“Did you try the gray stuff?” Sofia asks.
I scuff the toe of my shoe over the concrete floor, sending a squeaking sound echoing down the hallway. From what I remember of the lunch we just ate, everything was kind of gray. “Which gray stuff?”
“I don’t know what it was, but it was kind of . . . wobbly. Oatmeal, maybe?”
I purse my lips. I remember what she’s talking about. It did sort of look like oatmeal, all gray and lumpy. Dad used to make me oatmeal every morning in the fall, only he’d add apples and cinnamon, brown sugar and walnuts. It tasted like pie when he was finished.
“Why would they serve oatmeal for lunch?” I ask, pushing the memory away. Just thinking about it makes my heart hurt.
Sofia shrugs. “Leftovers, probably.”
We’re making the way back to our dorm room. We only have an hour and a half to kill, and then it’s back to the activity room for art therapy. I used to skip that sort of shit, back when I thought this was all a joke, but Sofia tells me it’s good to be social. It shows the nurses that I’m “committed to my recovery.” She says it’ll help me get out of here faster.
We turn the corner to the hallway that leads to our room. My eyes pass unseeingly over the dark, narrow space before snagging on something unfamiliar—a person.
I stop short. Dr. Andrews is standing outside our door.
She looks up as Sofia and I shuffle toward her, shifting her ever-present clipboard so that it’s in front of her chest. “Berkley! Good, I’m glad I caught you.”
She pauses for a moment, like she’s waiting for me to contribute something. I glance at Sofia, who shrugs.
“What are you doing here?” I blurt.
If my bluntness bugs Dr. Andrews, she doesn’t show it. She smiles serenely, and her eyes shift from me to Sofia. “I was hoping we might speak in private?”
“Anything you have to say to me you can say in front of Sofia.”
Dr. Andrews taps the edge of her clipboard with her pen. When she doesn’t say anything for what feels like a full minute, I sigh, giving in.
“Do you mind?” I ask Sofia.
Sofia shakes her head, waiting in the hallway as I push open our door and step into the room. Dr. Andrews follows and carefully closes the door behind us.
“You two seem to be getting quite close.” There’s a carefulness to her voice that makes me wonder whether she thinks this is a good idea.
“Sofia was there for me when I needed her,” I say.
Dr. Andrews taps her closed lips with the tip of her pen.
“You said you had something to talk to me about?” I ask.
“Oh, right. I just wanted to stop by to let you know that I feel like we made real progress yesterday. That was the first time you opened up to me about the problems you’ve been dealing with over the last year. I’m proud of you.”
I frown, remembering the closed look on Dr. Andrews’s face when she ended our last session. “I thought you were freaked out.”
“Freaked out?” Her face breaks into a smile. “Berkley, no, of course not. It sounds like you’ve been dealing with a lot of pain, carrying the burden of your friend’s suicide. I’m really proud of your breakthrough. I’ve suggested that you continue with outpatient therapy twice a week, but otherwise I see no reason to keep you here.”
The rest of her words turn to white noise. I look at her face and I see her lips moving, but her voice sounds mumbling and nonsensical.
“Stop,” I choke out. “I’m sorry, are you saying that I can go home?”
A thin smile crosses her lips. “That’s correct. Congratulations.”
I can feel myself nodding, even as everything inside my head turns to static and buzzing. No more gray walls and faded blue T-shirts and Wite-Out manicures. No more lumpy mystery food and art therapy in the activity room. I’m going home.
I picture my bedroom, with its big bay windows and photo collage on the door. Movie nights with my parents every Friday. I used to think it was lame how they made us do weekly “family time,” but now I find myself smiling just thinking about it. And my bed—oh God, how I’ve missed my bed! I have this amazing four-poster bed at home with a mattress so thick and fluffy you just sink into it, like a cloud. I have a closet filled with clothes and shoes. I have friends. Boyfriends. A whole life.
And I’m getting it all back.
I must do a pretty shitty job of holding in my excitement, because Dr. Andrews actually laughs. The sound makes me flinch. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her laugh before.
“I can see that you’re looking forward to being rid of this place.” She drops a hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “Go on and live your life.”
I hear the door open and close behind me just a few seconds after Dr. Andrews leaves the room. There’s a shuffling sound of footsteps.
“What’s up with her?” Sofia asks.
“I’m going home.” My voice is barely a whisper, not quite ready to believe what I’m saying.
“What?”
A smile cuts across my face. It stretches my lips so wide they actually hurt. I squeal and whirl around, throwing my arms around Sofia’s neck. She’s so surprised that she stumbles back a few steps, her arms hanging at her sides.
“I’m getting out!” I squeeze her shoulders. “They’re finally letting me go!”
I pull away, breathless. The corners of Sofia’s mouth twitch. Her eyes travel over my face, narrowing. “You told them the truth?”
“Of course,” I say. “That’s why they’re letting me go. Dr. Andrews said I made ‘progress,’ can you believe it?”
Something dark flashes through Sofia’s eyes. “You told the whole truth? You didn’t leave anything out this time?”
“That’s right.” I open our closet and pull my suitcase off the top shelf, where it’s started to gather dust. It’s still mostly packed from last week. I only bothered taking out a few hair elastics and the stuffed hippo my mom made me bring.
I heave the suitcase onto my bed, knocking the hippo to the floor and making the mattress springs creak noisily.
I move to pick up the hippo, but Sofia stops me, one hand pressed to my shoulder. “Let me get this straight,” she says softly. “You told Dr. Andrews that you killed someone, and she’s still letting you out of here?”
Time slows down. I pick up the hippo without realizing what I’m doing and straighten back up, blinking. “What are you talking about?”
A muscle near Sofia’s eye twitches. “The video, silly. Don’t tell me you don’t remember.”
