B00B9FX0MA EBOK (18 page)

As soon as the door clicked closed, I lay facedown on the bed, knowing the camera wouldn’t capture the angle. Then, I spat into my hand and wiped the half-dissolved lump of medication on the sheet under my pillow. Sheila was watching, wide-eyed. I knew either she’d tell the nurses or a housekeeper would discover the multicolored mess, but I’d be long gone by then.

“Can you keep a secret, Sheila?” I asked.

Sheila nodded, unblinking. “I kept Jenny’s secret.”

“What was it?”

“I can’t tell you,” Sheila said proudly, rocking back and forth. Sunlight was still spilling through the window, creating large patches of light on the floor. Even though there were no clocks anywhere, it was probably only midday. But the encroaching dread surrounding me made me feel as if darkness was fast approaching.

“Did Jenny … die?” I asked finally.

Sheila laughed, the loud cackle that made her sound older and more evil than seemed possible, given her appearance. “No. She only wished she had.”

At that, the door clicked open again. Nanci strode in and grabbed Sheila by the shoulder.

“Sheila, I think it’s time for a little talk, what do you say?” she asked, glaring at me as she dragged Sheila out the door.

Finally, I was alone.

And I was terrified.

O
ne day. Twelve pills. And even though I’d spit them out whenever a nurse’s back was turned, I knew the medication was seeping into my system, and that the craziness surrounding me was seeping into my pores. I felt slow and shaky, with a second or two going by before I realized anyone was talking to me. The Ainsworth final interview was on Monday, less than twenty-four hours away. But all that seemed light-years ago. Now, all my attention was focused on getting through each hour without losing my Hayley-ness. And it was hard.

Even though I’d been there less than twenty-four hours, the routine was clear — and it was clear I’d go crazy if I actually had to follow it for longer than I already had. All meals were at a long, cafeteria-like table, with nurses sitting at each table to ensure every bite was eaten. Nurses monitored each shower door. Group therapy sessions happened in the morning and the afternoon, and there was a mandatory nap when the doors were locked. Sheila continued to stare at me. I’d learned she was sixteen and had been living at Serenity for almost a year. She liked it, she said. I couldn’t tell if she was incredibly smart or incredibly out of it, but her wide-eyed stare unnerved me. When I’d fallen asleep the previous night, I’d woken up to her face inches away from mine. I’d screamed, and a night nurse had dragged Sheila back to her side of the room before slowly
and methodically strapping her wrists and ankles to the bed with Velcro restraints.

“That’ll keep you in one spot,” the nurse said.

Sheila bleated a single cry of terror, but then the nurse must have given her medication, because her breathing had slowed into soft, deep snores that had freaked me out even more than seeing her face inches away from mine. Drugs were always used to calm people down, to keep them quiet, to make them obey the draconian rules. I knew it was better for me to stay under the radar and cooperate, but I couldn’t help but feel my heart go out to Sheila. Had she gotten better in a year, or far worse? Judging from the way I felt after only one day, I think I knew my answer.

“Jamie?” Dr. Taylor asked, snapping his fingers in front of my face. It was my second therapy session with Dr. Taylor. Sessions occurred every day, with one on weekends and two each weekday, and it was clear that playing along was key to getting anyone to listen to me. “Tell me about Aidan.”

“What about him?” I asked. Each session with Dr. Taylor was like playing verbal charades. I’d latch onto a name that sounded familiar and try to pump Dr. Taylor for clues. I figured that until I escaped, the best thing I could do was get as much information about Jamie as possible. I knew my father had adopted her with Deborah, and that Aidan was born only a few months after. I knew she’d been to a few different boarding schools and had a long record of shoplifting. I knew she blamed Aidan for everything.

“They’re in the same grade?” I’d asked when Dr. Taylor probed me about the time
I
locked Aidan in the kindergarten coat closet, prompting a full-on panic when everyone assumed
he’d been kidnapped. Apparently, the entire town had spent the night searching for him everywhere, while I’d contentedly sat on the couch, watching
Sesame Street
and hugging my stuffed polar bear.

Dr. Taylor had shot me a funny look. “Yes.
You’re
in the same grade as your brother. Is that difficult for you?”

The question had given me pause. Because I could
see
how much it would suck. It’d be like having a twin with none of the benefits. Even in my brief time at the Thomson-Thurm house, I’d seen the adoring way James and Deborah had looked at Aidan and the accusatory glances they’d cast at “Jamie.” Of course, her behavior warranted it. But what if Aidan had always been the favored child? If I had been her … well, maybe if I’d been in a similar situation, I’d have locked him in a closet, too.

