Saturday. Seven a.m.
“Do you consent?”
“No.”
“One five seven.”
* * *
Exhausted from lack of food and sleep, Riley rolled into the cafeteria to find the serving counter back in operation. She turned to see the other ARC patients sitting behind trays loaded up with toast and eggs and waffles and orange juice. When they saw her, they came to their feet, cheering, whistling, and applauding.
She forced herself to stand, throwing a fist in the air. “Yes!” she yelled back. “Yes! ”
For the next half hour, if it wasn’t nailed down, she ate it; and if she could pry it up, then it wasn’t nailed down.
Over breakfast, she learned that after Munroe filed his complaint, Kaminski had withdrawn the dietary changes, and canceled all therapy sessions for the next two days, presumably so he and McGann could figure out their next steps. They know they have to think twice about going too far now that someone in authority, someone who’s not afraid of them, is watching them.
Even better, she seemed to be adjusting to the haloperidol. Usually all she wanted after getting a shot was to take a nap. But today she was feeling a little more energy than before, and a lot less dizzy. I can probably start getting by without using the wheelchair, but I shouldn’t go much beyond that. If they see I’m adjusting to the meds they’ll increase the dose.
* * *
After breakfast she rolled back to her room and was just coming out of the bathroom when she heard the outer door shut.
Kaminski stood with his back to the closed door.
Her heart slammed against her chest. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to fight him if he starts something.
He took a step toward her, his face red with rage. “You think you’ve won,” he said in a voice that was low and sick and dangerous. “You haven’t. All you’ve done is hurt yourself and the others in ways you don’t even understand yet. But trust me, you will.
“Munroe suggested we return you to jail. Did you know that? He said that if I thought you were violent, then you should be returned to serve out your sentence. I said no. I told him that you needed help, and patience, and compassion, and that I wasn’t about to turn my back on you just because of one incident. Got to give it to the old fuck, he did everything he could to pry you away from me, but you’re. Not. Going. Anywhere.”
He lowered his face until it was inches from her own. “I am going to fuck with you in ways you can’t even imagine. I am going to hurt you in ways that are disgusting. Because I own you, and—”
He stopped at the sound of a knock as Biedermann entered. “Ms. Diaz, you know the rules about keeping the door open—” She stopped when she saw Kaminski.
“I’m sorry, Doctor, I didn’t know you were in here. Patients aren’t allowed to close their doors during ward hours, so—”
“Not a problem,” Kaminski said. “I was just checking on our patient. Door must’ve closed when I came in. We’re done now.
“See you later, Riley,” he said, and winked at her before walking out with Biedermann.
See you later. It was a promise and a threat, but for the moment there was nothing Riley could do about it. He’d just deny he said any of it, the whole thing would turn into another he-said/she-said war, and there wasn’t much doubt who’d come out the winner.
Dr. Munroe will want to know, though, and as long as he’s there, Kaminski can’t go too far, no matter what he says.
* * *
That afternoon she returned to the solarium for the first time in over a week and looked out at the city, the sun warm on her face as she let go of the stress of the preceding days.
She felt him in the room before she saw him, having emerged from whatever hiding place he used to disappear from the world.
He put two orderlies in the hospital.
She glanced over her shoulder to see him silhouetted against the open door.
He broke the arm of another orderly who made the mistake of getting too close.
Moving slowly and stiffly, he shuffled across the room and sat heavily on the bench beside her.
His actions still constituted premeditated murder.
“Hey,” she said.
He looked at her with dark, dead eyes.
“Pretty day,” she added.
He turned his face to the sun, and she wondered if the brain-block that kept him from feeling pain also prevented him from feeling its warmth.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t read to you anymore,” she said. “They took away my books.”
He didn’t react, as if he was having a hard time processing her words, and she felt a pang of guilt at having let him down. Then he pushed against the bench, rose to his full height, and started to walk away. But instead of leaving the room, he crossed to a fake topiary in the corner of the room, reached behind the planter with long, searching fingers—and pulled out the copy of Frankenstein, which he had apparently liberated before the staff could confiscate it.
