Chapter 27
O h my God.
Will is going to come out and realize that I’ve been going through his books and discovered his secret. He’s already got paranoid schizophrenia, and now I have discovered he is not on medications. What is he going to do when he realizes I know the truth?
I slam shut the cover to the copy of Garp and shove it back in the pile of books. Then I balance Owen Meany back on top. I’ve got them just barely positioned correctly when Will emerges from the bathroom.
Will blinks a few times at the sight of me, like he’s not certain if I’m a figment of his imagination or not. Which makes sense, considering he has been pocketing his medications since he’s been here.
“Amy?” he finally says.
“Sorry,” I say quickly. “I was trying to get a little sleep, and I couldn’t, so I thought I could borrow a John Irving book for the night. But I understand if you don’t want to lend me one.”
Will adjusts his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “Uh, sure. That’s fine. Which one do you want?”
I’m tempted to ask for Garp , just to see what he’ll say. But that would be tempting fate. The two of us are all alone in his room right now—and he’s mentally unbalanced. “Maybe… Cider House Rules ?”
“Sure.”
He walks over to the stack of books. As he sorts through them, he hesitates on the copy of Garp .
He shoots me a look, his eyes narrowing, and I hold my breath.
He opens his mouth, and I’m sure he’s going to ask me if I was looking through the book…
but then he doesn’t. He goes right past it and plucks one of the paperbacks out of the stack.
“Here you go,” he says. “Enjoy.”
“Thanks.” I take the book out of his hands, and my fingers brush slightly against his. “Appreciate it.”
Now that I’ve got the book, I recognize that I should get out of here.
Nothing good can come out of lingering in this room.
Yet part of me wonders if I can help this man.
Maybe I can get him to confess what he’s done and realize that the only way he’s going to get better is to take his medications.
After all, Dr. Beck mentioned that most patients with schizophrenia don’t even recognize they have a problem.
“So that was crazy what happened earlier with Miguel,” I say. “Wasn’t it?”
Will’s expression is still wary, but he nods. “Yeah, it’s the second crazy night in a row. Every time they lock somebody in one of those rooms, it’s a big event.”
“Yes,” I agree. I shift the copy of Cider House Rules between my hands. “That definitely seems like something you want to try to avoid at all costs.”
“Yeah.”
“I mean,” I say, “you wouldn’t want to do anything to make them think you should be in one of those rooms, right?”
He takes a step back as he sucks in a breath. “Why do you think they would want to put me in there?”
“I don’t,” I amend. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just mean that it seems like not following the rules in here can get you into trouble.”
“He peed on a light socket. I’m not going to do that.”
“Of course not.” I force a smile. “But there are other important rules. Like, you want to get better, don’t you?”
They say one of the negative symptoms of schizophrenia is not being able to make eye contact, but Will is making pretty good eye contact right now. He looks like he’s staring me down.
“I’m going to turn in now,” he says tightly.
“Are you sure?” I gesture at the chair in the corner of the room. “Because I’m awake if you feel like talking. I’d be happy to—”
“I don’t,” Will says abruptly.
Will is a bit of an enigma to me. Granted, I’m not a psychiatrist. But he seems like an intelligent guy who loves my favorite author and is an extremely talented piano player. If I were in that situation, and I were hearing voices…
Well, maybe that’s a bad example.
“All right,” I say. “I’ll let you get to sleep. If you’re having any trouble, I know this great breathing technique called four-seven-eight. What you do is—”
“No, thank you. I’ll pass.”
I force a smile. “Are you sure? Because—”
“I’m sure.”
Will follows me to the door of his room, and after I leave, he slams it shut behind me. He may not be sure if I discovered his secret, but he knows I’m suspicious of something .
Of course, after I get out of the room, I have a real dilemma.
Will has not been taking his medications.
And the entire reason he’s hospitalized here is to get better.
Dr. Beck needs to know about this. I don’t want to rat Will out, but it’s not like he confided in me. I discovered his secret by accident.
Clutching the copy of Cider House Rules in my right hand, I walk around the circle to get to the attending physician’s office.
