The pale blue plus sign on the test stick worked like an on switch. Hannah immediately started wailing in the middle of the girls’ room. Between us, she slid down the door and puddled at our feet. Sophie stared at me over Hannah’s head. “What are we going to do?” she mouthed at me.

“What am I going to do?” Hannah moaned below us.

I knelt down. “We’re going to deal.” Hannah looked searchingly at me. “Really.” She covered her face with her hands and her shoulders shook with sobs. I motioned for Sophie to crouch down with us.

“You had a feeling, right?” Sophie rubbed circles on her back. “So maybe we should just trust your instincts here. Right now let’s just get you to bed. You need a good sleep and then we can sort through everything tomorrow.”

“Together?”

“Right.” I motioned for Sophie to get Hannah’s other side and tried to help her up.

Hannah stopped us midway. “Wait. You’re not going to turn me in, right?”

“What are you talking about? What would we turn you in for?”

“You could say you thought I looked pregnant. Then it would be easier to just play it off like I was crazy. No one else would get in trouble.” Hannah’s eyes stared at me, defeated. “It’s okay. I get it. But I don’t want to go to sleep feeling like I have you guys and then wake up and find out that I have no one.”

“Hannah, stop,” Sophie said softly.

“Honestly, just tell me now.” She started weeping again and I wondered again who had hurt her so much that she expected that we’d turn on her.

“You’re going to wake up tomorrow and it’s going to be really hard,” Sophie said. “But the one thing you can be certain of is that you’ll have Greer and me on your side.”

“You think I’m weird,” Hannah wailed. “I know you think I’m weird.”

“Well, yeah.” Sophie swung to look at me. I kept Hannah’s gaze. “You’re kind of weird, dude. That doesn’t mean we’re going to abandon ship, you know. I mean, you make life interesting.”

Hannah exhaled and sniffled. “I do.” Sophie and I nodded solemnly. Hannah snickered a little.

When we got to her room, Hannah asked, “Could you tuck me in? You know? That’s a little crazy, but —”

“No — it’s not crazy.” Sophie said it first. I nodded, next to her. “I miss having someone tuck me in too.” Sophie bent down and brushed the hair from Hannah’s face. I tugged up her blanket and folded it carefully under her chin.

“Night, night, Hannah,” I said, and Sophie even kissed her forehead.

“This baby will always have someone to tuck her in,” Hannah told us. “Or him. Someone will always tuck him in.” I saw Sophie cringe as we headed out.

In the hallway, she blew out a long breath. “Holy crap,” I said. “Why was that so bad — what Hannah said?” Sophie just looked at me. “Because she’s thinking of it as a baby? Right?” Sophie started walking down the hall. “Soph — what are we going to do?”

“We’re not going to do anything until Hannah makes a decision. And then we’re going to do what we have to, right?” I guess I didn’t respond quickly enough because Sophie said, “Greer, you can’t tell Addison anything.”

“Of course not.”

“Seriously. We might need the element of surprise, and it wouldn’t be fair to put Addison in that position.”

“What position?”

“Choosing.”

But that sounded so stupid to me. I’d thought we had already decided that Addison would need to decide between Joshua and us at some point. And seeing Hannah, having proof of what Joshua had done — well, Addison couldn’t exactly argue with that.

“You’d be surprised,” Sophie warned me. “He’s brainwashed.”

“Stop it. He doesn’t have all the information yet.”

“And he can’t yet.”

“Fine. But eventually we’ll tell him. And you’ll see — Addison will surprise you.” Silence from Sophie. “He’s a really good guy.” Still nothing. “All that stuff that Joshua lectures about — integrity and respecting the universe and believing — it’s not all wrong just because of who Joshua is or what he’s done.”

We’d reached my door. Sophie still hadn’t responded to me. Finally she said, “I know. We just used up my special reassurance powers on Hannah. I can’t do this right now.”

