared but now I've embraced it. Now the magic's mine. Never knew magic was out there, you know? At first, I thought I was going nuts but now," she sang. She paused it again and looked at the others expectantly.

"That's awesome!" Jeremy said.

"Thanks." Auriana, Emma, ​​Brooke, Renee and Skylar sang it together.

"That sounds great," Jake said. Renee took a drawing sheet in front of her.

"How old is that girl?"

"Five or six. She has leukemia, at least that's what Emilia said," Auriana replied.

"Mmm, I can do something with this." The next day, Renee showed the girls the designs.

"These look like the clothes from The Sparkle Girls," Brooke said. She looked at the designs Renee had made. She did her best to keep the promise she had made to me.

"That's because they're the clothes from Sparkle Girls."

"Are we going to perform dressed as them?" Brooke asked. Renee nodded.

"Who's who?" Skylar asked. The Sparkle Girls was a children's series that had been running for years, the girls had watched it themselves when they were younger.

"Auriana is Destiny, Emma is Hope, Brooke is Mackenzie, you're Sparkie and I'm Faith."

"Let's do this!" Brooke said enthusiastically.

The girls had been preparing for Luna's birthday party for a week.

"We look stupid," Emma said. They were trying on the costumes so Renee could make the final adjustments.

"Just put that headband on," Renee insisted. Emma reluctantly put the headband on.

"And your wings." Emma put the wings on. Jake, Jeremy, and I walked into Renee's studio. We had promised to wait until they were all changed before we entered the studio. Renee had a separate room in her home that was completely filled with different fabrics, and a large desk with various sewing supplies on it next to her sewing machine.

"Wow, since when are the Sparkle girls real?" Jeremy asked. He sat down on the desk chair.

"Since tomorrow," Emma replied.

"Great idea Renee," I laughed as I tapped the wings.

"Is this for Luna?" Jake asked. The girls nodded.

"But I'm not going out like this," Emma said. She took the wings off again so Renee could adjust the straps.

"We'll just change at the hospital," Brooke said.

"There's probably an empty room somewhere where we can change," I came to her rescue. The girls nodded in agreement.