Chapter 24
O nce things have settled down on Ward D, I do a lap around the unit, looking for Cameron.
The first place I go is the staff lounge. It’s the obvious place to look for him. My eyes dart from the ancient sofa to the barred window to the dusty nook behind the door that is covered in spiderwebs. But he’s not anywhere in here.
My next stop is the staff restroom. The door is shut, so I knock on it—no answer. I try the door knob and it turns in my hand. But when I look inside, the bathroom is empty.
Then I start a lap around the unit, checking all the patient rooms.
I check Spider-Dan’s room first. The door to his room is open, and so is the door to the bathroom. He’s standing in front of the toilet, his wrists pointed at the wall. He’s trying to pee/shoot out webs. But either way, Cam isn’t here.
The next room is cracked open, and a man is sitting on his bed. I squint inside and notice that the man is licking his arms repeatedly. It’s the most bizarre thing—almost like a cat grooming itself. I move on.
The next room has a female patient inside. When she sees me standing at the door, she scrambles to her feet. She has black tangled hair and huge glasses that give her an owl-like appearance.
“Am I going home?” she asks me.
“Oh,” I say. “Um, no. I mean, I don’t know.”
“I need to go home.” She attempts to rake a hand through her tangled hair. “My son is home. I need to see my son.”
“I… I’m sorry… I don’t…”
“ I need to see my son! ”
I can see the pain in this woman’s eyes, but what can I do? I don’t even know who she is.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I mumble. Even though I’m lying.
The woman gives me a dirty look, because she almost certainly knows that I’m not going to see what I can do. She goes back into her room and slams the door hard enough that the entire frame shakes.
I should tell Dr. Beck that I can’t find Cameron, but Cam would be furious with me if I ratted him out that way for stepping outside—if that’s what happened.
Something not everybody knows is that Cam has a temper.
He manages to do a good job of hiding it.
And to be fair, he doesn’t fly off the handle very often.
But he acts like this good-natured guy all the time, and it’s easy enough to keep that act going with friends, but it’s harder to hide it from the girl that you’re dating.
The first time I ever witnessed Cameron’s temper was when he found out he didn’t get a spot in a prestigious year-long research fellowship on the west coast. Orthopedic surgery is a competitive specialty, and doing research is—according to Cam—essential to matching in a residency spot.
He and several other students in our class applied for the research position, which would have taken him to the California bay area between his second and third year of med school, and he believed he was a shoo-in.
We were hanging out in his bedroom, sitting together on his bed, when he got the email.
His left arm had been slung over my shoulders, and he pulled it away.
What the hell? Cam’s square face had turned a shade of pink. They didn’t pick me? Seriously?
I tried to look over his shoulder at the email, but he had already tossed it to the side of the bed. Then he leaped to his feet.
I can’t believe this! he ranted. How could they shaft me that way?
Is it that big a deal? I said. I mean, it’s just one fellowship. There are other research opportunities.
But this one is the best one. He started pacing his small bedroom. I don’t get it. I have the best grades in the class. It’s not like you were applying for the fellowship.
I ignored his jab because of how upset he was. You can’t let it get to you. There will be other opportunities.
And they picked David Tobin! His voice was growing in volume as the color of his face turned a shade closer to purple. How could they pick that asshole? I mean, what the hell is wrong with them? Seriously?
Cam was almost shouting now, but I didn’t genuinely know how upset he was until his fist flew into the wall of his room.
The plaster crunched under his knuckles, giving way to create a fist-sized crater in the wall.
He yelped and yanked his hand away, while I jumped off the bed.
For a moment, I wasn’t sure whether to flee or see if he was okay.
But the color in his face had returned to normal, and he wasn’t shouting anymore. He was just cradling his hand.
I ended up having to drive him to the emergency room to get x-rays of his hand, which thankfully did not show a fracture. While I was driving him home at two in the morning with his right hand in a splint, he hung his head and said to me, I’m sorry I overreacted like that, Amy.
At least he was embarrassed about the whole thing and he did apologize. It wasn’t the first time I saw that flash of anger. Most of the time, Cam did manage to keep his temper under wraps, but it was there. Lingering under the surface, waiting to be unleashed.
So the last thing I want to do is piss him off.
“Looking for your buddy?”
I shouldn’t be surprised to see Jade standing at the doorway to the next room. 905. She is still wearing those pink sweatpants and the tank top, with no bra underneath. She looks amused by my inability to find Cameron.
“He’s here somewhere,” I mumble.
“Maybe he wised up,” she says. “Maybe he got the hell out of here before something really bad happens.”
I look up sharply. “What are you talking about?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. There’s something in the air tonight. Something is going to happen. Don’t you feel it?”
Do I?
“I guess you need to spend a little more time on psych units to know the feeling,” Jade says.
“Yeah,” I mutter.
Her blue eyes skim over my body, making me squirm. She knows me in the way that only somebody who has been your best friend since kindergarten can know you. “I can’t believe you never ended up seeing a shrink.”
“It was unnecessary.”
“Really?” Her eyebrows shoot up to her hairline. “Are you really going to say that to me with a straight face?”
I don’t say anything to that comment.
“You know,” she says, “these things don’t just go away on their own. Once you’re seeing things that aren’t there and hearing voices, they never just go away.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say tightly. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to find Cameron.”
I can feel her eyes on me as I walk away. God, I wish she weren’t here tonight. She knows way too much about me. And if she were to tell Cameron or Dr. Beck…
It doesn’t matter. They wouldn’t believe her anyway.
I continue down the hallway until I get to the end, where the two seclusion rooms are located. Miguel still hasn’t quite settled down—he’s belting out an off-key version of “I Touch Myself” within the room. But at least he’s not screaming that Damon Sawyer is going to kill us.
As for Damon Sawyer, he is completely silent. It is, in fact, the first time I have walked past this room and not heard any sound coming from inside. He’s not begging me to let him out. He’s not throwing himself against the door.
But the keypad is still glowing green. He’s still locked in there.
Right?