That stung. I felt my face go hot and my body kind of coil up, ready to lash out. And then I didn’t. I couldn’t afford to be angry with Sophie too. “Night.” I still bit off the word and spit it.

Sophie didn’t seem to notice. But she turned and called to me as I slipped into my room, “Greer.” I figured she would say she was sorry. But she said, “We have to stop him. Think of what he did to her. To all of us, really.”

It’s all I thought about — that night and long after.

 

I don’t remember a single class from those first few days after we found out about Hannah. Mostly I sat at desks, running scenarios through my mind. Then I’d notice people packing up books to leave and get up to go to another room. To sit at another desk. Addison assumed it was anxiety about Joshua that was distracting me. I let him think that, even though it made my chest hurt.

Once, after I’d missed two questions in lit class, Addison reached over and grasped the nape of my neck and said, “Try to be present, Greer. Joshua wouldn’t want us to use him as an excuse to slack off.” I must have looked up at him, dumb. “Greer, Greer — try to be here,” he said, in the familiar singsong that used to make me feel shaky in a different way. “Seriously, you okay?”

I shook myself out of the zombie state to say, “Sure. I just had a lousy sleep, is all.” But it was too late — Dr. Rennie had already pounced on the moment.

“Greer Cannon? Why don’t I write you a late pass?” I looked to Addison for rescue, but Dr. Rennie had already patted the seat next to his desk. “Converse with me,” he requested. “Please.”

I mustered my most dramatic sigh, but felt secretly relieved. Addison stalled a little, lingering at the door with his brow furrowed into a question. “I’m good,” I told him. “No worries.” He held on to the door frame.

“I’ll take good care of her, Mr. Bradley.”

In the hot seat, I tried to focus on convincing Dr. Rennie I felt okay. “I’m just not used to the mattresses here,” I told him.

“Really? How long have you been with us now?”

I shrugged. “Months.”

“Because even in those first weeks, before you had any kind of privileges, I thought, We’ve got a sharp cookie here. Maybe those bastards in the admissions office finally gave me something to work with.”

I doubted that. Maybe he’d thought that about Addison. Addison was the one who’d walked into class quoting Browning.

He went on. “Something’s wrong. Usually I’d dismiss it as star-crossed lovers, but Boy Wonder over there seems as attentive as always. You okay?”

Sometimes the disguises people put on — the smarmy voices or lame attempts to relate — they just fall away all of a sudden. That’s what happened with Dr. Rennie. He seemed human, briefly. Like he actually cared. This sad comfort washed over me.

I pressed my lips together and made myself keep my mouth perfectly straight. No quivering lip. If you stare long enough — unfocused, over someone’s shoulder — you can stop yourself from crying. When I felt steady enough, I answered, “Yeah.”

When Dr. Rennie asked me, “Do you feel like you’re making progress here?” I felt myself deflate. Back to the school-approved lingo.

I didn’t feel like playing the game. “No” was all I said.

Dr. Rennie didn’t seem angry or disappointed. I waited to see him reach for a pen and jot down a note to pass on to the deans later. But he didn’t do that. He just kept gazing at me patiently. Waiting.

“I don’t really feel like the goal was actually for me to make progress,” I heard myself say. Then I tried to make it sound more cooperative. “I mean, there’s a system here that works, I guess. But that’s not why my parents sent me here. I don’t think that’s why most of us came here.”

“Oh?” Dr. Rennie asked me in a way that made me think he wasn’t allowed to agree with me.

“It just feels like the ultimate grounding.”

He nodded carefully. “I can see how it might feel that way to you.” They must all have taken classes to talk like that. They must have all attended professional workshops in the bullshit vocabulary of caring.

“It’s not like I’ve undergone this miraculous transformation. Just now my parents don’t have to deal with me.” Dr. Rennie just let me talk. “So what happens? McCracken scrubs my transcript and now I can go to college or something. My parents can have four more years of ignoring me.”

