A World Without You(50)

Ryan shrugs. “They have no evidence, no videos, and no one’s said anything. Sofía’s dead, mystery solved, go home.”

My stomach aches at how easily Ryan mentions Sofía’s death, even though I know he knows it’s not real. But he’s right. There’s no reason why the officials should still be here, not if their only purpose is to investigate the death of a student.

But if they have ulterior motives . . .

Harold steps closer, so silently that Ryan jumps when he starts talking.

“I don’t like them,” Harold whispers, his eyes flicking to the door where the officials entered Dr. Franklin’s office.

“No one does,” I say.

“They sneak, and they pry, and they’re trying to drive us apart.”

I think Harold’s on to something, actually. There’s coldness in the air now that has nothing to do with the weather. This unit used to be a family, and now no one talks. The Doctor is distant. We all just shuffle from room to room, waiting for the officials to leave so that life can return to normal.

“I don’t like them at all,” Harold continues. “They’re trying to take you away from me.”

And that’s when I realize that Harold isn’t talking to us at all. He’s talking to his ghosts.

“Still no Sofía in the ghost world?” I ask in a low voice, my heart skipping a beat.

Harold turns to me, his clear, pale eyes eerily wide. “There is no Sofía. Nothing. Just a blank space where she once was.”

I breathe again. Harold can see the dead, but not the past.

Ryan rolls his eyes at Harold. “Anyway,” he says, turning back to me, “they need to go, like, yesterday. They’ve been here almost a month.”

“Dude, it’s only been a little over a week.”

Ryan gives me a weird look. “Okay, whatever, time-man.”

“No, but seriously. A week and some days. Not a month.”

“You may want to check your math on that.”

I turn on my heels.

“Dr. Franklin’s going to start our session soon!” Gwen calls as I stride back toward my room.

I don’t care. Ryan’s a jerk, but I don’t think he’d play me like that. By my count, the officials have been here just thirteen days. But Ryan looked at me like I was clueless.

I travel through time. I don’t lose it.

I slam open my bedroom door and head straight to my calendar. I stare at the date.

It’s been a month.

How the hell did I lose a month?

Did the officials do this? Dr. Rivers could tell that her regular mind games weren’t working on me. Did she find a way to make me lose time?

I shake my head. Ryan’s just being a jerk. He’s playing a joke. He must have snuck in my room and altered my calendar. I flip through the pages, but each is marked with my special code.

Gwen shows up at my door. “Dr. Franklin told me to get you. Session’s starting.”

I follow her, but my mind’s focused on my lost time. This has to be a joke. Ryan’s messing with me.

“Hey,” Gwen says as she leads me down the hall. “Maybe try not to be too crazy. In front of the officials, I mean. I think they’re going to go soon. I don’t want to give them an excuse to stick around.”

I nod my head tightly. So don’t blow up at Ryan for messing with me. Got it.

We all sit around Dr. Franklin’s desk, and Ryan pulls his cell phone out of his pocket. The date flashes on the screen—the same date that’s on my calendar, the one that’s several weeks off. How did he do that? I didn’t even know you could change the date on a cell phone.

“Ryan, put that away. You’re only allowed to use your phone after class.”

Ryan crams the phone back in his pocket, but there’s a smirk on his face. If he wanted to rattle me, it worked. I just don’t get why he’s doing this now.

I can’t even pay attention to what the Doctor’s talking about, and within fifteen minutes, he dismisses us. I stand up to leave.

“Bo,” he says, “I just asked you to stay.” He gives me a weird look. I sit back down. The officials are busy recording everything that’s happening.

Once Gwen, Harold, and Ryan leave, the Doctor pulls up a chair and sits across from me. “I want to say again,” he says, “Dr. Rivers and Mr. Minh are observers, but it’s your right to ask them to leave if you’re uncomfortable with them sitting in.”

He’s nervous, that much is clear. His eyes widen slightly, glancing to his left, where the officials are sitting. Maybe he knows, subconsciously, that they’re doing something to mess with his head.

“It’s okay,” I mutter. They’ll just find another way to spy on me if I kick them out, and I’d rather have them where I can see them.

“Before we go on, I want to know: Do you have any questions for me?”

I sit up straighter. “Uh, yeah,” I say. “What—uh, what day is it?”

The Doctor shoots me a strange look but tells me the date. The same as the date on my calendar, on Ryan’s phone.

It wasn’t a joke.

I’ve lost several weeks of time. The last thing I remember is going to bed the day I texted Phoebe. I stayed up until lights-out reading that book assigned to us in English. And then I woke up, just like normal, but somehow time has zoomed past me. What the hell happened? The officials are still here, everyone’s acting like everything’s normal . . . but I’ve lost weeks.