That had been the last significant piece of information I’d gleaned about Jamie’s family. It was as if Dr. Taylor had sensed that he’d overstepped, that I was eager for any drops of knowledge, and he’d retreated, relying on headshakes and nods.

“Jamie?” Dr. Taylor prodded, snapping me back into the moment.

“I’m not sure what to say about Aidan,” I said slowly. The thick file on his desk had the answers.

“Tell me about how he makes you feel,” he prodded.

I glanced at the model of the brain on Dr. Taylor’s desk. I knew he performed electroshock therapy, and I knew that’s where Sheila went when the nurses pulled her out of the room.

“Sad,” I suggested.

“All right, anything else?”

“Mad?” I felt like we were playing a game of Mad Libs.

“I wonder if you can go deeper,” Dr. Taylor mused, picking up the brain and turning it with his hands. I wondered if his subtext meant that he wondered whether a shock to my brain could make me go deeper.

“I don’t know what to say,” I said. I took a large sip of my coffee. Coffee wasn’t officially allowed, since the nurses were worried about the caffeine interfering with the complicated pill combinations they were giving patients. But Dr. Taylor had made an exception for me, I think as a reward for no longer insisting on calling myself Hayley.

“Well, how are you adjusting here? Your roommate, Sheila … how do you like her?”

“I’m worried about her,” I said, a brilliant idea forming in my mind. Everyone knew she had hallucinations, and when she did, it was all hands on deck to restrain her. If I could use her to provide a distraction, I could get the file. I could get the phone. And I could get my freedom. I smiled, despite myself, then quickly arranged my expression to a more somber one when I saw a flicker of concern on Dr. Taylor’s face.

“Really?” Dr. Taylor leaned forward. “Talk to me about that. Why are you worried about her?”

“I feel like I have to look out for her. I guess it’s sort of like the way I felt I was supposed to look out for Aidan. But I couldn’t, because I was so wrapped up in my jealousy and anger. Now, I feel like I care about Sheila, and I want to have a good relationship with her. I guess it’s a way of transferring my emotions and trying to fix the past,” I said, throwing in plenty of therapy-like words that I knew Dr. Taylor would like. I smiled, despite myself. I was pretty proud of my off-the-cuff explanation.

“Yes, that’s good!” Dr. Taylor excitedly took a sip of coffee. And then I had an idea.

“I really think I’d be most helped if I could see her now. If I could go back to my room and tell her this,” I said. I needed to get Sheila on board, and fast. I was pretty sure I could convince her to help me, but I needed to set it in motion before her electroshock treatment, before I would spend another day longer than I had to here. Then, I’d call Matt. I didn’t trust my mother — not when she’d lied to me about Jamie in the first place, not when I didn’t even know whether she’d be at home or with Geofferson. But Matt would believe me — he’d been at the restaurant, he
had
to have noticed a difference between Jamie and me — and then, I’d get him to call the police while simultaneously getting me out of here.

“Really? You have another half an hour, and we’re really digging up some interesting stuff. I think you might find it valuable to discuss …”

I shook my head vehemently. “I need to process stuff … please?”

Dr. Taylor paused, his eyes flicking from me to the clock on the wall. It was almost one o’clock, and I was hoping his hunger for lunch would be larger than his hunger for my own psychological breakthrough.

“All right.” He pressed the buzzer on the corner of the desk to call for a nurse.

In a second, Nanci came to the door.

“Bye!” I called gleefully to Dr. Taylor, barely able to contain my excitement. This would work. It had to.

As soon as I got into the room, I glanced at Sheila, who was engaged in her usual activity of staring out the window. She
turned toward me. She reminded me of a gerbil hyped up on caffeine, manic and jerky and desperate to please.

“I need your help.” I glanced behind my shoulder at the always-on camera. I quickly stepped onto the bureau and ripped it from the wall, hoping the nurses were too busy doing rounds to notice it was out of commission.

“You broke it!” Sheila exclaimed, blinking her ultra-large eyes at me accusingly.

“I know. But it’s all right. You said you wanted to help me, right?” I asked soothingly.

Sheila nodded vigorously, the tufts of hair surrounding her head bouncing as wildly as flickering candles on a birthday cake.

“Good. Now, do you know what a distraction is?” I asked, amazed that the idea hadn’t come to me before. It was so simple. Maybe that had been my problem. I was thinking big-picture, James Bond–style escapes, when I should have realized that my captors were fluorescent-lipstick-loving, graphic-scrubs-wearing sheep who only did what Dr. Taylor told them to.

“I know what a distraction is,” Sheila announced importantly.

“Good. So, at lunch, what I want you to do is exactly what you did yesterday. Remember? Just fall to the ground and start yelling. Can you do that?”

