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Jeremy frowns, like he’s not sure he’s ready to give up trying me, but he’s not sure how to get the conversation back to where he wants it either.
I shove the envelope into my pocket, forcing myself to relax. “Hope not,” I say quickly, reminding myself that after I get back to the room, I’m going to make Sam note down the amount and for what. It’ll be good practice. “That mouse is good for business.”
“Yeah, because you just want to keep taking our money,” says Rahul, but he smiles when he says it.
I shrug my shoulders. There’s no good answer.
“I bet it chews off one of its feet and gets away,” Jeremy says. “That thing is a survivor.”
“So bet, Jeremy,” Rahul says. “Put up.”
“I don’t have it on me,” says Jeremy, turning the front pockets of his pants inside out with an exaggerated gesture.
Rahul laughs. “I’ll cover you.”
The mocha burns my throat. I’m hating everything about this conversation. “If you need to collect, Sam’s going to be taking care of things for me.”
They stop their negotiation and look across the room at Sam. He’s sitting at the table in front of a pile of graph paper, painting a lead figurine. Next to him Jill Pearson-White rolls strange-sided dice and pumps her fist into the air.
“You trust him with our money?” Rahul asks.
“I trust him,” I say. “And you trust me.”
“You sure we can still trust you? That was some serious One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest–type behavior last night.” Jeremy’s new girlfriend is in drama club, and it shows in his movie references. “And now you’re going away for a while?”
Even with the coffee running in my veins and the long nap this afternoon, I’m tired. And I’m sick of explaining about the sleepwalking. No one believes me anyway. “That’s personal,” I say, and then tap the part of the envelope sticking out of my pocket. “This is professional.”
* * *
That night, lying in the dark and looking up at the ceiling, I’m not sure the sugar and caffeine I’ve gulped will be enough to keep me awake until dawn. There is no way they’ll ever let me back into Wallingford if I sleepwalk again, so I don’t want to risk dozing off. I can hear the dog outside the door, its toenails clicking across the wood planks of the hallway before it settles into a new spot with a soft thud.
I keep thinking about Philip. I keep thinking about how, unlike Barron, he hasn’t looked me in the eyes since I was fourteen. He never even lets me play with his son. Now I am going to have to stay in a house with him until I can figure my way back to school.
“Hey,” Sam says from the other bed. “You’re creeping me out, staring at the ceiling like that. You look dead. Unblinking.”
“I’m blinking.” I keep my voice low. “I don’t want to fall asleep.”
He rustles his covers, turning onto his side. “How come? You afraid you’re going to—”
“Yeah,” I say.
“Oh.” I’m glad I can’t see his expression in the darkness.
“What if you did something so terrible that you didn’t want to face anyone who knew about it?” My voice is so soft that I’m not even sure he can hear me. I don’t know what made me say it. I never talk about stuff like that, and certainly not with Sam.
“You did try to kill yourself?”
I guess I should have seen that coming, but I didn’t. “No,” I say. “Honest.”
I imagine him weighing possible responses, and I wish I could take back the question. “Okay. This terrible thing. Why did I do it?” he asks finally.
“You don’t know,” I say.
“That doesn’t make sense. How can I not know?” The way we’re talking reminds me of one of Sam’s games. You reach a crossroads and there’s a small twisty path going toward the mountains. The wide path seems to run in the direction of town. Which way do you go? Like I’m a character he’s trying to play and he doesn’t like the rules.
“You just don’t. That’s the worst part. It’s not something you want to believe you’d ever do. But you did.” I don’t like the rules either.
Sam leans back against the pillows. “I guess I’d start with that. There must be a reason. If you don’t figure out why, you’ll probably do it again.”
