He pauses to write something down. “What do you think your suicide would achieve?”
I’m ready to say no again when I realize what he’s asked. No answer comes to me. Which I don’t get, because it’s all I’ve thought of since the gun failed to do its job. “I . . . .” I didn’t know about this one. “I guess . . . the pain would be gone.”
“Whose pain?”
“Mine. Everyone’s.”
“Do you have any hope, Ellery?”
Shit. These are harder than I thought they’d be. I glance around the room. The window’s curtains are a deep shade of green, Dr. Chambers’s jacket is denim blue, the door is gray like the moon.
“Ellery?” he repeats.
“Hope for what?” I ask, hoping maybe he has the answer.
“You tell me,” he replies.
“I don’t know.”
He takes a deep breath, closes the legal pad, and adjusts his bow tie before scooting out of the chair. He makes his way toward the door, and gestures for someone to come inside.
The nurse comes back in and gives me a small smile. What do they know about me that I don’t? Where’s my mom? Are they going to strap me down? Panic fills my body at the thought, and I glance down at my shaking hands. “What’s going to happen to me?” I ask Dr. Chambers before he can leave.
He turns with a concerned expression. I try to stop my hands from shaking by sitting on them, but they won’t still. “You’ll have to stay for a few days, but after that you can go home. We just have to make sure you’re safe. Okay?” he says, with sincerity in his voice.
Tears start to flow down my cheeks. “I want to go now.”
He sets the legal pad on the chair and the nurse checks something in the hallway. He sits down again and regards me carefully. “I can’t let you go. We both know you’ve been lying for a long time. And there’s nothing about that interview that was the truth, except maybe the last couple of questions.” He leans back in his chair. “I’ll be back tomorrow and we can talk more.” He stands again and picks up his legal pad. “Do you need something to help you sleep?”
I shake my head. “Is my mom coming back?”
“Yes, she’ll be back. You don’t have to go through this alone.” He slides out of the room and stops in the doorway. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I nod as the nurse comes back in. She hands me a gown, but doesn’t leave the room. She apologizes for it.
She doesn’t know. I’ve never felt more alone in my life.
51
2 Days After
The morning sun casts yellow into my hospital room. The color is brighter but more fake than it is at home. I miss the dull yellow of my room.
Mom hasn’t left my side all night. We played cards like we used to until midnight, when the day finally caught up to me. She told me Colter wants to visit. Jackson and Janie, too. I told her I’d only be willing to see Jackson right now. He’s supposed to come early before school today. I put on some jeans and a shirt before he visits and wait, staring out the window at the cars going down the road.
Dean’s not out there anymore, riding past my house on his bike, climbing that stupid tree in his neighbor’s yard. My chest aches every time I think about him, like it’s a wound that won’t ever heal. My partner in death, but I’m not dead. Was it always going to be this way? Would I have done it if Colter never came to get me?
“Hey, Ellery Bellery,” Jackson says from behind me.
I turn around and his face is full of . . . normal. He’s not sad or ashamed or guilt-ridden. He’s him. I run and wrap my arms around him, hugging him close. “I’m so glad to see you,” I say, his shirt muffling my voice.
“Me too. I’m going to try to restrain myself from hitting you upside the head. But it will be hard.”
I let him go and lower my head, taking a seat on the end of the bed.
He takes a seat on the chair that Dr. Chambers sat in last night, crossing his legs, then uncrossing them. “Nice digs.”
“Jackson Gray.”
“What? My grandma had to share a room with a guy who smelled like cabbage farts. Trust me, this is better.”
I laugh, and it feels strange to laugh right now. “It’s like prison. They stand outside the bathroom while I go.”
“Do you blame them?” he says, putting on a serious face.
“No.” I shrug.
“Do they have you on happy pills?”
“Not yet, but I suspect they will start soon.”
He nods and searches around the room, crossing his legs again. “You have a flat-screen in here.”
“Yep.”
He takes in a deep breath. “Colter’s worried about you. He thinks you hate him.”
“I don’t want to talk about him.”
He gives me a stern look, the same one he gave me when he picked me up at Kmart the night I tried to return the gun—the night that changed my life. It seems so long ago. “I would have told, too, you know. Sooner than he did, actually.”
“I said, I don’t want to—”