Dr. Rennie swallowed. I watched his Adam’s apple bob in his throat. “You haven’t had a family visit yet.” I couldn’t tell if he was asking or just remarking.

“Sometimes my dad remembers to call during our scheduled family sessions. I get to hear him on speakerphone.” Dr. Rennie grimaced. “It’s okay. I don’t want to deal with them either.” We both heard the lie in that. How freaking embarrassing. I spoke quickly. “Listen, I know how it goes. They’re writing tuition checks and all; you can’t take my side. But don’t expect me to buy into it. That’s all.”

There was a long pause, during which I guess Dr. Rennie weighed the professional risk of being honest with me. He went with the old standby: “I hear you and I appreciate your candor.” He gestured at me, sitting in the chair beside him. “But this is different. We wouldn’t have been able to have this conversation when you first arrived at McCracken Hill.” He sort of grinned at me then. “Without you throwing something, I should add.”

That got a nod. Point awarded to Dr. Rennie. But I still wasn’t buying what McCracken Hill was selling. “I don’t think this place did that, though.” In a split second, I saw his eyes flicker toward the desk where Addison had been sitting. “Not just Addison. Other people — I have really good friends here. That hasn’t happened for a long time.” God, I sounded pathetic. I really hoped he wouldn’t report this crap in a faculty meeting. I could already see Ms. Crane’s smug look. “I just didn’t have relationships like that at home.”

“Well, that’s good news.” He sounded like he meant it. “But give yourself a little credit, Greer. You’ve readied yourself for those friendships. Maybe the system doesn’t seem like it’s working to you. I’m going to keep believing in it.”

“Well, if it pays the bills …”

“Don’t —” Dr. Rennie interrupted me sharply. “Don’t presume to know my intentions.” Then he muttered, “We’re not exactly raking it in over here.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. That was out of line.” He gestured at me again, like, See? Look how reformed you are.

Maybe I was trying to make up for insulting him and that’s why I went balls-out honest. Or as close to honest as I could afford to be. “What if I don’t buy everything? Like I know there’s something fundamentally wrong with it?” Dr. Rennie thought I meant McCracken, but really I was thinking of Joshua’s limp up the stairs to the second floor of the cabin, leading Hannah up behind him. And then his jog to the taxi stand. I thought of Wes’s resentful silence and the little blue plus sign on Hannah’s test kit.

“You mean, does that discount the learning you’ve done?” Dr. Rennie asked me. “What do you think?”

“This could also work well if you’d just give me the answers,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, but I’m human, correct? This will shock you, but I have flaws. Maybe not devastating ones.” I took this to mean that Dr. Rennie did not actually sleep with his students in the name of pseudoreligious rituals or claim to undergo medical treatments lifted from sci-fi scripts. He wore tacky ties. In lecture, he used the phrase for what it’s worth too often. But I let Dr. Rennie go on with his bad self — fine, he had flaws.

“Do those flaws mean that you need to discount my F. Scott Fitzgerald lecture? Do we write him off because he was a drunk? You know?”

I knew. Dr. Rennie sat back, like he was thinking long and hard about something. “You could always look for a way to point out those shortcomings. In a respectful manner, of course,” he offered. Dr. Rennie was probably envisioning me standing in front of my treatment team, glancing at notes I’d carefully penciled onto index cards. “I can’t imagine that an institution so focused on growth would shut down that conversation.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Well, not outright anyway,” Dr. Rennie said, then sighed. “Perhaps this hasn’t been as helpful a talk as I’d hoped.”

“No, it has.” We both just sat there. Finally I said, “Thanks.” And then decided to dwell in the possibility that Dr. Rennie was actually not an asshat. “Hey, Dr. Rennie? Maybe if someone else needed to hear this …”

“Bring him in.”

But later on, even the suggestion made Addison choke on his fruit punch. “So you had a heart-to-heart with the great Dr. Rennie and you think I need to schedule a session?” He’d stopped me on my way to my assigned table at dinner. I held the tray low, by my waist, so Mr. Mikkelsen couldn’t see that Addison’s hand gripped my thigh.

