Twenty-one

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THE NEXT MORNING WHEN I was called into a meeting with the doctors, I did my best damage control. I claimed I really had gotten past the I-see-dead-people stage and accepted my condition, but had woken up hearing a voice in the night, calling me to the attic. I’d been confused, sleep drunk, dreaming of seeing ghosts, not really seeing them.

Dr. Gill and Dr. Davidoff didn’t fully appreciate the distinction.

Then Aunt Lauren arrived. It was like when I’d been eleven, caught peeking at test scores, egged on by the new classmates I’d been eager to impress. Being hauled to the principal’s office had been bad enough. But the disappointment on Aunt Lauren’s face had hurt worse than any punishment.

That day, I saw the same disappointment, and it didn’t hurt any less.

In the end, I managed to persuade them all that I’d had a minor setback, but it was like the little boy crying wolf. The next time I said I was improving, they’d be a lot slower to believe me. No quick track to release now.

“We’re going to need you to provide urine samples for the next week,” Dr. Gill said.

“Oh, that’s ridiculous,” Aunt Lauren said. “How do we know she wasn’t sleepwalking and dreaming? She can’t control her dreams.”

“Dreams are the windows to the soul,” Dr. Gill said.

“That’s the eyes,” my aunt snapped.

“Anyone versed in psychiatry will tell you it’s the same for dreams.” Dr. Gill’s voice was level, but her look said she was sick of parents and guardians questioning her diagnoses and defending their children. “Even if Chloe is only dreaming she sees ghosts, it suggests that, subconsciously, she hasn’t accepted her condition. We need to monitor her with urine tests.”

“I—I don’t understand,” I said. “Why do I need urine tests?”

“To ensure you’re receiving the proper dosage for your size, activity level, food intake, and other factors. It’s a delicate balance.”

“You don’t believe—” Aunt Lauren began.

Dr. Davidoff cleared his throat. Aunt Lauren pressed her lips into a thin line and started picking lint from her wool skirt. She rarely backed down from an argument, but these doctors held the key to my future.

I already knew what she’d been going to say. The urine tests weren’t to check my dosage. They were to make sure I was taking my pills.

***

Since I’d missed morning classes, I was assigned lunch duty. I was setting the table, lost in my thoughts, when a voice said, “I’m behind you.”

I spun to see Derek.

“I can’t win,” he said. “You’re as skittish as a kitten.”

“So if you sneak up and announce yourself, that’s going to startle me less than if you tap me on the shoulder?”

“I didn’t sneak—”

He shook his head, grabbed two rolls from the bread basket, then rearranged the others to hide the theft. “I just wanted to say that if you and Simon want to talk, you don’t need to do it behind my back. Unless you want to.”

“We were just—”

“I know what you were doing. Simon already told me. You want answers. I’ve been trying to give them to you all along. You just have to ask.”

“But you said—”

“Tonight. Eight. Our room. Tell Mrs. Talbot you’ll be with me for math tutoring.”

“Your side is off-limits. Is she going to let me go up there, alone, with a boy?”

“Just tell her it’s for math. She won’t question it.”

Because he had problems with math, I supposed.

“Will that be … okay? You and I aren’t supposed to—”

“Tell her Simon will be there. And talk to Talbot, not Van Dop.”