He returned to the bench, sitting hard enough to rock the seat, and stroked the cover with obvious satisfaction. Then he turned to her with a broken smile that was almost but not quite right. Conspirators sharing a secret.
Then his mouth moved, and she realized he was struggling to speak, forcing his lips to shape the sounds. I was right! You were listening! Come on, you can do it!
“If,” he managed at last, pleased at his achievement.
She threw her arms up in the air. “Yes! That’s it! Keep going!”
He struggled again, taking almost two full minutes to get to, “I.”
He paused at the next word, a two-syllable Everest. “Can . . . cannot.”
The one to come was harder still. He looked down at the book, touching the cover as he fought to get the word out.
“Inspire,” he managed, followed quickly, and tellingly, by, “Love.”
And she realized what line he was quoting.
“Then.”
“I.”
He paused to catch his breath, exhausted from the effort this was requiring.
“Will.”
“C-cause,” he said, visibly angry at having muffed the consonant.
Then he raised his head, and his gaze met hers in a look that was deeper and more profound than anything she had ever experienced.
“Terror,” he said, in the voice of someone who knew exactly what that felt like, and how to make others feel it.
He could’ve said anything, Riley thought, subdued. “I like puppies.” Anything. Even from the book. But he chose the one line where he declares war against the whole human race.
Remember what Julian said. He’s dangerous. Seriously dangerous. Be careful.
Then again, that probably describes me as much as it does him.
“You and me both, my friend,” she said, putting a hand on his arm.
He let it stay, the darkness leaving his face as he heard her say the word he remembered from the movies.
“Friend.” He put his fingers to his lips to feel the sound of the word as it passed over them, as if he’d never said it before to anyone.
“Yes,” she said, blinking away tears. “Friend.”
He nodded slowly then looked away, his eyes moist in the sunlight. “Friend,” he said again, and she heard the catch in his voice when he said it.
She took the book, opened it to where they had left off, and continued reading.
* * *
As the days passed, Riley felt her thoughts becoming increasingly clear despite the injections, and a slow realization began to grow.
Someone’s cutting back the dosage.
The numbered syringes in the medication tray were always prefilled with the required dose, making it impossible for anyone without proper authorization to tamper with them. The only person other than Biedermann with access to the syringes was Sanchez, who maintained custody of the tray during all the room visits.
It’s Nurse Sanchez, Riley thought with a thrill of realization. I have another ally on the inside! With Julian, that’s two!
Then she remembered Frankenstein saying, Friend, and thought: No, not two allies
Three.
Sanchez would get in trouble if Biedermann found out what was going on, so it was even more essential for Riley to downplay her condition whenever she was around the rest of the staff. So even though she was feeling better, every day Riley dutifully shuffled down the hall to meals, the solarium, and her room, head down, shoulders slumped, eyes distant.
One afternoon, Frankenstein came up alongside her for the long walk to the solarium, where the book remained safely concealed. As they padded down the hall side by side, almost in the same slow, lumbering gait, one of the orderlies sweeping the floor saw them and nudged the other.
“Yo, check it . . . Bride of Frankenstein.”
Hurrrrr.
* * *
After lunch, as the other ARC patients scattered to enjoy their free time, Steve came over from the okay-fine-we’re-crazy-so-what? side of the room and joined Riley at her table. “So how’s it going? Haven’t had a chance to catch up with you in a bit.”
“It’s been kind of crazy.”
“Yeah, so I hear,” he said, trying without success to tuck away some unexplained annoyance.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m not stupid, you know.”
“Never said or thought otherwise.”
“Yeah, but you did otherwise.” He held up his cell phone. “You planted an app and didn’t tell me. That’s not something a friend does.”
She let out a long breath, then nodded. “You’re right. I was desperate, there wasn’t time to think about it, so yes, I did it, and I apologize.”
“Well, that sucks.”
“I know, and like I said, I’m sorry, I—”
“Not that part,” he said. “I thought you might try to deny it, so I came armed with a whole bunch of evidence to show it was there, and that it had to be you because it started logging into the system right after I loaned you my phone. I built up this big head of steam, ready to go to war. I wasn’t counting on you just saying, ‘Yeah, it was me,’ and now all that steam has nowhere to go, and that’s not fair.”
