The Masked Truth(70)

“Which means helping me sneak in to see Max?”

“I’m only eighteen. I’m still working on the responsible-adult thing.”

I shake my head, and we go down the stairs two flights. The next hurdle: finding Max’s room. As we start down the hall, I see I’ve made another mistake. This isn’t like the other wards, where you can walk along rows of open doors and peek inside. The doors here are all closed. Luckily, Sloane came prepared with a room number. But the location means there’s no getting past the nurses’ station without being spotted.

As we’re considering our next move—Sloane suggests rappelling down to the window from the floor above—the nurse on duty heads off on her rounds. Which leaves a med intern sitting behind the counter, hard at work and seemingly unlikely to leave.

“I’ve got this,” Sloane says.

She motions for me to stay hidden around the corner. Then she walks to the counter. When she speaks, it’s in a tone I know well: a little breathier and higher-pitched than her usual voice, and a whole lot less confident. I once called it her helpless-kitten voice. “Um, no,” she said. “My helpless-kitten voice is much softer. This is my helpless-sex-kitten voice.”

She uses that voice to explain her dilemma to the hapless young intern. Her sister—her poor little sister, Riley Vasquez … perhaps he’s heard of her, the one who’d saved a little girl when her parents were horribly murdered and now barely survived another attack? Yes, that Riley. Poor baby. She’s having such a hard time of it and now people are saying all these things about the guy who’d saved her, and she’s so confused and upset and sinking fast into depression, and given her injuries, she needs to stay strong, doesn’t she? Yes, the intern agrees, she does.

Which is why, Sloane says, her poor baby sister just needs a few minutes—a few minutes—to speak to Max Cross. She needs resolution. She needs closure. And this young intern can give her that just by going to the restroom. Decide he really should scrub his hands or something. And Sloane would be grateful—so very grateful—and maybe, if he has time later, they can grab a coffee together in the cafeteria? Yes? Really? OMG, he has no idea how happy he’s made her. Squee! She could kiss him. But for now, she totally owes him a coffee. So if he can just take off before the nurse gets back …





CHAPTER 25


My hands tremble as I walk up to Max’s door. I need to find exactly the right expression before I walk in. No apprehension. No uncertainty. No sign that I believe he did anything wrong. Also no sign that his condition changes my opinion of him.

But I also can’t rush in with smiles and hugs. I can’t seem too eager to reassure him, because that’s just as bad. It says I do have doubts but I’m trying very hard to pretend otherwise. I also can’t act as if what he has is no more serious than a common cold, because that’s as ignorant as giving him a wide berth.

Eventually, I just take a deep breath and push open the door, because it’s all I can do. I feel the right things. I know he didn’t do anything wrong. I know his condition is something neither to run from nor to brush under the rug. Most of all, though, I know him, and maybe that seems naive after only one evening together, but those hours felt like a lifetime, because they were, in a way—a brief period of time in which our lives could have ended at any moment and we completely relied on each other to make sure that didn’t happen. For those few hours, we were as unguarded as it got—no masks to hide behind.

Sloane stays in the hall while I tap on his door and then walk in. Max sits by the window, writing in a notebook.

Without turning, he says, “Yes, I had a shower. Two today, in fact, just so you’ll stop asking. I do not need a bath.”

“Good,” I say, “because I wasn’t going to give you one.”

He turns, and he smiles. No, not a smile—a grin, wide as can be.

“Riley,” he says as he rises. “I didn’t think they were allowing me visitors.”

“They aren’t.”

“You snuck in? Excellent. I am both impressed and flattered. But should you be up and around already?”

“I’m encouraged to make short forays from my bed. This was short. Relatively speaking.”

For a moment, he keeps grinning. Then he reaches up and rubs his hand over his mouth, wiping away the smile.

“So you heard,” he says.

I nod.

“I’m …” Another rub of his mouth. “I’m sorry, Riley. For not telling you. I just …”

“You don’t tell anyone unless you absolutely have to?”

“I considered getting it on a T-shirt, but the man at the shop couldn’t spell ‘schizophrenia.’ ” He makes a face. “See? Even joking doesn’t work. It just sounds rather desperate.”

“You did warn me—about the confusion, seeing things and such. So while I still think you should have told me, I won’t mention it again.”

“I’ll still apologize again.”

I walk over and I hug him. He tenses at first, but it seems to be surprise rather than resistance, and he pulls me into a quick, fierce hug as he says, “Thank you. For coming.”

“How are you doing?”

“Well enough. You’ve heard what happened? Why I’m still here?”