I walk very, very slowly down the hall.
I’m not just lying by omission by not telling Jessie. I’m lying to myself aboutwhy.
Because If I really admit it to myself, I’m notthatafraid of coming off as crazy. I’m herebecauseI’m crazy, after all. This is quite literally a mental hospital—an upscale, classed-up, ferociously expensive mental hospital, but still: it’s no wellness retreat, as Jessie said.
So no, I’m not keeping their secret out of self-protection. I can’t go on telling myself that I am.
I’m keeping it because…
Because despite everything they did to me, personally, despite the deception and the secrecy and the betrayal and the two kisses that made me?—
I clench a fist, warding off the memories.
Despiteall of that.I’m not telling.
Because if they’re right, and if it’s real, then I want them to succeed.
And I certainly don’t want to be the reason they fail.
The Renfrew library is a joke.A single, thousand-pound carved wooden bookcase in the dayroom that looks like it’s from someone’s grandmother’s Sears-catalog set, filled with paperbacks in three categories: religious treacle, “young adult” novels old enough to have teenage children of their own, and airport bestsellers of yesteryear.
Still, after my session with Jessie, when I’m cut loose until dinner, that’s where I go, giving it a perfunctory skim to make sure there wasn’t a surprise shipment of sexy romantasy or grisly true crime or anything actually worth reading. No such luck. I select my current read—a battered hardcover ofThe Michelangelo Matrix,which I’m reading mostly to laugh at the bad scholarship—and settle into my usual reading corner.
What if the world’s most genius artist had hidden the truth about the legendary Garden of Eden in his paintings?asks the peeling dust jacket.
What if, indeed, I wonder.
There’s a handful of other girls lounging around, some gossiping in a knot of armchairs, one or two curled up to themselves, all of us wearing the pale blue Renfrew sweats. I give the barest nod of greeting, but focus very intently on the book, as if I’m desperate to get back to the world of “elite mythographer”—not a word—“Dr. Patton Montgomery” and his “beguiling research assistant, Fabienne de la Croix.”
“Called me a cow and told me no one wants to marry a girl with cankles.” One of the gossiping girls—Sophia, with thin,dark hair and moon-pale skin—says, and shrugs. “I was six.” She looks at the girl next to her, eyebrows lifted in a challenge. “And?”
Amanda, with her heart-shaped face and sunken eyes, nervously twists the end of her long, straw-colored hair.
“Mine’s not so bad.”
“Bitch, please.” Miri, whose eyeliner is somehow impeccably sharp despite the non-contraband makeup permitted inside Renfrew being as waxy as dollar-store crayons, snorts. “No one carves themselves up like a Thanksgiving turkey because they love their mommy too much. She must have done something.”
Maybe it’s my imagination, but the thin scar-tissue cross on my chest gives a single throb.
“Fine, I’ll go.” Miri rolls her eyes, then purses her lips in a triumphant little smile. “Found her new boyfriend in my bedroom and calledmea whore for trying to steal him.”
Amanda gasps.
“I mean, to be fair, Iwas,” Miri says. “That’s just the borderline in me. Crazy bitch is as crazy bitch does.” She sticks out her tongue. Then notices me. Staring.
I quickly look back down at my book, but it’s too late.
“Got something you wanna add, Gwenna?” Miri says, notunkindly. “We’re just swapping maternal trauma. Worst thing your mom’s ever said to you—go.”
I lower the book.
Honestly? In that department, I’m spoiled for choice. Especially in the past seven weeks.
I’m not paying to get you help, Gwenna. I’m paying because I can’t live like this anymore.
Everyone’s silent.
“Damn,” Miri says. “That’s fucked up.”