“Yes.” She nodded, eyes wide.

“Good. But remember, it’s just pretend. It’s a game. You’re pretending you’re really, really upset. But you’re not.”

She smiled, a small, private grin. “That’s something Jenny would have done.”

“What happened to Jenny?” I was still dying to know. In my mind, Jenny loomed equally as large as Jamie. No matter what
I did at Serenity, I decided, I couldn’t become like Jenny. But I needed to know what had happened to her.

Soon, an orderly knocked on the door and we joined the shuffling line of patients to walk to the cafeteria. Some were silent, and some were always chattering loudly into space. We marched down the steps of the cottage and onto the gravel pathway. As was usual, the orderlies were talking among themselves, making jokes about the basketball game on TV the night before, a reminder that there was a whole world beyond the five-acre compound we were locked in.

As we filed up the sagging wooden steps and into the entranceway of the main building, it happened. Sheila fell backward, her head hitting the carpeted floor. A strange, guttural noise emerged from her mouth as she flopped back and forth on the floor.

“They’re back! They’re attacking me. Help!” she shrieked.

“Who’s attacking you?” one of the nurses said, rushing from the front of the line toward Sheila.

“The sloths! They’re big!” Sheila was crying and in hysterics, and several other girls had begun crying. I smiled, despite myself.
The sloths?
That was Sheila’s sense of humor: twisted, innocent, and not destroyed, despite the past year at Serenity and whatever horrors she’d seen happening to Jenny. As the others pressed into a circle closer toward her and Dr. Taylor was paged, I sprinted toward his office.

The file was still on the desk. I paused. I didn’t have much time, but I couldn’t resist one look.

On top of the stack of papers was a red sheet of paper with large typed letters in bold black font.

VIOLENT ALERT
.

PATIENT HAS OUTBURSTS OF EXTREME VIOLENCE THAT CAN MANIFEST IN HARM TO OTHERS
.

Below was a note in Dr. Taylor’s handwriting.
Killed brother’s g-pig. Explore. Connection btwn that and brother hostility.

I shut the file, not wanting to see what else was there. Grabbing the receiver of the phone, I huddled under the desk, trying to remember Matt’s number. There’d been a 3. And a 5. I felt like I had it. I dialed the string of numbers floating in my mind, my heart hammering against my chest, hoping it was him and not the local pizza place or somewhere equally useless.

“Hello?” a guy asked curiously. I’d done it. Maybe everything would be okay.

“Hey, it’s —”

“Hayley,” he said warmly. “Where are you calling from? The number says blocked. And I just dropped you off at Keely’s.”

“Listen, I’m fine, but —”

“Cool. So I told Keely that we’d chill after school tomorrow. Maybe hang out down by the field? Or we can just hang at your place. Still thinking about last night.” His voice dropped to a whisper. I wondered what he was thinking about last night. What had Jamie done? A wave of nausea made me pitch forward. I steadied myself against the desk and cleared my throat.

“It was really hot the way you snuck me in past your mom,” he said.

My blood turned to ice. “Matt,
wait
!” I interrupted.

“Yeah. You’ve been awesome. So much fun, no stress … what else do you want me to tell you?” he asked teasingly.

To tell you.

Not me. Her.

“What else have I been doing?” I asked. Down the hall, I heard an alarm screech. A door slammed. “What have I been
doing
?” I asked.

Matt chuckled. “What haven’t you been doing? I’ve never seen this side of you. But I’m so, so glad I met it. That shy, book-loving thing was getting old. Even though I did try to read that book you love so much. But honestly, I’m just happy we have other things to do to entertain ourselves.”

On the other end of the line, I could hear Matt breathe, his exhalations mixing with a half laugh, a sign that he was surely smiling, waiting for the flirty thing “I” would say, relieved that I was the fun party girl he’d really wanted all along.

“Hayley?” Matt asked. “Did I lose you?”

“Yeah,” I agreed. If only he knew how true it was. “Bad connection.” I hung up, wiping my clammy hands on my gray Serenity sweatshirt. The screeching of the alarm hadn’t stopped and I heard the far-off wail of an ambulance. Sheila was clearly going all out. My heart wrenched, hoping that maybe this could somehow be good for her, that maybe she’d learn that she was a valuable person who wasn’t nearly as crazy as she imagined she was.

I picked up the phone again.

Please pick up
, I prayed as I dialed Adam’s number. I didn’t have to dredge it from memory. It was as easy to access as my middle name, as my favorite poems.

Please please please pick up.

“Hello, Adam Scott,” Adam said in his baby business-exec voice. I smiled inwardly. Of course Adam would answer his phone that way, as if he were about to get a job offer on his walk from Calc to Physics.