B00B9FX0MA EBOK (17 page)

“Ow!” I yelped. I frantically wrestled against his grip, while Deborah and James looked on.

“Let go! You don’t want to get hurt!” Deborah called.

Aidan let go, and I took the moment to wipe tears of pain from my eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I said helplessly. Everything I’d planned to say had disappeared from my brain. I’d walked into Jamie’s trap. And the worst thing was that even though I knew it, I couldn’t explain it to these people, who were staring at me with hate in their eyes.

“Sit down,” Deborah said tonelessly.

I meekly perched on one of the wooden chairs at the kitchen table, watching the three of them. James kept clenching his jaw, while Deborah stared at the floor. Only Aidan looked at me. I turned away.

Finally, Deborah placed her hand on Aidan’s shoulder. “Can you watch her? We’ll just be in the next room,” Deborah whispered as she and James headed through the archway into the dining room.

Aidan sat down beside me.

“You know you’re so busted, don’t you?” He asked.

I paused and gazed into his eyes. Could I make him my ally? It was a long shot, but at least he was
looking
at me. I opened my mouth.

“I know this sounds weird. I
know
it does. But I’m really Jamie’s twin. I can —” The doorbell rang, cutting me off.

“That’s them,” James announced to no one in particular, dashing through the room toward the door.

“I hate you,” Aidan spat.

“I’m sorry.” It was the only phrase I could think of, and even though I kept saying it again and again, I knew it wasn’t enough for whatever Jamie had done.

Just then, James came back into the room, two men in white coats behind him.

“She’s getting violent,” he warned.

That was all they needed to act. One of them lunged toward me, half dragging me from my seated position while the other grabbed my chin and placed two tablets on my tongue. Too surprised to spit them out, I swallowed, tasting their acrid, lawn-fertilizer-like taste.

I coughed to try to spit up the medicine, but it was too late. The pills had dissolved and were already making their way into my bloodstream.

“I’m sorry, Jamie. I hope you know that. And I hope you know we want … we want a change. We believe in a change.
But we can’t live like this anymore,” James said sorrowfully. “You can take her. Thank you.”

Fight
, a voice in my brain screamed. But I didn’t have any fight left in me. I didn’t have
anything
left in me. All I wanted to do was curl up into a ball and go to sleep — and never, ever wake up.

“I’m sorry, baby girl. One day, I hope you’ll understand,” James muttered as the two orderlies dragged me to an unmarked black car.

One of them opened the rear door and shoved me inside. I heard the click of the lock as the two of them climbed into the front, closing a barrier between the front and the back.

The car rolled away from the curb. Even though the windows were closed, I could hear garbage trucks beeping in the distance and the nervous chattering of sparrows in the bare tree branches around us. The world was just waking up, and it was impossible to reconcile the fact that my life as I’d known it was falling apart. And there was nothing I could do about it.

I
awoke to commotion around me. The two orderlies were standing above me, unbuckling my seat belt and transferring me to a wheelchair.

“I’m awake!” I said, struggling to consciousness. “I’m fine!”

I wasn’t. My brain felt like it was swathed in cotton and my tongue felt far too large for my mouth.

“Steady,” one of the orderlies said. He stepped to the side, and I saw a wiry, short man rushing toward me, a stethoscope flopping back and forth on his chest.

“Jamie Thomson-Thurm,” he announced. He leaned down toward me. “Jamie, I’m Dr. Taylor, and I’ll be taking care of you. Let’s get her inside.”

The two orderlies half pulled me to my feet. I caught a whiff of salt in the air. We had to be near the ocean. But I knew I wasn’t going to get a chance to actually see it. Surrounding me was a series of two-story cottages arranged around a large rough-hewn wooden structure, reminding me more of a summer camp than a mental hospital, which is what it was. It had to be. After all, the property was enclosed by a wrought-iron gate. The very few people I saw wandering around the lawns were either wearing scrubs or had a wristband on their arm. Just like the one on my own arm that must have been placed there while I was unconscious.

