A World Without You(69)

“Yeah?” Ryan asks sullenly.

“Come on back in, buddy,” he says. “I want to ask you some things.”

Ryan plops back down in one of the blue plastic chairs, and the Doc pulls up another one so he can face him.

“What?” Ryan asks, an edge to his voice.

“I wanted to thank you for opening up to us today,” Dr. Franklin says.

Ryan shrugs.

“And I also want to say that when you’re ready, we could go to the police with some of this information. It’s not right, the way the adults in your life have treated you. You understand that, yes? In fact, it’s criminal, particularly what your nanny did. We could press charges . . .”

He stops when he notices Ryan laughing.

“Oh my God, really? Really?” Ryan says, his eyes lighting up with glee. “I thought I laid it on too thick, honestly, but you really bought all that, didn’t you? Hook, line, and sinker.”

The Doctor leans away, his eyes narrowing. “You made all that up today?” he asks. “Ryan, I’m deeply disappointed in you.”

Ryan shrugs. “I just wanted to see if I could make you guys believe me. And I could. Good to know.”

“Trust, once broken, is hard to establish again,” Dr. Franklin says.

Ryan slumps in his chair. “I just wanted to have a little fun.”

“Making up a story about being abused as a child is not ‘fun,’ Ryan.”

“It is for me.”

The Doctor glowers, but Ryan continues. “Look, I’m bored, okay? Bored. I don’t belong here. Locked up with these crazies.”

“No one here is ‘crazy,’” Dr. Franklin says. “Berkshire Academy is for the emotionally and behaviorally disturbed.”

“Whatever. They don’t tell you everything. They’re crazy. Which, to be fair, is sometimes amusing. I wonder if I can use that for my benefit. It’d be neat to make Harold believe his ‘ghosts’ are real. Or maybe make Gwen burn this whole place down.”

“Gwen’s been responding very well to her therapy,” Dr. Franklin says.

Ryan snorts. “I bet I could make her do it.”

“Why?” The Doctor is trying very hard to keep his face straight, to be the kind, patient listener, but I can see there’s disgust in his eyes.

“It’d be fun,” Ryan says. “To see what I could do. To make them all fail. If I had a lighter, I’d give it to Gwen right now, and I’d make the little pyro burn this whole school down.”

“You could cause serious damage, Ryan. Your lies and manipulation aren’t just words. People could get hurt, even die.”

Ryan shrugs.

Dr. Franklin leans over, moving his face so that he meets Ryan’s gaze. “Ryan,” he says in a very serious tone, “your manipulation seriously concerns me. I need to know that you understand the difference between right and wrong.”

He talks for a while more, but my eyes are glued on Ryan’s face. This is not a side of him I’ve ever seen before. Or have I?

“Do you?” Dr. Franklin asks him.

“Do I what?” Ryan’s eyes shift to the wall, as if the wood grain holds more entertainment than this conversation.

“Do you understand what I’m saying? Do you feel like you know the difference between right and wrong?”

“Yeah,” Ryan says, pushing up from his chair and heading to the door. “Of course I do.”

But there’s a difference between knowing what’s right and wrong and actually acting on it.

The Doctor stares at the door for a long moment, and he looks torn about whether or not to chase Ryan down. In the end, he gets up and moves toward the video recorder, about to turn it off. For a moment, I see the Doctor’s face close up. This had been an evening session, just before a weekend, and Dr. Franklin carries the weight of the entire week on his face. There is so much about these videos that’s fake—everything that happened in them, really—but that look on his face, that’s real. His eyes are still on the door, but I can see the crinkles in the corner, the way his brow furrows down, the cracks in his usual cheerful facade. He’s showing exhaustion—a moment of defeat. He reaches for the door, his mouth already opening to call Ryan back.

Before he can, though, the door opens. His face tightens with anxiety as he turns, expecting to see one of us again. Instead, it’s the unit leaders for the rest of the school, as well as a few of the teachers. Ms. Grantham is carrying a plate of cupcakes, and Mr. Glover has three bottles of wine in his arms, and the rest of the unit leaders burst inside, all singing “Happy Birthday” to him.

I had no idea that day had been the Doc’s birthday. From the look on his face, it seems like the Doctor himself didn’t realize it. But it’s kind of nice to see all that worry melt away as he blows out a candle on the biggest cupcake.

The other unit leaders spread out in the chairs we’d been sitting in. It’s so weird to see the leaders acting like . . . I don’t know, like people. I’m used to them bossing us around, not laughing and joking and smushing cupcakes in their mouths and getting a little tipsy on wine.

The party doesn’t last long, but Ms. Grantham is the last to leave. She lingers on purpose, finding excuses to clean up dropped napkins from the floor or help put away the chairs, until she’s the last person in the room. Dr. Franklin looks at her, and there’s a question and there’s hope drawing them closer, wrapping around them like strings. Before they do anything, though, Dr. Franklin reaches over and cuts off the video feed.