“We could pretend to argue. I could even let you win.”
“Not the same,” he said, grudgingly letting the Pinched Face of Annoyance fade a little.
“So how did you find out?”
“I had a hunch something was weird with my phone because it started running down faster than usual, which meant there was increased battery usage going on. I’d started doing some diagnostics. Then last night this popped up in my notifications.” Making sure no one was around to see, he unlocked the phone then slid it to her under the table. “See for yourself.”
A text message was up on the screen.
“Go ahead,” he said resignedly when she glanced up at him, seeking permission to reply. “And for the record, if you’d just asked me if you could plant the app so nobody else could find it, I would’ve said sure. Remember that for the future, okay?”
“I will, and thank you,” Riley said, then glanced down at the phone in her lap.
Riley’s skin went cold, and she fought the urge to throw up. This must be what it feels like when the doctor says, “We got back the test results, and it’s cancer.”
Remembering Julian’s words, she typed back, “Proof of concept?”
Riley deleted the texts and handed the phone back to Steve.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, why?”
“It’s just that I’ve always heard that line about how somebody went pale as a ghost, but I’ve never seen it actually happen until about thirty seconds ago.”
“Got some bad news.”
“You want to talk about it?”
She shook her head, pushing down the emotions that were fighting it out inside her. “Safer for you if I don’t.”
Then she heard Biedermann’s voice on the PA system: “Peer group counseling for ARC patients will begin in ten minutes in therapy room one.”
* * *
In the nearly two months since her arrival, Riley had begun to look forward to the peer counseling sessions, mainly because there wasn’t much actual peer counseling going on, just bullshitting, fart jokes, histories of unlikely incidents, improbable relationships, and a ton of laughter. The hunger strike had pulled them together, and now that Riley no longer felt like she was on the outside looking in, the sessions were an opportunity to relax and blow off steam. And the knowledge that her hospitalization had been extended left her in serious need of distraction.
Callie had won the day’s competition for What was the worst situation when you didn’t make it to the bathroom in time? with a detailed description of her first trip to the opera after a long day spent with her aunt shopping for the right dress, followed by a heavy meal that turned upside down in her stomach. Midway through the first act, everything inside clenched and she hurried down the row, stepping on the feet of anyone unlucky enough to be between her and the aisle. As microfarts blipped out tiny bits of diarrhea, she raced into the bathroom, slammed the stall door, lifted her dress, and dropped her panties, but in the instant before she could actually sit down, “everything I’d ever eaten in my entire life came shooting out of my ass, covering the toilet seat so I couldn’t sit down. I’d heard of projectile vomiting but nobody warned me about projectile diarrhea and I was doubled over spray-painting my legs and the floor and the stall like a goddamn shit-comet and when it finally stopped I saw there were only four squares of toilet paper on the bottom roll and the top roll wouldn’t come down so I spent twenty minutes using my bra and slip to clean it up the best I could with one hand, holding up my dress with the other so I wouldn’t get shit all over it, and just as I got back to my seat the act ends and I feel this lurch as my stomach turns upside down and it happens again and I race all the way back but now there’s a huge line at the bathroom so I run outside and shit beside a dumpster, just blasting like a firehose, and a cat runs out covered in awfulness and all I wanted was to die, right then and there, in front of God and everyone.”
It took almost five minutes for the applause and screams of horror to subside. Finally Danny wiped away laugh tears and said, “Okay, new topic? Anyone?”
“Well, it’s not bathroom humor,” Angela said, side-eyeing Danny, who had brought the messy subject up in the first place, “but I was wondering . . . Who was your one great love? The one that got away?”
“Haven’t had one yet,” Callie said, claiming immunity from the question. “But if that changes, I promise you’ll be the first to know.”
“Same here,” Jim said. “I’ve had a lot of swipe-right hookups, but nothing that made me say, ‘Okay, this is the one.’”
“How many is a lot?” Danny asked.
“A gentleman never tells.”