Something thick and heavy rises in my throat. She can’t know about that.
I close my eyes, and it starts playing in my head, like it was cued.
It’s jerky, the image dark. Someone took it from the hall—you can see the edge of the door. At first it’s hard to tell what you’re looking at—just two shapes fumbling in the darkness—and then the noises start.
A belt buckle clicks. Metal teeth scrape as jeans unzip. And then, a second later, moaning. Whoever’s holding the phone giggles.
“Get closer,” someone whispers off camera. The image zooms in shakily.
The guy stays in shadow, but the light from the hall catches Tayla’s parted lips, her sweaty hair. She sits up, flashing her boobs at the camera. That’s where the video clicks off abruptly, like whoever was filming lost her nerve.
By the next day, every single person in our school had seen it.
I try to keep my voice steady, but a tremor creeps in. “How do you know about that?”
Sofia tilts her head at a dangerous angle. “It’s lucky I found you, you know? I thought I might be stuck in here forever.”
I set the stuffed hippo back onto my bed, backing away from her. “What’re you talking about? You’re freaking me out.”
Sofia moves toward me slowly, her toes curling into the dirty concrete. “Don’t freak out. You’re going to help me. Well, we’re going to help each other. But first you have to admit your sin.”
My back hits the wall. “What the fuck?”
“Tell the truth, Berkley. What happened to Tayla?”
My jaw tightens. “She committed suicide.”
“Why?”
Sweat gathers in my palms. “She . . . she was upset because someone took a video of her cheating on her boyfriend,” I stutter. “It was an accident.”
“It didn’t look like an accident to me.”
“How the fuck would you know?” I snap. Angry tears gather in the corners of my eyes. I blink them away.
“I know a lot of things about you,” Sofia says.
I grab her by the shoulders and shove her away from me. She starts laughing. Actually laughing. Like this is all some big joke.
It’s the laughter that does it. Something inside of me loosens, the final thread pulling free. My knees feel watery. I sink to the floor, my hands falling limp at my sides.
She knows, I think. I try to inhale, but my breath catches and an ugly sob rips up my throat. The tears keep coming. They fall over my cheeks, dripping from my chin. Oh God, I think. Oh God . . .
Through her laughter, Sofia chokes out, “Tell the truth, and this will all be over.”
I’m shaking my head back and forth, back and forth. I can’t tell the truth. I can’t.
Sofia says, “You’ll finally be free. We’ll both be free.”
“What do you—”
“Tell me!” Sofia screams.
“Fine!” My voice sounds too high, a hiss of breath between clenched teeth. I lower my head to my hands, digging my fingers into my hair, struggling to inhale. “I . . . I took the video, okay? I shot it on my camera phone, but only because Harper and Mara made me. They were there with me, and they told me that I had to record it or I wouldn’t be able to sit with them at lunch anymore. They said Tayla deserved it, because she was always acting all perfect even though she clearly wasn’t. It was, like, a joke. Nobody was supposed to see it!”
My throat closes, making it impossible to speak. I gasp for air, but I can’t seem to get it into my lungs. My chest feels tight, like I’m back in solitary, a thick strip of canvas strapping me down. I grasp at my chest, like I’m trying to pull the bindings away, but my fingers close around nothing.
“I’m a little disappointed, Berkley,” Sofia says, too calm. “I gave you every chance to come clean, to admit your sin, and you’re still hiding behind these bullshit excuses.”
“Tayla and I were friends,” I say. I think of how Tayla and I used to build forts out of the sofa cushions when we were kids. How we borrowed each other’s clothes so often I could never remember which tops were hers and which were mine. “If I’d known what she’d . . . I wouldn’t have . . . I’d never have . . . I didn’t mean to kill her.”
Sofia rips the fitted sheet off her mattress and starts twisting it between her fingers. “Good, Berkley. Very good.”
Tears cling to my eyelashes, making everything blurry. “What?”
Sofia ignores me. She crosses the room, yanking the sheet off my mattress, too. Her movements are jerky, almost mechanical. She ties the sheets together.
“What are you doing?” I ask. “Are you going to hurt me?”
“Don’t worry. We don’t hurt our own.”
Sofia climbs onto her bed. She tosses one end of the sheet-rope around the pipe jutting across our ceiling. I watch her fingers tighten, testing the knot. I can’t look away.
Once it’s secured, she gathers the other end in her hands and ties a loop.
All the hair on the back of my neck stands straight up. I push myself to my feet. “Sofia—”
But she’s too quick. She has the noose around her neck before I can reach for her. She steps off the edge of the bed—
The rope pulls tight. Sofia’s neck snaps, and her head drops forward, chin smacking into her chest. Her arm twitches—muscle failure. I ball a hand near my mouth, fighting back a scream.
Then she goes still, her body swaying in small circles. The only sound in the room is the fabric groaning beneath her weight.
I don’t have to press my fingers to her neck to know that I’m not going to find a pulse. Her skin has already taken on a pale cast, like spoiled meat, and thin, blue veins are crawling up her neck and cheeks. Her eyes bulge from their sockets, the whites already turning bloody. The sheet-rope digs into the skin on her neck, making her head look puffy, like a balloon about to burst.
I take a step closer, lowering a trembling hand from my mouth. “Sofia—”
Her head jerks up. Her eyes are burning red, lit from some fire within. The sound of my scream echoes in the small room.
Her mouth falls open, and black smoke pours out. It seeps in through my nose and mouth and eyes. It feels . . . dark. Heavy. Like something unfurling inside me.
Something that burns.
I swat at the smoke, but it keeps coming. I try to scream, “You crazy bitch . . . get off of me . . .”
Sofia’s dead body smiles. Her voice echoes through the room.
“Hold still.”