“Excuse me?”
“Ex-boyfriend.”
Dr. West tilted her head slightly and employed her carefully neutral psychologist expression, one I recognized well since I’d seen it often on my psychologist mother. Particularly in the past few months.
“You said that you caused the abandoned asylum in Rhode Island to collapse, crushing your best friend, Rachel, and Jude’s sister, Claire, inside. You said Jude sexually assaulted you, which is why you tried to kill him. And you said he survived. You said he’s here.”
She was perfectly calm as she spoke, which magnified my panic. Those words in her mouth sounded crazy, even though they were true. And if Dr. West knew, then so did—
“Your mother brought you here for an evaluation.”
My mother. My family. They would have heard the truth too, even though I hadn’t planned to tell it. Even though I didn’t remember telling it.
And this was where it got me.
“We didn’t begin yesterday because you were sedated.”
My fingers wandered up my arm, beneath the short sleeve of my white T-shirt. There was a Band-Aid on my skin, covering what must have been the injection site.
“Where is she?” I asked, picking at the Band-Aid.
“Where is who?”
“My mother.” My eyes scanned the hallway through the glass, but I didn’t see her. The hall looked empty. If I could just talk to her, maybe I could explain.
“She’s not here.”
That didn’t sound like my mother. She didn’t leave my side once when I was admitted to the hospital after the asylum collapsed. I told Dr. West as much.
“Would you like to see her?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, we can see if we can work that out later.”
Her tone made it sound like that would be a treat for good behavior, and I didn’t like it. I swung my legs over the bed and stood up. I was wearing drawstring pants, not the jeans I last remembered myself in. My mother must have brought them from home. Someone must have changed me. I swallowed hard. “I think I want to see her now.”
Dr. West stood up as well. “Mara, she isn’t here.”
“Then I’ll go find her,” I said, and started looking for my Chucks. I crouched to look under the bed, but they weren’t there.
“Where are my shoes?” I asked, still crouched.
“We had to take them.”
I rose then, and faced her. “Why?”
“They had laces.”
My eyes narrowed. “So?”
“You were brought here because your mother thought you may be a danger to yourself and others.”
“I really need to talk to her,” I said then, struggling to keep my voice even. I bit down hard on my bottom lip.
“You’ll be able to.”
“When?”
“Well, I’d like you to speak with someone first, and have a doctor come in, just to make sure you’re—”
“And if I don’t want to?”
Dr. West just looked at me. Her expression was sad.
My throat wanted to close. “You can’t keep me here unless I consent,” I managed to say. I knew that much, at least. I was a lawyer’s daughter and I was seventeen years old. They couldn’t keep me here unless I wanted to be kept. Unless—
“You were screaming and hysterical and you slipped. When one of our nurses tried to help you up, you punched her.”
No.
“It became an emergency situation, so under the Baker Act, your parents were able to consent for you.”
I whispered so I wouldn’t scream. “What are you saying?”
“I’m sorry, but you’ve been involuntarily committed.”
2
WE HOPE THAT YOU’LL ALLOW A DOCTOR TO DO a physical examination,” she said kindly. “And that you’ll consent to our treatment plan.”
“What if I don’t?” I asked.
“Well, your parents still have time to file the appropriate papers with the court while you’re here—but it would be really wonderful for you, and for them, if you cooperated with us. We’re here to help you.”
I couldn’t quite remember ever feeling so lost.
“Mara,” Dr. West said, drawing my eyes to hers, “do you understand what this means?”
It means that Jude is alive and no one believes it but me.
It means that there is something wrong with me, but it isn’t what they think.
It means that I’m alone.
But then my racing thoughts trailed an image in their wake. A memory.
The beige walls of the psychiatric unit evaporated and became glass. I saw myself in the passenger seat of a car—Noah’s car—and saw my cheeks stained with tears. Noah was next to me, his hair messy and perfect and his eyes defiant as they held mine.
“There is something seriously wrong with me, and there’s nothing anyone can do to fix it,” I said to him then.
“Let me try,” he said back.
That was before he knew just how deeply screwed up I was, but even when the last piece of my armor cracked on marble courthouse steps, revealing the ugliness beneath it, Noah wasn’t the one who left.
I was.
Because I killed four people—five, if my dad’s client never woke up—with nothing more than a thought. And the number could have been higher—would have been higher, if Noah hadn’t saved my father’s life. I never meant to hurt the people I loved, but Rachel was still dead and my father was still shot. Less than forty-eight hours ago, I thought the best way to keep them safe was to keep myself away.
But things were different, now. Jude made them different.
No one knew the truth about me. No one but Noah. Which meant he was the only one who could possibly fix this. I had to talk to him.
“Mara?”
I forced myself to focus on Dr. West.
“Will you let us help you?”
Help me? I wanted to ask. By giving me more drugs when I’m not sick, not with anything worse than PTSD? I’m not psychotic, I wanted to say.
I’m not.
But I didn’t appear to have much of a choice, so I forced myself to say yes. “But I want to talk to my mother first,” I added.
“I’ll give her a call after your physical—okay?”
It wasn’t. Not at all. But I nodded and Dr. West grinned, deepening the folds in her face, looking for all the world like a warm, kindly grandmother. Maybe she was.
