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Adriana smiled weakly. Jazz looked angry. “Shit, Adriana. You scared me. You look like a corpse lying there.” Adriana couldn't speak. She hadn't seen Jazz in a few weeks. “Are you out of the hospital now,” Jazz asked, diffident, pulling her sling bag off her shoulder on to the floor.

Adriana croaked, “No.” She wasn't sure why Jazz was acting so casually. She thought she'd be happier to see her.

Jazz straddled the chair at her desk, arms folded over its ladder back. “Did you run away?” Jazz asked, coolly, Adriana thought. Even clinically.

“Yes.” She never lied to Jazz. She'd never had to.

“Your dad will be looking for you,” Jazz said. Adriana nodded. Finally she was crying, the hair that framed her face damp with tears.

“Okay. It's okay,” Jazz said, softer now. She sat down on the bed next to Adriana. “It's going to be fine,” she said, stroking Adriana's hair. Jazz took a deep breath. Adriana looked up at her and saw that Jazz had dark circles under her eyes.

The two of them sat there, with Maestro making a figure eight around them. Adriana felt emptied. The strength she'd had when she walked out of hospital had evaporated.

Jazz put her arm around her shoulders. “Want breakfast?” she asked. Adriana felt confused. Wasn't it late afternoon? Jazz smiled. “I was just testing to see if you knew what time it was.” She said. Her face turned serious. “Who's the prime minister?” she asked, then laughed. It was a mirthless sound, dark and heavy.

Adriana had thought she would feel better with Jazz, but she didn't. It was as if a shadowy membrane stood between them. On her side Adriana was submerged in liquid, struggling simply to move. She envied Jazz her freedom. If they had been walking side by side, Jazz would be miles ahead by now.

But there was something different about Jazz. She didn't look happy. In fact, she looked kind of miserable. Adriana put her hand on Jazz's. “I missed you,” she said, quaking.

Jazz hugged her shoulders hard and seemed to brighten. “I missed you too, potato head.”

They climbed the stairs to the kitchen, a spotless place with a bowl of fruit on the island counter. Jazz grabbed a banana and handed it to Adriana, and then an orange too. “You look like you need vitamins,” she said. Adriana thought the same thing about Jazz but didn't feel up to bantering.

They sat on the bar stools at the counter. Adriana handed half the orange to Jazz, who took it without saying anything. Adriana looked at Jazz who stared straight ahead. “Is something wrong?” Adriana asked, her voice sounding tiny in the kitchen, immaculate as a museum. Jazz looked at Adriana with something bordering on disdain. Adriana stopped chewing. “Jazz, what's wrong?”

Jazz's face closed, before it started crumbling. Adriana put her hand on Jazz's. Adriana had never seen her like this before and it frightened her, more than the hospital ever had.

“I'm pregnant,” Jazz told her.

Adriana's mouth hung open. Jazz screwed up her face. “Shut up.” She said. “Don't say anything. I can't…” Jazz rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands.

For some reason, Adriana pictures Jazz's mother, hanging the delicates she washed by hand on the wooden rack in the bathtub, when she gets the news.

“My mother doesn't know,” Jazz said. She took a fierce bite of banana. “I can't tell her.” Adriana wondered, but didn't ask, who the father was. That was clearly not something Jazz thought was important to mention. Another image wandered across Adriana's mind, of Jazz in her pale blue underwear and undershirt, sitting on a kitchen chair, smoking a cigarette. There is a guy lying under a blanket on the living room couch but she can't see his face, just his muscular arms hugging the covers. Adriana didn't even know Jazz had a boyfriend.

Jazz hung her head. “I just found out this week. I have an appointment for an abortion tomorrow,” she said. Adriana gaped.

Jazz whispered something. Adriana bent her head close. “I don't want to go,” she said. “I'm scared.” Adriana put her hand on Jazz's hands, which were twisting the front of her shirt in knots. She whispered, “I'll go with you.”

Jazz smiled weakly. “You'd do that? I would have thought you'd had enough of hospitals.” She put her arm around Adriana's shoulders. “I'm sorry that I didn't visit you.” Adriana shook her head. There were dozens of questions she wanted to ask but they all had hooks. Jazz didn't need any more pain. They sat quietly, finishing their bananas. Jazz got down from the bar stool, her hand on her stomach. “I've been feeling so queasy,” she said, rubbing her gut. “Bananas are about all I can handle”

“Can I stay here tonight?” Adriana knew it was a lot to ask. Jazz frowned, thinking.