“Not a session. Just talk to him.”

“About the reading?”

“No, just about stuff that’s going on.”

Addison whispered, “What did you tell him?” His fingers tightened around my leg. It hurt.

“Nothing. We mostly talked about my parents.”

“Bullshit.” Addison glowered at me.

“No. I swear.”

Mr. Mikkelsen finally noticed me. “Move it along to your assigned table, Greer.”

Addison stood. “I’ll walk you —”

“No, that’s okay,” Mr. Mikkelsen said. “I’m sure Greer can handle it. Besides, we’re waiting for you to join the conversation. What inspired you about this year’s Winter Olympics?” I felt Addison’s eyes boring into my back as I made my way to my assigned spot three tables down.

My group discussed the scintillating topic of organ donation. “Really? That’s tonight’s dinner topic?” Wes sat to my immediate right, and I silently prayed that somehow Addison was too occupied talking about luge and speed skating to notice.

“Organ donation represents the gift of life itself, Greer,” Wes parroted. If I didn’t know him so well, I might have mistaken him for sincere. “What could be more precious than a new liver?”

Ms. Davelman rushed to correct him. “We’re not necessarily talking about livers.” Livers were a touchy subject since so many of the drunks at McCracken Hill might eventually need new ones. “People benefit from donated retinas, kidneys, even bone marrow.”

“Maybe we could talk about something more appetizing?” I said. “Sewage? Zombies?”

“Zombies are kind of a parallel topic to organ donation,” Wes offered.

“That’s untrue.” Ms. Davelman was not pleased. “I think it’s important that we differentiate between organ donation and the fictional phenomenon of zombies.”

“Some cultures might equate the two.”

“Wes, I’d appreciate your cooperation.”

“I apologize. Truly.” He turned to me. “Greer, how are your organs?”

“Pickling as we speak.”

“Is that a reference to substance abuse, Greer?” Ms. Davelman went on high alert.

“I’ve never had issues with substance abuse.”

“I bet plenty of people develop them at McCracken Hill,” Wes said.

“It’s unfortunate that you still bet, Wes,” I replied.

“All right — that’s quite enough.” Ms. Davelman slammed down her fork. Wes and I grinned at each other.

“Seriously, how are you?” he asked softly.

“You all of a sudden care?” I meant for my voice to stay light, but it caught at the end, snagged on a splinter of leftover hurt.

“What are you talking about — ‘all of a sudden’? Don’t even try.” Wes smiled and shook his head at me. He was right.

“I’m fine. Thank you for asking.” It sounded automatic because I meant it to.

“And your sister wives?”

My eyes skidded to Ms. Davelman, but she was absorbed in a discussion about the first full face transplant. “Shut up. Don’t call them that.” Wes chewed his food thoughtfully. “You make it sound like some kind of cult.”

“I don’t have to make it sound like anything.” He leaned forward and whispered, “You’ve isolated yourselves. You practice rituals. You allow some weird old guy to dictate your relationships and behavior. Has he predicted the world’s end yet?” Wes tipped his head as if he’d just remembered. “That’s right. We will all be destroyed by angry vegans.”

“People mock what they fear.”

“And they also mock the ridiculous,” Wes added. Just as I tried to formulate a response, Ms. Davelman whipped out her little memo book, as a warning.

“Greer —” she coaxed. “I hope you’ll share your ideas with the whole group.”

“I was just saying that it must be scary — donating your organs.”

Some kid named Steve Loy rolled his eyes. “Usually you’re not that aware.”

“That’s not necessarily true.” Ms. Davelman reminded him of the frequency of people donating kidneys to one another.

“In some countries, they take a kidney if you rack up enough of a gambling debt,” Summer Galdi warned us.

Ms. Davelman looked like she was ready to snap. “That’s an urban legend.”

