Point Horror: Identity Theft Part 18

"I don't know what to say," I said. I took a large sip of my coffee. Coffee wasn't officially allowed, since the nurses were worried about the caffeine interfering with the complicated pill combinations they were giving patients. But Dr. Taylor had made an exception for me, I think as a reward for no longer insisting on calling myself Hayley.

"Well, how are you adjusting here? Your roommate, Sheila ... how do you like her?"

"I'm worried about her," I said, a brilliant idea forming in my mind. Everyone knew she had hallucinations, and when she did, it was all hands on deck to restrain her. If I could use her to provide a distraction, I could get the file. I could get the phone. And I could get my freedom. I smiled, despite myself, then quickly arranged my expression to a more somber one when I saw a flicker of concern on Dr. Taylor's face.

"Really?" Dr. Taylor leaned forward. "Talk to me about that. Why are you worried about her?"

"I feel like I have to look out for her. I guess it's sort of like the way I felt I was supposed to look out for Aidan. But I couldn't, because I was so wrapped up in my jealousy and anger. Now, I feel like I care about Sheila, and I want to have a good relationship with her. I guess it's a way of transferring my emotions and trying to fix the past," I said, throwing in plenty of therapy-like words that I knew Dr. Taylor would like. I smiled, despite myself. I was pretty proud of my off-the-cuff explanation.

"Yes, that's good!" Dr. Taylor excitedly took a sip of coffee. And then I had an idea.

"I really think I'd be most helped if I could see her now. If I could go back to my room and tell her this," I said. I needed to get Sheila on board, and fast. I was pretty sure I could convince her to help me, but I needed to set it in motion before her electroshock treatment, before I would spend another day longer than I had to here. Then, I'd call Matt. I didn't trust my mother - not when she'd lied to me about Jamie in the first place, not when I didn't even know whether she'd be at home or with Geofferson. But Matt would believe me - he'd been at the restaurant, he had to have noticed a difference between Jamie and me - and then, I'd get him to call the police while simultaneously getting me out of here.

"Really? You have another half an hour, and we're really digging up some interesting stuff. I think you might find it valuable to discuss ..."

I shook my head vehemently. "I need to process stuff ... please?"

Dr. Taylor paused, his eyes flicking from me to the clock on the wall. It was almost one o'clock, and I was hoping his hunger for lunch would be larger than his hunger for my own psychological breakthrough.

"All right." He pressed the buzzer on the corner of the desk to call for a nurse.

In a second, Nanci came to the door.

"Bye!" I called gleefully to Dr. Taylor, barely able to contain my excitement. This would work. It had to.

As soon as I got into the room, I glanced at Sheila, who was engaged in her usual activity of staring out the window. She turned toward me. She reminded me of a gerbil hyped up on caffeine, manic and jerky and desperate to please.

"I need your help." I glanced behind my shoulder at the always-on camera. I quickly stepped onto the bureau and ripped it from the wall, hoping the nurses were too busy doing rounds to notice it was out of commission.

"You broke it!" Sheila exclaimed, blinking her ultra-large eyes at me accusingly.

"I know. But it's all right. You said you wanted to help me, right?" I asked soothingly.

Sheila nodded vigorously, the tufts of hair surrounding her head bouncing as wildly as flickering candles on a birthday cake.

"Good. Now, do you know what a distraction is?" I asked, amazed that the idea hadn't come to me before. It was so simple. Maybe that had been my problem. I was thinking big-picture, James Bondstyle escapes, when I should have realized that my captors were fluorescent-lipstick-loving, graphic-scrubs-wearing sheep who only did what Dr. Taylor told them to.

"I know what a distraction is," Sheila announced importantly.

"Good. So, at lunch, what I want you to do is exactly what you did yesterday. Remember? Just fall to the ground and start yelling. Can you do that?"

"Yes." She nodded, eyes wide.

"Good. But remember, it's just pretend. It's a game. You're pretending you're really, really upset. But you're not."

She smiled, a small, private grin. "That's something Jenny would have done."

"What happened to Jenny?" I was still dying to know. In my mind, Jenny loomed equally as large as Jamie. No matter what I did at Serenity, I decided, I couldn't become like Jenny. But I needed to know what had happened to her.

