What do I do now? Jordan thinks. This is way above his pay grade. He looks up and down the hallway, but no one else is coming to help.
Meanwhile Hannah’s in there, pleading with him to listen to her, and he can’t just walk away. She looks so distraught. So alone.
The door is locked. But he has a keycard, so nothing’s stopping him from going in. And so, a moment later, he does. He realizes instantly that Michaela was right: it’s freezing in there. And yeah, it’s spooky, too.
Hannah pats the vinyl mattress, and Jordan hesitates only for a second before sitting down next to her.
“Hi,” he says, and then he doesn’t have any idea what to say next.
“What’s your name again?” she asks.
“Jordan,” he says. “Jordan Hassan.”
“Well, Jordan Hassan, I’m Hannah. It’s nice to meet you,” she says. “I wish it could be under different circumstances, of course.” She flashes a sudden and surprising smile. “Like, it’d be better if we started talking because we were next to each other on the F train. Or what if we’d met because we wanted the same apple from the fruit cart on 45th? That’d be nicer, right, than you letting yourself into my jail cell?” Her voice is low and lilting—musical, even.
“Maybe,” Jordan says, smiling back at her, oddly charmed. “But I don’t think the F’s so great, do you? Maybe we should have met in a coffee shop. Or in line for a movie.”
“That sounds great,” she agrees. “As long as it’s not a horror movie.”
He shakes his head. “No way. I saw Sinister when I was a kid, and then I was scared for two whole weeks.”
“That’s cute,” Hannah says. “Did you learn your lesson?”
“Yeah, I stuck with Disney movies for about a decade after that.” It’s an exaggeration, but barely.
Her laugh’s even more musical than her voice. “Jungle Cruise is your jam, huh?”
“I’ll see anything with The Rock in it,” he says, and this is definitely not an exaggeration.
He’s surprised at how easy it is to sit in the quiet room with Hannah, and how perfectly regular she seems right now. She could be a girl in one of his classes, or down the hall in his dorm. How is it that only yesterday she was carried into the room kicking and screaming?
She fiddles with her tangled hair. “So you’re new here,” she says.
He nods. “Very.” And don’t tell anyone, but it’s kind of overwhelming.
“I’m going to let you in on a little secret,” she says.
“What?”
“I don’t belong here,” she whispers.
Jordan’s not surprised to hear this. He’s been interning for less than a week, and this is the twentieth time someone has spoken that sentence. He asks, “At Belman? Or in the quiet room?”
“I mean in this century,” Hannah says.
To be successful here, Jordan, you’ll need to be able to tell when a patient is delusional…
Maybe Hannah sees a flicker of doubt cross his face, or maybe she just changes her mind. She says, “Actually—forget that. Never mind.”
“No, please,” he says, not wanting to shut her down. Engage with the patients, Amy had said to him. Be open and friendly. “I wish you’d keep going.”
She sighs. Her shoulders slump. “Do you know what it feels like to not be believed?”
Jordan gives a half shrug. “The summer before college, my brother hid a handle of whiskey in my closet, and my parents couldn’t be convinced it wasn’t mine. Does that count?” he asks.
Hannah rolls her eyes. “Barely,” she says. “But if that’s what we have to work with…” Then she gets up and goes to look out the tiny window into the hall. Jordan sees her wave to someone. “That’s Mitch on safety check,” she says to him. “I’m just letting him know that I’m fine.”
“Nice of you,” he says.
“Not really, I just don’t want him bothering me,” she says. She smiles again. “Bothering us.” She sits back down next to him. “I might like talking to you, Jordan Hassan. Is that weird?”
He feels a nervous jolt of pleasure. Already he can tell that he likes talking to her, too. For one thing, it makes him feel like he might be able to do a good job here. For another, she’s surprising and curious and crackling with energy. Despite the fact that she’s locked in a room, wearing shapeless, invalid clothes, with hair that hasn’t seen a brush in weeks, there’s an aura of assurance about her right now. Of charisma—power, even.
“So do you want to hear what I have to say?” she asks.
“Yes, I want to hear what you have to say,” he says. “And I want to believe it, too.”