“Yeah, well, that’s why I’m asking you.”
“Fuck you,” Jim shot back, trying to look pissed but laughing along with the rest.
“I got one,” Hector said. “But it’s kind of a long story.”
“Not like we have anyplace else to go,” Lauren said.
Hector leaned back to compose his thoughts, draping his arm across the empty chair beside him in a way that made Riley think, Whoever it is, she’s still there, sitting next to him, even if he doesn’t realize it.
“Her name was Kathy. We met in community college, before I screwed up that part of my life. Now, I come from a very conservative family—prayers at dinner, church every Sunday—so I won’t lie, I was kind of a stiff. But Kathy was wild, funny, and good crazy. Curly red hair, green eyes, just ridiculously, unfairly beautiful. She loved books, music, movies, and she loved to fuck like nobody I’ve ever met before or since. Completely spun my head around.
“She was barely getting by, washing dishes at the on-campus cafeteria, and I had a part-time job working the cash register at a coffee shop, so neither of us was flush. Then one day she called and said she wanted to go out for dinner. I said I didn’t have any money, so could we do another day, after my next check? But she had a real hunger for Indian food and said she’d cover it. When the check came, she pulled out a fistful of twenties, and a part of my brain started whispering to the rest of me that something wasn’t right. I guess I must’ve shut down or gotten quiet, because when we walked out into the parking lot she asked if I was okay.
“I said that a few days earlier she told me she was tapped out, couldn’t even afford to put gas in her car. So where’d all that money come from?
“She took this deep breath and said she’d been tricking on the side for the last couple of years to make ends meet. Then she hit me with what I said for a long time afterward was the best line I’ve ever gotten from somebody. She said, ‘They have my body, but you have my heart.’
“And instead of just talking to her about it, all that conservative Bible stuff that I thought never mattered to me bubbled up inside, and I got all self-righteous and pissed and the door in my heart slammed shut so hard the hinges came off. Broke up with her right then and there. She tried to call a few times after that, but I straight-up ghosted her. Finally I blocked her number, and the calls stopped.
“In short, I was an asshole,” he said, and his eyes were soft. “We were just six months into the relationship, and that’s not the kind of thing you just talk to someone about until you’ve known them enough to trust them. And that’s the awful part, because she’d finally come to a point where she felt she could trust me with the truth because she loved me, and I loved her just as deep. We could’ve worked it out. Instead I got all huffy and proud and walked away from the most amazing woman I’ve ever known. And there’s not a day passes that I don’t regret it.”
“So why don’t you call her?” Rebecca asked.
“Because there are some things you say that can’t ever be called back. Besides, I heard from a mutual friend that she got married about a year ago. She’s happy. And you know what? I’ll bet she told him the truth, because that’s how she was, and he was strong enough to handle it. I wasn’t. So yeah, for me, that’s the one that got away.”
“How about you, Angela?” Danny asked to break the silence that followed. “After all, it was your question.”
“Cameron Taylor,” she said. “Senior year of high school. Tall, good looking, and super smart. We went out every weekend for most of the semester, but never hooked up, even though I made it pretty clear I was good to bash the cherry. When prom came along, I was sure this would be it, but in the car, afterward, he told me he was gay. He didn’t want his family to know until he was out of the house at college, too far away for them to give him shit about it. He said he liked me a lot, but it just wasn’t to be. I’m over it, but I still stalk his social media without telling him.”
“Don’t really have a story,” Rebecca said with a crooked smile. “Guess I need to get out more.”
“Same-same,” Danny said. “Not a lot of guys in my part of the south who are openly gay, so I didn’t have a lot of options. How about you, Lauren?”
“I don’t want to go into details,” she said. “Let’s just say that I blew it when I had an argument with my boyfriend and I was so pissed off I slept with his best friend. Unfortunately, the kind of guy who would sleep with his best friend’s girl probably isn’t the kind who’ll notice when the condom tears—assuming he didn’t tear it himself so he could enjoy the ride more—and I ended up pregnant. He got stuck with me, I got stuck with him, and now I’m stuck in here and he’s got my kid. Next?”