Soon, an orderly knocked on the door and we joined the shuffling line of patients to walk to the cafeteria. Some were silent, and some were always chattering loudly into s.p.a.ce. We marched down the steps of the cottage and onto the gravel pathway. As was usual, the orderlies were talking among themselves, making jokes about the basketball game on TV the night before, a reminder that there was a whole world beyond the five-acre compound we were locked in.

As we filed up the sagging wooden steps and into the entranceway of the main building, it happened. Sheila fell backward, her head hitting the carpeted floor. A strange, guttural noise emerged from her mouth as she flopped back and forth on the floor.

"They're back! They're attacking me. Help!" she shrieked.

"Who's attacking you?" one of the nurses said, rushing from the front of the line toward Sheila.

"The sloths! They're big!" Sheila was crying and in hysterics, and several other girls had begun crying. I smiled, despite myself. The sloths? That was Sheila's sense of humor: twisted, innocent, and not destroyed, despite the past year at Serenity and whatever horrors she'd seen happening to Jenny. As the others pressed into a circle closer toward her and Dr. Taylor was paged, I sprinted toward his office.

The file was still on the desk. I paused. I didn't have much time, but I couldn't resist one look.

On top of the stack of papers was a red sheet of paper with large typed letters in bold black font.

VIOLENT ALERT.

PATIENT HAS OUTBURSTS OF EXTREME VIOLENCE THAT CAN MANIFEST IN HARM TO OTHERS.

Below was a note in Dr. Taylor's handwriting. Killed brother's g-pig. Explore. Connection btwn that and brother hostility.

I shut the file, not wanting to see what else was there. Grabbing the receiver of the phone, I huddled under the desk, trying to remember Matt's number. There'd been a 3. And a 5. I felt like I had it. I dialed the string of numbers floating in my mind, my heart hammering against my chest, hoping it was him and not the local pizza place or somewhere equally useless.

"h.e.l.lo?" a guy asked curiously. I'd done it. Maybe everything would be okay.

"Hey, it's -"

"Hayley," he said warmly. "Where are you calling from? The number says blocked. And I just dropped you off at Keely's."

"Listen, I'm fine, but -"

"Cool. So I told Keely that we'd chill after school tomorrow. Maybe hang out down by the field? Or we can just hang at your place. Still thinking about last night." His voice dropped to a whisper. I wondered what he was thinking about last night. What had Jamie done? A wave of nausea made me pitch forward. I steadied myself against the desk and cleared my throat.

"It was really hot the way you snuck me in past your mom," he said.

My blood turned to ice. "Matt, wait!" I interrupted.

"Yeah. You've been awesome. So much fun, no stress ... what else do you want me to tell you?" he asked teasingly.

To tell you.

Not me. Her.

"What else have I been doing?" I asked. Down the hall, I heard an alarm screech. A door slammed. "What have I been doing?" I asked.

Matt chuckled. "What haven't you been doing? I've never seen this side of you. But I'm so, so glad I met it. That shy, book-loving thing was getting old. Even though I did try to read that book you love so much. But honestly, I'm just happy we have other things to do to entertain ourselves."

On the other end of the line, I could hear Matt breathe, his exhalations mixing with a half laugh, a sign that he was surely smiling, waiting for the flirty thing "I" would say, relieved that I was the fun party girl he'd really wanted all along.

"Hayley?" Matt asked. "Did I lose you?"

"Yeah," I agreed. If only he knew how true it was. "Bad connection." I hung up, wiping my clammy hands on my gray Serenity sweatshirt. The screeching of the alarm hadn't stopped and I heard the far-off wail of an ambulance. Sheila was clearly going all out. My heart wrenched, hoping that maybe this could somehow be good for her, that maybe she'd learn that she was a valuable person who wasn't nearly as crazy as she imagined she was.

I picked up the phone again.

Please pick up, I prayed as I dialed Adam's number. I didn't have to dredge it from memory. It was as easy to access as my middle name, as my favorite poems.

Please please please pick up.

"h.e.l.lo, Adam Scott," Adam said in his baby business-exec voice. I smiled inwardly. Of course Adam would answer his phone that way, as if he were about to get a job offer on his walk from Calc to Physics.

"Adam, it's Hayley."

"I know," Adam said flatly.

"Adam, listen -"

"I don't know why you're calling. We're not friends. Not when you're acting like this. And now you're wandering around the school like some s.k.a.n.k, you barely come to cla.s.s, and you're about to get thrown off Yearbook. Plus, you have the Ainsworth finalist interview, which even Mr. Klish thinks you don't deserve ... and why are you even calling me? Do you need me to bail you out from jail or something?" he said, laughing harshly.