Dr. Taylor seemed unfazed by the commotion of the orderlies trying to drag me toward the building.

“I hope you had a good sleep, Jamie,” Dr. Taylor said, falling into step beside me. I kept blinking to try to get my contacts to slide back over my pupils and make everything slip back into focus. “Welcome to Serenity Point. I know that you had a couple sleeping pills, so you’re probably feeling a bit groggy. That’s normal. I’ve been talking to your doctor back home about your medication, and we might do a few tweaks here and there, depending on your response. It’s very important that you keep us abreast of any new feelings or changes that arise as we do, is that clear?” he asked.

“
Yesh
… I mean, yes,” I said, correcting the lisp that had come out of my mouth. My legs felt like jelly, and I was winded even though we’d only walked a few hundred yards from the entrance to the main building.

“Good. Let’s bring her to my office,” Dr. Taylor commanded once we stepped inside the lobby immediately past the building entrance. It was empty except for one couch, and a coffee table with pamphlets spread along the surface.
Frequently Asked Questions about Electroshock Treatments
, read one of the brochures. But before I could read the other titles, the two orderlies dragged me down a small corridor. From the outside, I’d assumed the building would look like a hospital, with long, polished linoleum floors and an antiseptic smell. But the walls were covered with terrible paintings of landscapes and the floor had a dingy blue carpet on it. Finally, I was unceremoniously deposited into a small, spare room.

“Sit down,” one orderly grunted, nodding toward a couch with a thin, stained cushion.

“Let the nurses’ station knows she’s here so we can make sure her room is ready,” Dr. Taylor said as I tried to get my bearings. The tiny room seemed similar to one of the ones in the guidance suite. But instead of piles of papers, Dr. Taylor’s desk contained only a laptop and a single sunflower in a bud vase. The walls were bare and I felt a sudden longing for Miss Keeshan’s stupid hang in there! sloth poster. Anything that would make this place seem more human.

Dr. Taylor perched in the chair behind the desk, steepled his fingers together, and stared at me. “Now, tell me why you’re here, Jamie.”

I glanced up at the ceiling. A watermark looked like an oddly shaped heart. The sound of the white noise machine whooshed in my ears.
Think
, I urged myself. My brain used to gear into overdrive under pressure. Not anymore. All I could think about were James’s eyes. The terrified look Aidan had shot me when he mentioned his guinea pig. The fact that there truly wasn’t anywhere to escape to.

“Jamie?” Dr. Taylor prompted.

Trapped. Trapped trapped trapped
, my mind screamed. I twisted the hospital ID bracelet around my wrist.

Dr. Taylor leaned his elbows on his knees. “That was an unfair question. I apologize.”

I glanced up gratefully into his beady pupils.

“Why don’t you start by telling me a little bit about yourself. As you can see, I have some notes, but I’d much rather hear it from you. In your words.” He rapped against the stack of manila file folders with his fingers. I leaned forward, trying
to see what was inside them, but they were rubber-banded together, making any chance of reading an impossibility.

“I’m not Jamie,” I said finally, my voice husky and unfamiliar to my ears. “I’m her twin. I’m
Hayley
. I went to Brookline this morning because I knew that was where my father lived. And I needed to explain what she’s been doing for the past few weeks. But that means she’s in Bainbridge, and I’m just … I need to stop her. And now I’m stuck. And I feel like that’s what she wanted.”

“You’re not Jamie.” He glanced at his pad of paper and made a note. “All right. Then why don’t you tell me a bit about who you are.”

“I’m Hayley,” I said again, trying to mask my frustration. “Hayley Westin, from Bainbridge, New Hampshire. I never knew I had a twin. I always thought I was an only child. And then my mom told me that I
did
have a twin, but that she had died. And now … well, now I don’t know. I mean, my mom lied to me. But I don’t know why.”

A low, single chime sounded and Dr. Taylor stood up and strode around to the front of the desk. He reached down and held his hand out toward me.

