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“I’m beinghuman,” Jordan mumbles.
Of course, Mitch is right about one thing: HannahisJordan’s favorite Belman patient. He’s played a lot of cards with Indy, and Michaela destroyed him in Connect Four, but so far only Hannah has seemed to truly want to talk to him.
Over and over again, he remembers the first time he saw her, and how he caught her like she was a wild animal. If he hadn’t been there, would she have made it back to wherever she lived? Would she have been better off?
Maybe that’s why he feels such a bewildering kind of responsibility for her. He’s the reason she’s here in this cage.
That it’s probably the best place for her strangely doesn’t make him feel better.
Now, when he knocks on the door of the quiet room, Hannah looks up and shrugs one thin shoulder at him. If it’s an invitation to enter, it’s an extremely half-assed one. He lets himself in, offering her a clementine he swiped from the break room. “How’re you feeling?” he asks.
She holds the fruit in her palm for a minute, thinking. “I feel like …” Hannah’s voice trails off. She rolls the clementine away into the corner, like it’s a ball she doesn’t want to play with.
Jordan retrieves it and shoves it back into his pocket.Don’t fill the silence, he reminds himself.Let her do the talking.
“Shit!” she exclaims.
“What?” he asks, suddenly alarmed.
She laughs. “I was answering your question,” she says. “I feel like shit.” She speaks slowly, as though she has to search for the right words. “Like a zombie: unalive, and also … paradoxically undead.”
Jordan squats down by the mattress so he’s not looming creepily above her anymore. And he sees, for the first time, two large scars beneath Hannah’s collarbone, one on each side of her chest. The ghosts of old stitches surround the scars like tiny white seeds.
God, he wants to say,what happened to you? Is this what Amy was talking about when she said she thought you’d been hurt?
But he doesn’t ask those questions. He says, “Can you tell me more about what that’s like?”
“You sound like my therapist,” Hannah says dryly. “I don’t need another therapist, believe me. I’ve had a million of them, and none of them have helped.”
“I just thought you might like to talk,” Jordan says.
Hannah sighs. “Sorry, I know. You’re not being nosy, you’re being helpful.”
“Well I’mtryingto be,” Jordan says. “I don’t know how well it’s working, though.”
“Are you fishing for compliments, Jordan Hassan?” Hannah asks. Her voice is suddenly lighter—almost playful.
“No,” he says earnestly. “I’m just—”
“Trying to be helpful, I know,” Hannah interrupts. “I appreciate it, I do. I’m glad you’re here. And I’m especially glad you’re not trying to shove pills down my throat or make me paint a self-affirmation mandala.”
Jordan laughs. “I’m not qualified to dispense meds, and I don’t even know what a mandala is.”
Hannah rolls her eyes. “Stick around here long enough and you will.”
“But do you want to talk about it?” Jordan asks. “About how you’re feeling? Or about … the other world?”
Instantly her demeanor shifts. She drags her fingers through her tangled hair in agitation. “It isn’t good.”
“Now you seem upset,” he says.
“Duh,” she snaps. “Could it be because my sister is dead? And Otto, too?”
Jordan’s taken aback. Mary was alive when he last talked to Hannah, and he still has no idea who Otto is. Too late, he realizes that his confusion is all too visible on his face.
“I thought you might be the one person who’d believe me, but I guess I was wrong,” Hannah says. She gazes up at the tiny window that’s covered in heavy wire mesh. “Maybe you think I should talk about how I feel after getting another ass-jab and spending the night in psych ward jail. Well, I want to talk about the fact that my sister is dead, the man I loved is dead, and both of these things are my fault.”
She seems so certain—of Otto and Mary, and also that Jordan won’t believe her. That he’s like everyone else. But Jordan’s not going to doubt her right now. If she believes in this so strongly, there’s got to be some kind of truth to it. Maybe notliteraltruth, but emotional truth. She’s got a family she cares about. Thinks about. Longs for.