“Mom can't know,” she said. “You'd have to be quiet and stay downstairs.” Adriana nodded. She thought of Samantha, alone in the bedroom at the hospital, looking up at the ceiling. Adriana didn't think Samantha would tell the nurses anything.

They went downstairs and made Adriana a place to sleep on the floor. Jazz sat down wearily on the edge of her bed. “I have sociology today and I feel like shit,” she said. Adriana wanted to say don't go. But she knew that for Jazz, it was better to behave as though nothing was wrong, to plough through the day, and come home exhausted. Then, she would sleep, and tomorrow would come. That's what always seemed to work for Jazz—pretend a problem doesn't exist and then it passes without much fanfare.

Adriana put her hand on Jazz's back. “Go now,” she sang, giving Jazz a little push “before you see me cry.”

Jazz smiled. “You're such a ham. What are you doing in the mental hospital?”

Adriana shook her head and put her hands over her ears. She wanted to hold her head and scream.

Once she heard the storm door bang shut, she knew she was alone. Even the walls looked sad, a dreary battleship grey in the muted light. Adriana settled into Jazz's bed, with a book from her bookshelf. It was the first year psychology textbook, a copy of which she knew lay open on her desk at home. She opened it to the familiar picture of the bisected brain, the labels spiking out from the various parts, and felt a strange longing, for her old life, the life of a university student. She'd never much appreciated it at the time, but it beat being in the mental hospital hands down.

She turned to the Chapter on abnormal psychology. She had dutifully read this section of the book last year, without a great deal of interest, but now it was like being struck by lightning. There in black and white were several possible diagnoses with symptoms that seemed to match hers. With a sinking feeling, she read about schizophrenia, delusional disorders, and schizoaffective disorder. People with schizophrenia often experienced paranoia, thinking that someone was trying to harm them, reading their thoughts and contaminating their food. It was like a thief, stealing a person from themselves. She wavered between chucking the book at the wall in anger, and crumbling onto the floor. She wanted to talk to someone. Someone like Elspeth.

Jazz wouldn't be home until the late afternoon. Adriana would return to the hospital, hopefully without anyone knowing she'd gone missing, and come back tonight. She'd leave Jazz a note, saying she'd be back, and to wait for her. Adriana thought about leaving her knapsack and bags of clothes but what if Jazz's mother found them? She scooped them into her arms and headed out the door.

At the bus stop she had second thoughts all of a sudden. The plan seemed too smooth. There were always wrinkles that no amount of massaging and face exercises could do away with. Uncharacteristically, Adriana made the choice Jazz would make, and decided not to think about it.

During the twenty minute bus ride to the hospital, Adriana considered what she'd read in the psychology textbook. Panic rose in her throat, threatening to swamp her. She couldn't scream and cry on this city bus full of people. Adriana leaned her forehead against the bus window, struggling to keep her face as smooth as possible. But what about her mother? What if she forgot about her mother? Adriana sat bolt upright. Her mother had been surprisingly absent from her thoughts the last few days, or could it be weeks. Except for the talk she'd had with Elspeth, and the dream of her funeral, she'd hardly thought of Viera at all. Adriana tried to picture her mother's grey eyes staring stonily at her but all she could muster was a pale face, with a weak smile that looked pasted on. What had happened? Was it the drugs that had turned her mother into a faded, watered-down version of herself? Or had her brain shrunk and shrivelled over the past few weeks from depression, the way her heart had?

Adriana rested her forehead on the window again. Some of the hospital buildings came into view—the brick laundry facility, the cafeteria building and the newer Mount Hope, which had units for longer term patients and senior citizens. Some people lived out their lives here, she thought, with a sick feeling.

A man just past middle age, with the red and porous nose of an alcoholic and suspenders under his jacket, stood up to get off the bus. He carried a grocery bag of books in his hand. Several other downtrodden looking people shuffled off the bus, lighting up cigarettes almost immediately. Adriana quickly exited out the back door, feeling the eyes of the other passengers on her.

