Eventually, they let me attend group sessions, and it was at my second or third one that Molly decided to come back. Suddenly she was there, flitting at the edges of my vision, someone I thought was gone. Someone I hadn’t missed. Someone who made me think of Georgia. And it made me even testier than usual. I started looking for a way to get sent back to my room.
The group session was full of vulnerable people who I could terrorize. Adults of all ages, with all sorts of disorders and problems. Their pain and despair was a throbbing, inky black behind my eyes, with no color and light to create hope or escape. I was eighteen, and some eighteen-year-olds were apparently still treated as juveniles, depending on the opinion of the doctors. But when they’d brought me in, I was housed with the adults. Apparently the kids were a floor below. I was grateful I wasn’t housed with them. Kids made it hard to be cruel.
Dr. Noah Andelin, a psychologist with a neatly groomed beard that he most likely wore to make himself look older, was conducting the group session. He stroked his beard when he was thinking, and it gave him a perpetually melancholy air. He was far too young to be a doctor, and way too young to be so serious. And sad. He had the saddest eyes I’d ever seen. He made me uncomfortable. He made it hard for me to be cruel too. And I needed to be cruel. To be left alone, I needed to be cruel. I picked on the therapists and techs when I could, and when I couldn’t, I would pick on the patients that picked on everyone else. Sadly, they were usually the ones with the most loss. I usually ended up biting my tongue and pushing their dead away. I was an asshole. But I wasn’t a bully.
I sat there, the bridge wide open, on the look-out for ammo when Molly stopped flitting and danced right in front of my eyes, blonde hair flowing, showing me all the same old things. I almost groaned out loud. This wasn’t what I wanted. But then she started to hover around the edge of the circle, standing between two men across from me and staring back at me expectantly.
“Who knows a girl named Molly?” I blurted out, not thinking.
Dr. Andelin stopped mid-sentence. “Moses? Did you have something you wanted to say?” His voice was gentle. Just like it always was. So gentle and kind. It made me want to pick him up by his lapels and toss him into the wall. I had a feeling there was some fire in him somewhere. He tried to hide his physique beneath ridiculous tweed jackets with patches on the elbows, like a college professor from the 1940s. All he needed was a pipe. But he wasn’t a weakling. I’d sized him up. It was something that came naturally to me. Who can hurt you? Who is a physical threat? And Noah Andelin, with his sad eyes and his neat little beard, could be both, I was convinced of it.
As soon as I spoke, I felt stupid. Molly didn’t belong to anyone here. She was here because I was . . . though I had no idea why.
“What did you say?”
The question came from the man to the left of Molly, a man who looked about my age, barely old enough to be on the adult floor. His green eyes were sharp, though his posture was relaxed, his hands folded loosely in his lap. I could see a long jagged scar that ran from the bottom of his palm to the middle of his forearm. From the looks of it, he didn’t want to live very badly.
“Molly. Do you know a girl named Molly? A dead girl named Molly?” I should have borrowed some of Dr. Andelin’s kind and gentle approach. But I didn’t. I just asked.
The boy leaped from his chair and flew across the circle to where I sat. I was so surprised I didn’t have time to prepare before his hands were wrapped in my shirt, yanking me to my feet. I found myself nose to nose with a fire-breathing, green-eyed monster.
“You son of a bitch!” he spit in my face. “You better tell me how the hell you know anything about my sister!”
His sister? Molly was his sister? My head spun as he shoved me again, but this time he didn’t want answers. He just wanted to knock me down, and we both fell back, upending my chair, and I forgot about Molly and enjoyed the way it felt to let go. We hit the ground with our fists flying and people screaming around us.
I almost laughed out loud as I caught him in the stomach and he immediately punched back, catching the grin as it crossed my lips and leaving blood in its wake. I had forgotten how much I liked fighting. Apparently Molly’s brother enjoyed it as well, because it took Chaz and three other men to break it up. I made note of the fact that Noah Andelin hadn’t hesitated about wading in and was the one sitting on my back, shoving my face into the floor to restrain me. The room was chaos, but between the upended chairs and the scrambling legs of the staff trying to get the other clients out of the room, I could see Molly’s brother in the same position as I was, his head turned toward me, cheek against the grey speckled linoleum floor.
“How did you know?” he said, his eyes on mine. The din around us quieted slightly. “How did you know about my sister?”
“Tag. No more!” Dr. Andelin barked, sweetness and light all run out.
Tag? What kind of name was that?
“My sister’s been missing for over a year, and this son-of-a-bitch acts like he knows something about it?” Tag ignored Dr. Andelin and raged on. “You think I’m gonna shut up? Think again, Doc!”
We were both pulled to our feet and Dr. Andelin instructed Chaz and another orderly I didn’t recognize to stay. Everybody else he ordered out. A plump brunette therapist named Shelly stayed behind as well, and she hung back as if to document the meeting as Dr. Andelin righted three chairs in the center of the floor and instructed us to sit. Chaz stood behind Tag and the other orderly stood behind me. Noah Andelin sat equidistance between us, his shirt sleeves rolled up and a little blood on his lip. Looks like I clipped him on accident. Chaz handed him a tissue and Dr. Andelin took it and blotted at his lip before eyeing us both and straightening in his chair.
“Moses, do you want to explain to Tag what you meant when you asked if anyone knew a girl named Molly?”
“A dead girl named Molly!” Tag hissed. Chaz patted his shoulder, a reminder to calm down, and Tag swore violently.
“I don’t know if she’s his sister. I don’t know him. But I’ve been seeing a girl named Molly off and on for almost five months.”