Chapter 33
PRESENT DAY
I t’s only after Dr. Beck has gone back to his office that I realize Jade has witnessed our entire encounter.
She’s been watching from the doorway to her room, leaning against the frame, an amused look on her face. Her lipstick is still smeared, and now so is her mascara. The light is off in her room, and her face is glowing under the dim hall lights.
“So,” she says, “you’re still seeing things then.”
“No.” I shiver in my scrubs. “I’m not.”
“Okay, so…. you didn’t just hallucinate a pool of blood in the hallway?”
There’s nothing I can say to that. She’s right. I did imagine a pool of blood in the hallway. It looked so real. But now I can clearly see that there’s no blood there. There isn’t even anything that could be mistaken for blood.
I can’t believe this is happening to me. Not again.
“And you hear things too,” she says. “Don’t you?”
My knees almost buckle beneath me. Since I set foot on this unit, I’ve been hearing noises coming from Seclusion One. Noises that nobody else seems to hear or be bothered by. So does that mean…?
“You should have gotten help when we were sixteen,” Jade says. “You could have. You could’ve been honest with everyone.”
“I’m fine,” I say weakly. “Okay, I was… I was having issues for a little while. But it passed. Maybe it was… I don’t know, hormonal.”
“Hormonal!” Jade bursts out. “Oh, Amy. Is that really the lie you’re telling yourself?”
“Keep your voice down…”
“You shouldn’t be ashamed of who you are.”
“At least I didn’t rob a bank with a beer bottle!”
Jade’s eyes widen, and for a moment, I’m scared I’ve gone too far. But then she throws her head back and laughs. “Oh my God, I knew you were going to read my chart eventually. You’re so predictable!”
“Yeah, well…”
She winks at me. “If I give you a chance, you always end up doing the wrong thing.”
I grunt. “I’m going to try to get some sleep. I… I must just be tired and that’s why I thought I saw the blood.”
“Yes, just keep telling yourself that…”
Jade is still chuckling to herself as I walk away from her, back to the staff lounge. I want to shrug off her comments, but it’s hard. I was so sure I saw blood on the floor. But it wasn’t there. I can’t argue with that.
And I also can’t argue that it isn’t the first time I have seen something that wasn’t there.
When I get back to the lounge, the lights are out. I frown, trying to remember whether I turned them off or not. No, I’m sure I left them on. I remember thinking to myself that I didn’t want to return to a dark room, and that’s why I made a point of keeping them on.
Of course, it’s entirely possible Ramona came by and shut the lights off. Preserving electricity, and all that. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything.
And then I see him.
The dark figure in the corner of the room. Waiting for me. And the door slams shut.
I don’t even have time to scream.