She passed the smokers and entered the Purdy building. Just as she got on the elevator, Samantha appeared from the door to the basement, holding a bag of chips and a can of Coke. She smiled as she stuck her foot out to keep the elevator door open. “You're back? Couldn't stay away, eh?” she chortled. Adriana nodded grimly. Samantha hummed to herself as the elevator reached Mayflower on the third floor. “Well, I missed you,” Samantha said, with a shy smile. Adriana's eyes opened wide. Perhaps Samantha considered her a friend.

As they walked down the hall to the nurses' station, she saw one of the staff staring at her from the back office, and soon, all their heads were turned in her direction. Elspeth appeared in the doorway, her face grim. Adriana tried to smile but it was obvious Elspeth was not pleased. “Adriana we've been looking for you. You are an involuntary patient now and not allowed to leave the hospital grounds.” Adriana set her bags down and tried to explain, but the words got caught in her throat. Elspeth was waiting for her to say something.

Adriana blurted, “Am I schizophrenic?”

Elspeth's frown deepened. “Go put your bags away and then we'll talk,” she said. “The doctor wants to see you also.”

Samantha was lying in bed, delicately eating one potato chip at a time and sipping her cola. Adriana put her things in the locker, without thinking, and took her shoes off so she could put on the boat-shaped hospital slippers. “They gave me the third degree,” Samantha said. “I didn't tell them anything,” she added with satisfaction.

“Thank you,” Adriana said, though she didn't think Samantha could have told them much anyway.

Elspeth was waiting for Adriana down the hall. She had softened a little. “Dr. Burke will join us in a while,” she said, and she opened the door to the interview room. Adriana took the seat near the window. That much of the drill she knew. Elspeth was silent, waiting for Adriana to begin. Adriana hung her head. “I needed to get out of here,” was all she said.

Elspeth nodded. “I can appreciate it's difficult to be here, Adriana,” she said, “but you are here to get help, and we need you to stick around so we can give you that help.” Adriana looked at her feet. “Why did you come back?” Elspeth asked.

Adriana was surprised by the question. She thought Elspeth would ask why she had left. “I went to my friend's house. I was worried about her,” Adriana said, realizing even as the words left her that she hadn't known about Jazz's predicament when she left the hospital. “I read about psychosis in her psychology textbook, and I came back so I could ask you whether you think that's what's wrong with me.”

“And what made you worried?” Elspeth asked.

Adriana quaked. “I… Jeff was… I had a bad feeling, about Jeff and the storm.” Adriana couldn't tell her, that she had had a sudden overwhelming need to flee—that would just make things worse. Elspeth seemed to take note of it, but said nothing. Adriana held her breath for a few seconds. “She's pregnant,” Adriana said and put her face in her hands. “My friend. I want to go with her to the hospital tomorrow for the abortion.”

Elspeth softened. “Adriana, you'll have to talk to the doctor about that,” she said.

As if on cue, there was a knock at the door, and Dr. Burke entered. He was a short, thin man with dark curly hair and a beard. Adriana twisted her hands in her lap. Dr. Burke looked sombre. “Hello, Adriana,” he said and, without waiting for her to greet him, said “We've been concerned about you. So has your father.” Adriana felt something collapse. She hadn't thought about her father. “So what made you run this morning?”

“I didn't run,” she protested, but her stomach was weak. “I walked out.” Dr. Burke smiled, his eyes kind. “Okay, what made you walk?” he asked. Adriana was going to tell him about her dream but suddenly it sounded ridiculous. She looked at the ceiling, and her anxiety about hidden cameras kicked in, but she wondered whether that was ridiculous too.

Adriana felt completely demoralized. “Do I have schizophrenia?” she asked. Dr. Burke sat back in his chair, considering. Adriana put her face in her hands.

Dr. Burke leaned forward. “Adriana,” he said. “A diagnosis of schizophrenia is not made easily and often not the first time someone ends up in hospital.”

Adriana kept her hands over her eyes. “But what's wrong with me?” she asked. Dr. Burke cleared his throat.

“Dr. Chen does think you have some psychosis,” he said. “We're not sure when it started, whether in hospital or before. I am going to consult with her today, and later we can chat about all this.”