I looked away. I didn’t want to speak to him, much less touch him. He dropped his hand to his side.

“Well, Hayley, it’s nice to meet you. Unfortunately, we don’t have a full session today, but we’ll make sure to get the schedule sorted out so you’ll have a full forty-five minutes with me tomorrow, and every day following.”

“No!” I screamed. “I don’t need that. I need you to believe me.” The pills had worn off, unleashing my panic. “I need to get
out
of here and call the police. Jamie is impersonating me,
she may have killed someone, and if I don’t get out of here, then everyone will believe her. Seriously, people are in danger.”

Dr. Taylor nodded impassively as he tapped his pen against the folder. “It sounds like you have a lot of anger, Hayley. That’s understandable, and we’ll discuss it in detail. But the one thing I ask, if that makes sense, is that you bring Jamie to the session tomorrow.”

“How can I do that? She’s not here. She’s in New Hampshire, pretending to be
me
!” I screamed. A hint of a smile crossed Dr. Taylor’s face. “I mean,” I said, trying to calm down my breathing and my hammering heart, “I think there’s been a terrible mistake. What could I do to get you to believe me?”

Dr. Taylor rose to his feet. “We’re out of time. I know you’re upset. And I feel that after a rest, you’ll be better able to talk to me about what’s really bothering you.”

“I don’t need a rest. I’m Hayley. Look me up. You’ll find me.”

“I’ll find
your sister
,” Dr. Taylor said tersely, impatience weaving into his voice. “And we will talk tomorrow, Hayley.” At this, he pressed a button. A chime sounded, and a bleached-blond nurse wearing a set of hot-pink scrubs walked in. “You have to come to terms with who you are, so you can move beyond it.”

“Hi there. I’m Nanci, the nurse assigned to your cottage. Come on, Jamie doll, we’ll get you settled,” she said, bustling toward me. She had a hint of a Southern accent and her blush was unevenly applied, giving her moon-shaped face a lopsided look.

Dr. Taylor cleared his throat. “The patient mentioned that she’d prefer to be called Hayley for the time being.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I mumbled. If I fought, I’d only be branded crazy. I needed another plan, one that didn’t depend on anyone. I just needed to be able to think.

“All right, Hayley, let’s hop up to your room. Your roommate’s so excited to meet you!” the nurse clucked, as though she were a nursery school teacher trying to convince a child to share the art supplies.

I helplessly trailed behind the nurse, through the long corridors of the facility, then out into the open air. This would be over in a matter of hours, I reminded myself. It had to be. I was too smart to be trapped. It had been a good try on Jamie’s part. But I was smarter than her. I was stronger than her.

We trudged along the gravel path, and I wondered wildly if it’d be possible to escape: to sprint from the path, scale the fence, and spring to the nearest town.

Finally, the nurse stopped in front of one of the six cottages that flanked the central building. She walked up the sagging porch steps and unlocked the door.

“You’ll be with Sheila.” She motioned for me to follow her up a winding staircase toward the second floor. It seemed that the hospital was on the grounds of a former hotel. The main facility was the actual hotel proper, while the buildings flanking it had been family vacation cottages.

The nurse pushed open a door to a room that was bare except for two twin beds. A girl sat cross-legged in one of them, staring into the distance with brilliant aqua eyes. She’d obviously cut her reddish-blond hair herself, and chunks stuck out haphazardly around her pointed, angular face.

“You!” Sheila exclaimed, pointing at me.

“Yes, Sheila. This is your new roommate, Jamie,” Nanci said in a singsongy, infant-soothing voice.

“Where’s Jenny?” Sheila blurted out.

Nanci pursed her lips as though she’d sucked on a lemon. “Oh, Sheila. Don’t you worry about Jenny. She’s in a better place right now. How about you focus on getting to know Jamie?”

“What happened to Jenny?” I asked, turning toward Nanci.

Nanci shook her head and gestured to the empty single bed.