Riley realized that next was also last, was also her, since everybody else had spoken up. “Not much to say.”
“That’s okay, we’re used to boredom,” Danny said, and Callie slugged him in the shoulder.
“It’s just not much of a story, that’s all.” She began lining up what she could and couldn’t say in case there were microphones or snitches. “I’ve only been in a few relationships”—actually only one real relationship, but saying there were more will throw off anyone trying to figure out who’s who—“and most of them were pretty brief. Not swipe-right brief like Jim, we just weren’t what either of us were looking for. Anyway, about a year ago”—two years, in case anyone’s listening—“I met this guy, and I liked him right off.” And no, I’m not saying where we met. “Crazy smart, super ethical, a little on the short side”—dude is six three—“and very funny.
“We had a lot in common, but we never connected in the emotions department. Getting him to talk about his feelings was like trying to shove a marshmallow through a wall. The first time I texted him, ‘I love you, you know that, right?’ he texted back, ‘Copy that,’ which is how he always acknowledged stuff, but that was so not what I needed to hear at that moment. So yeah, that didn’t work out.”
“Still friends?” Angela asked.
“Sort of, but I haven’t heard from him in ages.”
Not counting the texts earlier today.
* * *
Tuesday. Seven a.m.
“Good morning, Ms. Diaz.”
Riley waited for a moment, then said, “Aren’t you going to ask if I consent?”
“No,” Biedermann said. “The first mandatory medication period has concluded without further incident, so rather than issuing a second prescription, Dr. Munroe’s latest guidance to Dr. Kaminski is that he can forgo the haloperidol.”
“That’s great!”
“For the time being.”
“Of course.”
Steely gray eyes and a silence vast as space.
“Of course, Nurse Biedermann.”
After a few formalities—a schedule change in hours for the exercise room and a pointed reminder, after several Snickers wrappers were found in Riley’s trash, that the vending machines were for staff and approved patients only—Biedermann headed out, nodding for Sanchez to follow.
As Sanchez finished packing up the Box of Infinite Needles, Riley leaned in and said very quietly, “Thank you.”
“Sorry?”
“For what you did. For helping me. I just wanted you to know I appreciate it.”
“Well, that’s why I’m here, why we’re all here, to help the patients,” Sanchez said, looking more than a little flustered by the conversation. “I’m just glad you’re making progress.”
Then she snapped the case closed, tucked her clipboard under her arm, and hurried out to catch up with Biedermann.
Maybe she didn’t want to acknowledge lowering the dose in case Biedermann came back and heard the exchange, Riley thought.
And maybe she didn’t have any idea what we were talking about, a small part of her brain whispered back.
No, it has to be her, she decided.
Because if it wasn’t Sanchez lowering the haloperidol dosage, then who the hell was it?
* * *
“Before we get started,” Kaminski said once everyone was assembled for the day’s group therapy session, “I’m afraid I have some difficult news to deliver.
“Lauren?”
Her head shot up, startled to hear her name called. “Yes?”
“I received a call late last night from a Dr. Alfonso Espinoza in Atlanta. He said that your boyfriend was walking upstairs, carrying your son, when he tripped and fell, breaking his neck. Your son was also badly injured.”
Lauren’s hand shot to her mouth. “Ohgod . . . How bad? . . . What did they say?”
“Cranial damage. The skull is still very soft at that age. They’re fighting blood clots in and around the brain caused by subarachnoid hemorrhaging. At the moment, he’s in a coma—”
“Is he going to make it?”
“They say they’re doing everything they can, but it could go either way.”
“And you knew this last night?”
“Late, yes, but—”
“Why didn’t you tell me when you found out!”
“Patients are not to be disturbed after lights-out. Besides, there’s nothing you can do at the moment, so I thought it would be better to talk about it here, where you have support—”
“Fuck you and your support!” she screamed. “Was his father drinking when it happened?”
“It’s not really my place to—”
“Was he drinking!”
“According to the police report, there were apparently substance issues, but Dr. Espinoza didn’t go into detail except to say that he’s unconscious but stable.”
