Break(46)

He’s fine.

“You should probably just call next time,” I tell him, and my stomach hurts.

And he looks like his does too. “I need to see you.”

“I know you do, Jess, but—”

“Jonah!” Mackenzie’s voice rings through the hallway like an alarm bell. I hear every muscle clenched in her throat. “Jonah, come here!”

She’s in the hall on her knees, clutching her arm. Her wrist is swollen and turning purple.

I say, “Did you . . . fall?”

Jesse skids beside me. “Oh my God.”

She keeps sputtering.

I drop to my knees next to Mackenzie. “What did you do?” I grab the tops of her arms and shake her. “What the f*ck did you do?”

“I slipped,” she says. “It was an accident! It was just—”

Jesse’s white against the wall. “Oh my God.”

I shout, “Jesse, sit down!”

“What the hell is going on here?”

The unfamiliar voice breaks up all our screaming. No one speaks while I turn around.

A nurse stands above us. Her huge eyes dart from Mackenzie’s broken wrist to illegal visitor Jesse. To me.

I’m crazy dizzy and I barely remember to tell the nurse not to touch Jesse as she forces him downstairs.

I’m crazy dizzy and I don’t know what happens to Mackenzie. I just know the psychiatrist stands over me and smiles this wicked smile and says, “Well, well, Jonah.”

I just know they take me in the elevator and hit the 3.





thirty-nine


IT TURNS OUT ISOLATION IS WORSE THAN ELECTRO-shock therapy.

I feel like Rapunzel. Except no long hair.

And there is one door and one window. But the door is locked and the window is high and instead of curtains it has bars.

And through the window all you can see are skeletons of cherry trees. This is what they were hiding behind those trees. Third floor.

I hope Jesse’s okay.

This room is much bigger than my last. There’s no carpet, just an empty bookshelf and a cot. A tiny little intercom. Just tile floor and bare walls.

I sit on the floor with my shirt off, hoping the chill off the plaster can cool me down. And every time I worry about Jesse I start shaking even harder.

I’ve got to get out of here.

Jesse had hives when he left. He could have been driving home and his throat could have closed up and he could have crashed and it could have been all. My. Fault.

This room would be so much less scary if it were smaller.

I pound my cast against the floor. My swollen hand fights back. “Tyler!” I shout. “Tyler, I’m in f*cking isolation! Get me out of here!”

The intercom buzzes and the psychiatrist says, “Jonah, quiet. It’s only a few days.”

I’m trembling so hard I hear my backbone hitting the wall.

“We can’t take the risk of you hurting more people,” he says.

I think if I’m going to keep on living, everyone’s just going to have to accept that I am going to hurt people.

I start crying, and the tears are even hotter than my face. “It’s not on purpose!” I shout. “Tyler!”

“He can’t hear you,” the intercom says. “You might as well just quiet down and try to get some rest.” The microphone clicks off.

My parents would come down with a f*cking lawsuit if they knew what these people were doing to me. I wonder what everyone downstairs would say. I wonder if they know.

I wonder what Jesse would say. I wonder what Charlotte would say.

I wonder if she’d realize, finally, that some people are crazier than me.

I can’t believe they took my cell phone.

Charlotte. God, I need her so badly it’s hurting in the back of my head and there’s got to be a way I’ve got to have another chance with her there’s got to be a way I can get out of here and— A voice says, “Jonah?”

I snap my eyes open, but it’s just the intercom.

“This is Nurse Bluser, Jonah. I’ve been assigned to your case.”

I say, “Hi.”

“You ready to admit what you’ve done, Jonah?”

“What?”

“What did you do to Leah and Mackenzie?”

“I didn’t do anything.”

My teeth are chattering, so I put my shirt on and crawl into the bed. The mattress is ridged and smells like urine.

She keeps talking, and I cover my ears up tight. I toss back and forward like I really think I can sleep. I sing, badly, to a Weezer song.

I have no clue how much time passes between the brutal singing and when I hear a key in the lock of my prison.

But I sit straight up, and the sweaty sheets fall right off my shoulders.

It’s Mackenzie. She’s out of her volunteer polo and is wearing a T-shirt and jeans. Her wrist’s in a splint. She probably went to one of those corporate hospitals that can’t figure out how to set and cast on the same day.

She holds her fingers to her lips and then edges the door shut. She takes a screwdriver out of her pocket and carefully disconnects the intercom. It lifts off the wall and hangs from a bunch of wires, and she snips them all with a pair of nail scissors.

“We don’t have much time,” she says.