“That’s where you’ll be sleeping. Everyone here wears hospital-issue clothing. That way, there’s one fewer thing to think about. Don’t you agree, Sheila?” It was only then that I realized Sheila was wearing a pair of shapeless black pants and a gray baggy T-shirt. The nurse squinted at me.

“I think you’re a small. I’ll get some clothes and some medication, and then you should be right as rain.” She turned and left the room. She closed the door, but I realized it didn’t matter. The room had a huge picture window looking into the hallway. I noticed a camera in the corner as well, an unflickering red light trained at me. We were being watched all the time.

Sheila coughed and I realized that she, too, was staring at me.

“Hey,” I said awkwardly, perching on the edge of my own bed to face her. “So, I’m not here for very long, so …”

The radiator hissed and I jumped. Sheila emitted a low, loud cackle that seemed far too loud to have come from her tiny body.

“Everyone says that. Everyone’s here forever. Unless they’re like Jenny. Jenny escaped. Jenny’s not coming back.”

“Where did Jenny go?” I asked urgently. But just then, the door reopened and Nanci walked in, balancing a round tray
that contained a tiny plastic cup and a large glass of water. Inside the cup were half a dozen multicolored pills. “Here are your meds,” she said, holding the tray out toward me. “You’ll feel much more comfortable when you take them.”

“No,” I shook my head. A lie formed in my mind. “I was a wreck when I came in because of the medications. I know Dr. Taylor wants me to get better. The only way I’ll get better is if I can talk to him without taking anything.”

“You can take it up with him. I’m just doing my job,” Nanci said firmly, shaking the cup so the pills rattled together. “Come on, be a good girl. They’ll go down easy, and you’ll be nice and relaxed.” She put the tray on a wooden dresser, picked up one of the cups, and pushed it closer to my mouth.

I panicked, visions of myself becoming an unblinking robot like Sheila coursing through my head.

“I said no!” I swatted her hand away, and the pills — a collection of hexagonal, trapezoidal, and rectangular capsules that reminded me of the blocks I’d once played with as a child — clattered to the floor and rolled under the bed.

“She was bad!” Sheila exclaimed, clapping her hand to her mouth in horror.

“Yes, Sheila, Jamie was very bad,” Nanci said through gritted teeth. “All right, we’ll try this again.” She reached underneath the bureau and pressed a button.

“I’m really fine! I’m sorry!” I chirped, desperate to stop the situation from escalating. “I’ll be good!”

“Well, we’ll have to hope so, won’t we?” Nanci muttered. “But you’ll learn soon enough, it’s best if you do what you’re told. We want the best for you, Hayley.”

“I’m
not
Hayley! I mean, I am. But I shouldn’t be here. I just really need to figure this out.” My voice broke into a half sob.

Nanci’s gaze softened. “Everyone’s here because they need to figure something out. And you’ll learn that you can’t do it on your own. Dr. Taylor will help. So will the meds. You just have to trust us.”

Just then, another nurse burst into the room.

“What’s the problem?” she asked.

“Judy, can you get her some more meds? We had an incident,” Nanci said, gesturing to the mess on the floor.

“Of course.” The tiny nurse disappeared out of the room. I looked back at Nanci.

“You know, I’m not staying here. This is a horrible mistake that will be fixed, and you’ll be sued. You don’t want that, do you?” I asked, trying to rationalize.

“Every patient says they’ll sue. None of them ever do. Threats are a waste of time, honey.” Nanci shook her head. “Now, you can either take your meds like a good girl, or we’ll have to resort to other measures.”

I gulped. I couldn’t imagine what the
other measures
would be.

“Here you go,” Judy said as she reentered the room, holding an identical tray filled with the same tiny plastic cup. I glanced at the capsules.

“I’ll take them,” I said.

“Smart girl,” Nanci murmured.

I picked up the tiny cup and tipped it into my mouth, holding the pills under my tongue and hoping I could hold them there long enough to spit them out.

“Good. Now, take a nap like a good girl,” Nanci said.