It occurs to me as I approach the office that at this hour, it might be too late and maybe I should just save this information until the morning.
Then again, this is important, isn’t it?
What if something happens during the night?
And anyway, the light is on under the door. Dr. Beck must still be awake.
I knock gently on the door, hoping that if he is asleep, I won’t have to wake him. After a second, I hear shuffling behind the door and something that almost sounds like a crash. “Who is it?” Dr. Beck calls out.
“It’s Amy.”
There’s another long pause with a lot of shuffling.
After another minute, the door is yanked open.
Dr. Beck is standing there in just his scrubs, his hair slightly sticking up on the right side.
I hadn’t noticed when he was wearing his white coat, but he’s got a decent set of biceps peeking out from under his scrub sleeves.
“I’m so sorry!” I say. “Did I wake you?”
“No…” He yawns and rubs his eyes. “Okay, a little bit. I didn’t mean to drift off. But it’s fine. I’m up now, anyway.” He runs his fingers through his disheveled hair. “Anyway, what’s up? Is everything okay?”
“Kind of…” I glance behind me. “I was just talking to Will Schoenfeld, and I discovered that…”
Dr. Beck is looking at me intently. Now I’m starting to second-guess myself.
If I tell him the truth, it won’t be good for Will.
They may have to force him to take his medications, and whatever that involves, it won’t be pretty.
But actually, that’s to his benefit. He wants to get better, doesn’t he?
You can’t go through life hearing voices in your head.
“He’s been pocketing his medication,” I blurt out. “I found a whole bunch of them inside a book in his room.”
“Shit,” Dr. Beck breathes. Then he quickly adds, “Sorry. I’m tired. But… ugh. I can’t believe he’s been doing that.”
I tighten my grip on the copy of the book Will gave me. “So what now?”
“We may have to switch to intramuscular dosing,” Dr. Beck says. “I’m not the attending physician on service this week, so I’ll pass it on to the primary team in the morning. If there are any problems overnight, we’ll have to go to the injection route. I’m glad you told me.”
“No problem,” I say, even though I feel a twinge of guilt. I shouldn’t though. I’m doing this to help Will.
“Anything else?” Dr. Beck asks me.
There is one other thing. I feel guilty ratting out Cameron, but I have to say something—I’m starting to freak out that I can’t find him. “I don’t know where Cameron went. I think he might have left the unit.”
“Oh.” He looks back into his office. “Actually, Cameron left a message on my machine. Apparently, he had some family emergency and had to leave immediately.”
I guess that solves the mystery of what happened to Cam and why I can’t find him anywhere.
But it’s strange that he would leave a phone message with that information.
Especially when Dr. Beck is right here on the floor, and pretty easy to locate.
Why wouldn’t he talk to Dr. Beck directly?
Also, why wouldn’t Cam tell me if something happened?
It’s not like we’re total strangers. “I see…”
“I did think it was strange,” Dr. Beck admits. “I wish he had spoken to me directly about it. But he sounded pretty upset on the phone. Choked up. So he probably wasn’t thinking too clearly.”
Cameron was choked up? That’s hard to imagine. Whenever we used to watch sad movies together and I would get tearful, he would look at me like I was out of my mind. Even when he was breaking up with me, he barely seemed upset.
“I hope he’s okay,” I finally say.
“Are you hanging in there okay?” He reaches out and rests a hand on my shoulder. “You look like you’re having a tough night. I know that was kind of jarring with Miguel. I’m sorry you had to see that.”
He doesn’t know the half of it, but I’m not going to open up to him, even though he is a psychiatrist—or maybe because he’s a psychiatrist. I don’t want the guy judging me.
And it would be very unprofessional to have that kind of talk with my supervisor for the night.
I wouldn’t want it to get around at school that I’m…
“I’m fine,” I say. “Just tired.”
He nods sympathetically. “Try to get some sleep, okay?”
I agree with him, but it’s a lost cause at this point.
I say good night to Dr. Beck and trudge back to the staff lounge, to try to read until I drift off to sleep. But when I get there, I realize I’m not alone. Somebody is waiting for me in the lounge.
It’s Jade.
And she looks really pissed off.