enough?
“That’s why your family moved to Florida,” Dr. Kells said.
Yes. “Right.”
“But that’s not why you’re here in this program.”
I swallowed. “I guess I’m still not over it.” I tried to sound innocent, but I just sounded nervous.
She nodded. “No one expects you to be. But what I’m asking is whether or not you understand why you’re here. Now.”
Ah. She wanted to hear about Jude—that I believed he was alive. I had to answer her, but it was a dangerous tightrope to walk. If I spoke too carefully, she’d realize that I was manipulating her. But if I spoke too candidly, she could decide that I was crazier than I actually was.
So I said, “My father was shot. I—I thought he might die. And I freaked out. I went to the police station and just started screaming. I wasn’t—I didn’t feel like myself. It’s been a lot to deal with.” My stomach churned. I hoped she’d move on.
She didn’t. “At the police station, you mentioned your boyfriend. Jude.”
I hated hearing his name. “Ex,” I said.
“What?”
“Ex-boyfriend.”
“Ex-boyfriend,” she repeated, giving me that same look I’d seen on Dr. West’s face a few days ago. “You mentioned your ex-boyfriend, Jude. You said that he’s here.”
The words FOR CLAIRE appeared in red on the white wall behind Dr. Kells’s head. I felt a jolt of terror before I blinked them away.
“The information in your file says that your boyfriend, Jude—ex-boyfriend, I’m sorry—and your friends Rachel and Claire died in the collapse of the Tamerlane State Lunatic Asylum in Rhode Island.”
“Yes.” My voice was a whisper.
“But you said that Jude’s here,” she repeated.
I said nothing.
“Have you seen him since that night, Mara?”
I was stone. I modulated my voice. “That would be impossible.”
Dr. Kells rested her elbow on her desk and her chin in her hand. She looked at me with sympathy. “Do you want to know what I think?”
Dazzle me. “I can’t imagine.”
“I think that you feel guilty about your best friend’s death. About your boyfriend’s death.”
“Ex!” I screamed. Shit.
Dr. Kells didn’t flinch. Her voice was calm. “Did something happen with you and Jude, Mara?”
I was breathing hard but I hadn’t realized it. I closed my eyes. Control yourself.
“Please tell me the truth,” she said softly.
“What does it matter?” A tear rolled down my cheek. Damn it.
“It’s going to be so much harder to help you otherwise. And I really do want to help you.”
I was silent.
“You know,” Dr. Kells said, leaning back in her seat. “Some teens have been in this program for years; they started here and then moved to our residential center, and they’ve been there ever since. But I don’t think you need that. I think this is just a way station for you. To help you get back to where you’re supposed to be. You’ve been derailed by everything that’s happened in the past six months—and that’s understandable. You survived a catastrophic accident.”
Not an accident.
“Your best friend died.”
I killed her.
“You moved.”
To try and forget what I did.
“Your teacher died.”
Because I wanted her to.
“Your father was shot.”
Because I forced someone’s hand.
“That’s more trauma than most people are faced with in a lifetime, and you’ve experienced it within six months. And I think it will help you to talk about it with me. I know you’ve seen other therapists before—”
Ones I liked better.
“But you’re here now, and I think that even though you don’t want to be here, you might find that it isn’t a waste of your time.”
The tears were flowing steadily now. “What do you want me to say?”
“What happened with Jude?”
My throat felt raw, and my nose itched from crying. “He—kissed me. When I didn’t want him to.”
“When?”
“That night. The night he—”
Died, I almost said. But he didn’t die. He was still alive.
“Did he do anything else?”
“He tried to.” And so I told Dr. Kells about that night, and what Jude tried to do.
“Did he rape you?” she asked.
I shook my head fiercely. “No.”
“How far did it go?”
My face flooded with heat. “He pushed me against the wall but . . .”
“But what?”
But I stopped him. “The building collapsed before anything else happened.”
Dr. Kells cocked her head to one side. “And he died, and you lived.”
I said nothing.
She leaned forward just slightly. “Does Jude ever tell you to do things you don’t want to do, Mara?”
I wanted to shake her. She thought he was some imaginary devil sitting on my shoulder, whispering evil thoughts in my ear.
“Do you think Jude is alive?” she asked again.
I wanted to take her by the collar of her perfectly pressed silk blouse and scream, “He is alive!” in her face. It took a mammoth force of will just to say the word, “No.”
Dr. Kells sighed. “Mara, when you lie, I have to adjust your course of treatment for that. I don’t want to have to treat you like you’re a pathological liar. I want to be able to trust you.”
She wouldn’t trust me if I told her the truth, but at the moment, I wasn’t convincingly lying. “I don’t think he’s alive,” I said, steadily. “I know he isn’t. But sometimes . . .”
“Sometimes . . .”
“Sometimes it scares me, you know?” I hedged. “The idea that he might be? Like a monster hiding in my closet, or under the bed.” There. Maybe that would give her what she wanted without making me sound like too much of a lunatic.
She nodded her head. “I understand completely. I think your fear makes sense, and it’s something I’d like to work on during your time here.”
I exhaled with relief. “Me too,” I lied again.
“Let’s say, hypothetically, that Jude didn’t die in the asylum.”
I didn’t mean I wanted to work on it today. “Okay . . .”
“Let’s say he’s in Florida.”
“Okay . . .”
“What do you think he’d be doing here? What’s your fear?”
I was in dangerous territory, but I didn’t know how to evade the question. “That he’s—that he would be stalking me.” Which he was.
“Why would he want to come all the way to Florida just to stalk you?”