“Do they give you topics for us to discuss at dinner?” Wes asked her. “Like you all sat around at a faculty brainstorming session and someone said, ‘Organ donation! That’ll get them talking!’”

“I’d like you to take a minute and examine your attitude. Maybe consider why you feel the need to sabotage this conversation.”

“I disagree.”

“Pause and reflect, Wes.”

He looked to me for help. “Hey, Greer, you want to chime in? Is it really possible to sabotage a dinner conversation about organ donation?”

“Wes. Last warning.”

I tried to focus on my grilled chicken. The more Wes spoke up, the more mocking his tone got, and the clearer it became that Addison had reached out to him about Joshua’s health. I couldn’t imagine how that talk went. As if he read my mind, Wes raised an eyebrow at me. But he spoke to Ms. Davelman. “Okay, I have a serious question.”

She sighed. “Would anyone like to step up and caution Wes, who seems to be struggling with monitoring his contributions to our dinner dialogue?”

“It’s a serious question,” he insisted.

Ms. Davelman looked around the table, as if one of us were about to step up and interrupt the only possibility for entertainment. She looked dejectedly at the clock. We still had twenty-two more McCracken-mandated minutes of community. “Go on,” she said.

“I don’t want to get in trouble.”

“Well, I think we’re past guaranteeing that at the moment.”

“Have you heard of a process —” My breath rushed out in a whistle, like I was a balloon someone had let go without tying off. I stabbed a snow pea with my fork, kept my eyes on my plate. “Have you heard about people who are ill, I guess with a blood disease or something, undergoing some kind of transfusion —”

“Of course. Blood banks help combat all kinds of diseases and conditions —”

“But not human blood. Animal. Like pig’s blood.” The table fell silent. I still refused to look up, but I imagined mouths dropped open. A ring of gaping maws. Wes rushed to fill the quiet. “I’m serious. It’s new, you know? Have you heard about that?”

Apparently Ms. Davelman had not heard of that. “You are trying my patience,” she told Wes.

“I promise that’s not my goal.” He paused for a breath and then admitted, “Okay, that might have been a goal three minutes ago, but right now I’m sincerely curious. Really. Have you heard of that — you know, animal transfusions?”

“No.”

“That’s it?” Wes actually sounded disappointed. I felt his eyes on me as I carefully dissected a pile of water chestnuts.

“Well, no.” My eyes swung up. I couldn’t help it. But Ms. Davelman continued, “There’s research and experimental procedures, mostly with pigs.” My skin prickled. “But ultimately, it’s sci-fi stuff. The body has a hard enough time accepting material from another human being. That kind of large-scale interspecies transplant, it’s just not realistic yet.”

Wes’s eyes challenged mine. “Okay, that’s organs, though. What about just blood?”

“You’re very passionate about this.”

“I’m just wondering.” He nearly shouted at her. It didn’t sound like he was just wondering at all.

“Well, I’d say no. The chance for infection or rejection would be too high. And unnecessary. Blood is a renewable resource, after all.” That final proclamation earned a triumphant nod from Wes to me.

“Am I missing something?” Ms. Davelman asked.

Addison’s old roommate stared at me, waiting for my answer. I laid my fork carefully across my plate. “Ms. Davelman, you’re not missing anything.”

I left it at that. Let her check my plate and record the leftover bites in her little book. Made small talk about getting our driver’s licenses. Or in many of our cases, getting back our driver’s license. Whether or not we’d check the box that allowed surgeons to harvest our body. Which, given the predilection for self-destruction at our table, made sense. Probably organ-donor advocates envisioned great possibilities when they looked at McCracken Hill’s student population. I endured the rest of dinner with Wes sending me meaningful looks, meant to remind me that he understood. He knew how I’d been duped and he didn’t judge me for it. Not at all.

You don’t know the half of it, I wanted to tell him. But I couldn’t. By then Addison had noticed we were sitting together.