The peace and our renewed closeness were not to last long. Susan and I had consciously maintained a fairly distant friendship over the year and the night’s openness was a glaring exception. Scared of her own feelings and dependence on me, Susan made it a point to avoid me the next few days and answered my queries about her well-being suc­cinctly and coldly. Our relationship stayed in this détente mode for an entire month. During this time, Susan’s doctors were preparing her for the opera­tion. The relatively simple procedure would not in­volve many days in the hospital and had a very high chance of success. Susan and I may have never confronted each other had it not been, ironically, for our pride. We continued meeting for meals and engaged in super­ficial conversation, focused on the weather, sports, and any other topic except for cancer and our friend­ship. The catalyst for our confrontation was a silly misunderstanding over a dinner. Susan did not show up at the cafeteria at our agreed upon time and made little effort to warn me of the scheduling con­flict that caused her absence. This inconvenience, minor under normal circumstances, proved to be the starting point of an intense struggle of wills. We fought to prove who could be the most stubborn and arrogant; the result was a tie, with both of us losing. Waiting for an apology, I refused to talk with Susan for a week. She decided I was being silly and refused to admit any error on her part. Somehow, we finally searched deep and found the maturity to discuss our differences. The strain of our open hostility during the week and quiet indifference during the month had beaten down both of our wills. We could hold our breath no longer. We quickly settled the matter about the dinner and then turned our attention to the real cause of the tension between us. For the first time in a month, one of us mentioned the night of the concert, the night I first heard of Susan’s affliction. This talk was very different in character from our last serious discussion; whereas before I had provided support and comfort for a helpless Susan, this was truly a battle of wills between two strong and independent indi­viduals. We discussed issues as varied as our true feelings for each other and Susan’s upcoming op­eration. Then Susan confessed that she was disturbed by recent nightmares. I accepted this as a normal reaction to a very difficult semester. One of Susan’s closest friends from home, her Bible study leader there, had committed suicide shortly before Susan found the lump. Adding insult to injury, she learned of his death through a newspaper article, since her family and friends were too scared to tell her. The operation alone would have been overwhelming for any emo­tionally healthy individual. Given the loss of a dear friend from home, the tension with one’s best friend at school, and the pressures of a very demanding academic schedule, it is a miracle that Susan remained sane; nightmares hardly seemed a cause for alarm. Then Susan started saying words like “visions” instead of nightmares, and I began to get worried and scared. I had always known that Susan was a charis­matic Christian, but had thought little of what such labels meant. She had told me of speaking in tongues during certain prayers and even seeing visions in her dreams as a child, but I had never pushed her to talk about such things. I figured that what I did not know could not hurt me. How wrong I was! Susan started describing various odors (which others would later ascribe to the sulfur that supposedly accompanies the devil), sounds, and appear­ances that both she and her roommate had wit­nessed. They had even called maintenance, which had found the odors but not the cause. Her roommate, neither charismatic nor Christian, had seen, heard, and smelled the same things, but had not known how to interpret the events. I was about to hear Susan’s understanding of her visions and the accompanying disturbances. A senior in UCF and a leader of my Bible study group had once asked me if I believed in angels, spirits, and other such apparitions. I had recently heard a priest confidently proclaim that the Bible’s words on such phenomena were never meant to be inter­preted literally; he had historical evidence that inci­dents involving spirits were merely metaphors for tangible events. Being a new Catholic and very eager to avoid the subject, I had accepted the priest’s views without question. After I related my doubts, the se­nior proceeded to describe recent incidents involv­ing mutual acquaintances — e.g., a woman who claimed demons inflicted physical scars on her arms. I remained polite, but incredulous. The issue of spirits did not affect me, and I was thus content to leave its resolution to others. I had no opinions or feelings on the subject. But Susan was forcing me to take a stand on the entire issue of spirits and charismatic Christians. Having given the subject little thought, I was hardly ready to present an informed opinion. Susan was my closest friend and I would have tried to believe her had she claimed Martians had kidnapped her; friends are supposed to believe in each other even when nobody else does. Despite my verbal reassurances and lack of condemnations, Susan knew me well enough to see that I was having problems ac­cepting her visions and spirits. I was doing every­thing I could to convey my support and sympathy; however, I was definitely in unfamiliar territory and was overwhelmed by the strength of her convictions. I wavered between my loyalty to Susan and the apparent irrationality of her claims. I left the room we were in for a moment, on some flimsy pretense, made the sign of the cross in desperation, and pleaded with God for divine assis­tance. Seconds after I re-entered the room, Susan angrily lashed out at me, telling me she never wanted to talk with me again since I did not love her, and ran out in tears. I tried following her, to no avail. I did not understand what I had done. All I could think was, “Gee, thanks God. So much for prayer.” I realized that Susan had never fully presented her interpretation of the recent events in her life, and I had not had the chance to accept or reject her claims. The entire conversation remained very nebulous in my mind, and many of Susan’s reactions made little sense. I had a vague sense that her anger and tears involved both my inability to care for her and also my inability to understand her recent experiences.