“I have to get to my son.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
“I have the right!” she said, sobbing now, “I know the rules, I have the right to see him!”
“I’m afraid that’s not correct, Lauren,” he said, his voice infuriatingly calm and patronizing. “ARC patients are subject to the criminal codes under which they were convicted. Those rules stipulate that in the event of sickness or death in the family, a patient can be escorted to off-site locations provided they are within state lines. The accident happened in Atlanta. My hands are tied.”
“Yeah, well, you’d know a lot about that, wouldn’t you?” she shot back.
“Calm down, Lauren. You don’t want to burn any bridges.”
“Fuck you and your bridges! I want to see my son!”
Kaminski folded his arms. “I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do. But if you’d like to talk about it—”
“Fuck you!” she screamed again, and ran out the door.
Riley glanced back at Kaminski and caught a look in his eyes that brought a chill to her skin. He’s enjoying this . . . enjoying how he used her, enjoying hurting her.
“The other reason I wanted to bring this up when everyone was assembled,” he said to the rest, as though it were an ordinary session, “was to use this incident to reinforce the negative consequences of your actions. If Lauren had stayed out of trouble, she would never have been sent here, would have been home last night, and none of this would have happened.”
Riley stood and headed for the door. “You know what? Lauren’s right. Fuck you.”
“If you leave therapy midsession, you’ll be docked additional points,” he called after her.
She wanted to fire back, What’re you gonna do, extend me by six months? but that would raise questions about how she knew about the extension, so she settled for slamming the door as hard as she could.
She found Lauren curled up into a ball in a corner of the exercise room, head down, crying and shaking.
“I’m sorry,” Riley said, sliding down the wall to sit beside her.
“Don’t say you’re sorry!” Lauren snapped back. “People say that when someone dies! He’s not dead! He’s hurt, and I need to get to him! If I can get there, I can fix this.”
“How?”
“I don’t know! Maybe I can find another doctor or a better hospital—something! But I can’t do anything while I’m stuck in here! I can’t even—”
Riley saw the rest of the sentence in her eyes. —say goodbye, if it comes to that.
“There are people you can call,” Riley said. “Lawyers, civil rights organizations, family support groups. They can go to the courts and—”
“There’s no time! That could take weeks! He’s in a coma right now!”
Lauren wiped away tears with her sleeve. “He’s all I have, Riley, the only decent part of my whole shitty, stupid life. Take that away, and there’s nothing left. And it’ll be my fault that I wasn’t there when it happened, when he needed me to protect him! Now he’s in a coma and I’m still not there for him! How the fuck do I even live with that?”
Riley shook her head and said nothing. For some questions there are no answers.
Then Lauren got quiet for a moment, as if considering something dangerous before finally turning back to Riley. “You could get me out of here.”
“How?”
“I’ve been watching you. We all have. You’re looking for a way out.”
“I haven’t found anything.”
“Bullshit. You’re lying. I can see it in your eyes.”
“Even if I did find something, we’d need time to scope out the situation so we don’t screw something up, then arrange to have someone parked down the street so we can get clear before the police show up. We’re talking at least a few days.”
“I don’t have a few days! He doesn’t have a few days! I’ll take my chances.”
“It’s not just you on the line here,” Riley said, dropping the pretense. “If you go, I’ll have to go too because this is the only soft spot I’ve found, and the second it gets used they’ll seal it up for sure.”
“Fine. Whatever. Then we’ll both go. Once we’re outside, we can split up, make it harder to find us—better odds for both of us.” She took Riley’s hand. “I’ve never begged anyone for anything in my whole life, but I’m begging you now. My son is in a coma, and maybe there’s something I can do to help him and maybe there isn’t, but if he dies and I’m not there, I won’t be able to live with myself, so I have to try, even if the odds are shitty. I need your help, Riley. Please!”
Riley cast her memory back to see if there was anything her parents might have said that would give her guidance in a situation like this but found nothing. There was only the grief and rage that Riley understood all too well at never having had the chance to say goodbye to her folks. Can I really let the same thing happen to someone else?
No, she decided, though she hated herself for it, I can’t.