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I rounded on Phoebe once we were left alone. “Why are you lying to them?”
She smiled at me. I wanted to hit her so badly.
I almost did.
I closed my eyes and breathed deeply instead, trying to shake her off. When I left the room, Noah was hanging back near one of the studios that flanked the hallway.
“What happened?” he asked, his voice low and wary.
“I overslept,” I said. I wanted to kick myself. “Phoebe woke me up in the middle of the night. She says I—I told her about Rachel and Claire. About everything.”
Noah didn’t comment. He just asked, “Who is that girl?”
I followed his eyes until they landed on Stella, who had folded herself into a chair in the common room. She cracked her knuckles and then rubbed absently at the faded left knee of her jeans.
“Stella,” I said. “She’s nice. A little moody sometimes, maybe. Why?”
“I saw her,” Noah said.
“Saw her—”
“Someone hurt her.” His gaze dropped to my hands. “Grabbed her wrist. Nearly broke it.”
My throat felt dry. “Why her?”
Noah rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know.”
“That’s how many?” I asked him.
“Five, now.”
“Me, Joseph, the two you don’t know, and now—”
Stella.
“Come on in, everyone!” Brooke called.
Noah and I shared one more look before settling into the room. I sat down next to Jamie, who was oddly quiet.
Brooke nodded to Wayne and they drew nearer to the periphery of the circle. “Okay, everyone,” she said to us. “We all know there was a little event this morning. Not a big deal, but we decided that it would be a good day to do some trust exercises.”
Loud groaning. Stella muttered a few of the only words I seemed to remember in Spanish, which were delightfully inappropriate.
“It doesn’t matter how many we do,” Phoebe called out. “You can’t trust Mara.”
Jamie began to chuckle silently. I stepped on his foot.
“Phoebe, I think we got a sense of your feelings about this earlier, so unless you have anything specific you’d like to share, I’d like to move along.”
Phoebe zeroed in on me as she spoke to Brooke. “I do have something specific I’d like to share.”
I didn’t like the sound of that.
“You all think Mara’s this innocent girl who’s just had really bad luck. She isn’t. She wants to hurt me. She wants to hurt all of us.”
Jamie lost it completely. His laughter would have been contagious. But despite Phoebe’s melodramatic presentation, what she said was disturbing. Not because it was true.
Because it was calculated. She was insane, but shrewd. Phoebe was saying these things on purpose for a purpose, and I couldn’t figure out what it was.
“Phoebe, why do you think Mara wants to hurt you?”
“Because she says so in her sleep.”
Shit.
Brooke looked at me, and then looked back at Phoebe. “When was this, Phoebe?”
“Last night.”
Okay, it was possible. She was gross and annoying and limited, but smart in that evil, demon-child way. But while I might have muttered something about killing her, maybe, I didn’t actually want her dead. Not like the others. I didn’t envision it. Not consciously.
Unconsciously?
Could I have dreamed about her death? What would happen if I wanted it while I slept?
Would she die?
“I can’t room with her, Brooke,” Phoebe said softly. Her chin began to tremble.
Here we go.
“I’m scared,” she added, for good measure.
“That’s why we’re going to do these trust exercises, Phoebe.”
“They won’t help!”
“They won’t if you don’t give them a chance,” Brooke admonished. “All right, everyone, I want you to stand up—Wayne, can you read the list of partners for this?”
Wayne read off the pairs. I was paired with Phoebe, to no one’s surprise. Jamie was with Noah. A girl I recognized from Horizons Miami was with Megan, and Adam was paired with a permanent. The pairings seemed like they were all roommate-roommate. Maybe to stave off a patient revolution?
“Okay, guys. The first thing we’re going to do is called a trust fall. We’re going to start in alphabetical order—that means if your name begins with a letter that comes earlier in the alphabet than your partner, you get to “fall” first, and your partner will catch you.”
Everyone started moving into their pairs. I noticed then that they’d moved floor cushions and yoga mats into the common room. Insurance, perhaps?
“When I count to three, the first person from each pair is going to fall.”
That would be me. I glanced at Phoebe behind me. She was smirking. This wasn’t going to go well. “You’d better catch me, Phoebe,” I whispered.
She ignored me.
“One,” Brooke began.
“I’m serious,” I said, as I backed toward her.
“Two.”
Phoebe had her arms out, and still hadn’t answered me.
“Three.”
I fell. On my ass.
“Motherf—!”
“She said she was going to slit my wrists!” she wailed to Brooke. “She whispered it when you weren’t listening!”
Brooke glanced at me and sighed. “This isn’t productive for your rooming relationship.”
Phoebe began to cry. Big, fat crocodile tears. “I can’t stay with her. I just can’t.”
I stood and glanced at Jamie, who shot me a sympathetic look. Noah was studying Phoebe. He knew something was up with her too.
Brooke was frustrated herself. And then she said something I didn’t expect to hear.
“Would anyone be willing to switch rooms and be Mara’s new roommate?”
Crickets.
I raised my hand.
“Yes, Mara?”
“I think I could manage without a roommate, Brooke.”
“No dice,” she said, her eyes flicking to my wrists. “I’m sorry. Guys, are you sure none of you would be willing to switch? I think it would help things out a lot . . .”
No one raised their hand. I tried to catch Stella’s eye, but she completely avoided my gaze and gave me the stare ahead in response to my visual pleading.
It was like being picked last for dodgeball, only so much worse.
Suddenly, there was a crash of ceramic hitting stone behind us.
I turned. Phoebe was standing near a toppled pedestal; a vase had shattered on the floor. Her face was red and her damp hair stuck in sweaty tendrils to her cheeks. You could hear a pin drop. Everyone was absolutely silent as Phoebe gulped in a few breaths, then reached for one of the shards.
“Phoebe!” an adult voice shouted. Soon, there were more adults in the room than I ever remembered seeing at Horizons individually.
“No one’s listening to me,” she wailed, but before she could grab one of the pieces of the smashed vase, Wayne had managed to get hold of her. He lifted her up and away.
“Page Kells, then get her journal,” I heard Brooke whisper to him. Phoebe was thrashing wildly but then Barney showed up and stood in front of her, blocking my view. Phoebe’s cries died away. When I saw her next, she was rag-doll limp in Wayne’s arms. He carried her out.
Jamie and I made eye contact.
“Weirdo,” Jamie said.
“Understatement,” I replied.
Jamie leaned in and whispered, “How’s your ass?”
“I’ll survive.”
“Saw that coming a mile away.”
“Me too. But that roommate thing? Worst. Ever.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I’m the creepy girl. In a mental hospital.”
He grinned. “Nobody’s perfect.”
59
THERE WAS A DEFINITE ADVANTAGE TO PHOEBE’S sedation: For the rest of the day, I wouldn’t have to listen to her talk. And tonight?
I wouldn’t have to worry that she would wake up.
I passed Noah a note, mimicking his from yesterday:
Tonight at one by the music studio? Make it happen?
When I caught his eye during dinner, he nodded yes. Each second fell away as the clock slipped forward. I wished, I needed, everyone to sleep. I conjured mental images of empty hallways. Of Barney in the common room, asleep in front of the television with his headphones on. Of Brooke in bed. No one needed to use the bathroom. No one felt like they had to monitor the halls. I imagined I could hear the sounds of everyone else turning over in their beds, rustling in their sheets, breathing quietly into their pillows.
And then it was time. I slipped off my blanket and slipped on my hoodie. I pulled it over my head and zipped it up to quiet the sound of my ferociously beating heart. When I shifted to stand, the mattress groaned and my eyes darted to the other side of the room.
Phoebe was sleeping.
I tiptoed to the door and opened it as softly as I could. The second I did, someone somewhere coughed and my heart leapt into my throat. I waited there in the doorway for what felt like hours.
Nothing.
I left the room. I walked down the hallway. And each time I passed another doorway, my heart stopped. When I rounded the corner by the common room, directly in front of the counselor’s desk, I mentally prepared myself to be directed back to bed.
But no one was there.
I practically ran the rest of the way to the studio. Where was everyone? The bathroom? Sleeping?
It didn’t really matter and I didn’t really care, because Noah stood in the silent corridor waiting for me, and I wanted nothing more than to fly into his arms.
I didn’t. I stopped.
“You made it,” he said with a smile.
I returned it. “You too.” I reached for the door to the music room, but I noticed the keypad.
“Are you serious?” I whispered through gritted teeth.
Noah hushed me, then pressed a series of numbers on the pad. I looked up at him incredulously.
“Everyone has a price,” he said, as the door in front of us clicked open. He held the door open for me, and I walked through.
The dark was impenetrable. Noah’s fingers twined around mine as he led me forward, and then down to the carpeted floor.
My eyes began to adjust somewhat to the darkness in the room. There was a small window at the far corner, letting in a sliver of moonlight that illuminated the planes and angles in his expressionless face.
He sat with his back against the wall, statue-still and cold. He withdrew his hand from mine.
I reached out to take it back, but he said, “Don’t.” His voice was laced with contempt. Poisonous.
“Don’t what?” I asked flatly.
His jaw locked, and he stared at me with empty eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t—” he started. “I don’t know what to—” He glanced down.
At my wrists.
So that’s what this was about. Noah wasn’t furious with me. He was furious with himself. It was hard to recognize still, because I was the opposite. I turned outward with anger. Noah turned in.
I put my hands on either side of his face, not gentle and not soft. “Stop it,” I said, my voice harsh. “You aren’t the one who hurt me. Stop torturing yourself.“
Noah’s expression didn’t change. “I wasn’t there.”
“You were trying to help,” I said. “You were trying to find answers—”
His slate blue eyes looked like iron in the darkness. “I swore I would be there for you and I wasn’t. I swore you would be safe, and you weren’t.”
“I’m—”
“You were terrified,” he said, cutting me off. “When you called me, I’ll never forget your voice.”
“Noah.”
“You told me about the notebook you didn’t remember writing in and I had never heard you—I’d never heard you sound like that.” His voice grew distant. “I scrambled to get to Boston to make the other flight the second we hung up. I did, and I was trapped on that f**king plane while he forced you—”
Noah didn’t finish his sentence. He nearly vibrated with rage, with the effort it took not to scream. “I felt you dying beneath my skin,” he said, his tone hollow. “I called Daniel from the plane—I dialed again and again until he woke up.” Noah met my eyes. “I told him you were going to kill yourself, Mara. I didn’t know how else to explain—what I saw.” His face was drawn in fury.
I wanted to draw something else.
My fingers traced the fine, elegant bones in his face. “It’s okay.”
“It is not okay,” he snapped. “They had you committed. They sent you here because of what I told them.”
“Because of what Jude did.”
He laughed without humor. “Your mother said I couldn’t see you—that you had to deal with this as a family now, and that they were going to send you somewhere for proper help. I couldn’t comprehend it—that the last time I heard your voice for months, it would be riddled with terror as you begged for your life.” He closed his eyes. “And I wasn’t there.”
“You were at the hospital,” I said, brushing my thumb over his beautiful mouth. “Daniel said you didn’t leave.”
Noah opened his eyes but avoided mine. “I managed to see you, once.”
“Really?”
He gave a short nod. “You were unconscious. You were—they had you in restraints.” He said nothing for what seemed like a very long time.