"Adam, please listen. Please." I clutched the edge of the desk. "I really need to talk."

I heard Adam's sharp intake of breath. In the background, coffee cups clanked, people laughed. Like everything was normal. "Hold on, I'm at the Ugly Mug. I'm heading outside."

"Please don't hang up," I said in a small voice.

"Hayley! I promise I won't. I promise. Okay? I'm outside. Now tell me what's going on."

"I'm in Maine," I said. "The girl who's pretending to be me is my twin. She was the one who made the Facebook page. She was the one in the guidance office that day. It was her. And now I'm in a mental inst.i.tution, I don't even know what she's doing with Matt, and I don't know what's going on, and no one will believe me!"

A pause.

"Adam?"

"You're in a mental inst.i.tution?"

"Or something. It's called Serenity."

"So the girl I just saw is your twin? What?"

Footsteps echoed down the hallway.

"Yes. I'll explain it all. But I have to go. Serenity Point in Maine. Look it up and please, please, please help me. Or stop her. Or just ..."

The footsteps stopped. The doork.n.o.b turned. One black-clad sneaker, then another, stepped in.

"Jamie?" Dr. Taylor asked, sounding genuinely surprised to see me. "What are you doing here?" He was holding a thick file folder, the name Sheila Neville written on the front in ominous black letters.

His gaze fell to the phone, the bright display screen making it clear exactly what I'd been doing. He sighed.

"I don't have time to handle this right now. And I don't want you to lie to me. We will discuss this in your next session, but for now, I'm going to escort you to art therapy."

I followed him out the door and down the hall, aware of each nurse glaring at me as I pa.s.sed by. I knew that disobedience resulted in more medication, more mandatory therapy sessions. At this point, I'd never get out.

"Here you go," Dr. Taylor said gruffly, urging me to step into the brightly colored room. Inexplicably, the walls were covered with orange industrial carpeting while the floor was the same speckled linoleum found in the rest of the hospital. Of course the walls were carpeted. Of course nothing made sense.

Around me, eight patients were stringing dry macaroni onto pieces of yarn.

"Go on." Dr. Taylor practically pushed me onto a chair, then headed over to Molly, the perky red-haired art therapist. I watched as they whispered to each other, catching words like defiant and oppositional.

When he left, Molly came over to me.

"Are you going to make a necklace?" The question came out more like a threat. I stared down at the table.

"You know, you could make it for your friend Sheila. It might be nice to do something for someone else."

I glanced up. "Is she okay?" I asked.

"I can't talk about other patients," Molly said, a small smile forming on her face. "But I can say that a nice homemade gift might cheer her up while she's recovering."

"Is she getting electroshock? Where did they take her?" My voice rose in panic. If I'd done this to Sheila, I wouldn't forgive myself. She'd thrown herself into the diversion and I didn't even know if it would actually work. Who knew if Adam believed me, or even if he had, if he had enough information to get me. Hot tears formed behind my eyes.

"It's all right to cry," Molly murmured. She put her hand on my shoulder. Even though it was meant to be a protective gesture, her fingers felt clawlike and only reminded me how trapped I was. I would never, ever get out. Adam hadn't believed me. Matt liked Jamie better. The Ainsworth was tomorrow, I had no hope of arriving for the interview, and all I had to look forward to was maybe, in the distant future, getting discharged into a family that'd already written me - Jamie - off.

Someone wailed, sounding more like a wounded animal than a human. I looked around to see where the sound was coming from, only to see concern and fear in the faces surrounding me. It had been me.

Molly sc.r.a.ped her chair back.

"I think art is too much for you today. Let's call the nurses and get you to sleep."

I didn't protest as two orderlies helped me to my feet and half dragged me to my room, or when the nurse pushed a cup of pills and a gla.s.s of water in my hands, or when I finally succ.u.mbed to sleep.

I was woken by a bright light in my eyes. It was Dr. Taylor, his fingers flipping up my eyelids. I shook my head and he let go, turning toward the nurse.

"How long has she been asleep?"

"Just two hours. We'd have liked it to have been more." The nurse glared at me as though it were my fault, and not Dr. Taylor's, that I was awake.

"All right. She'll be a little sleepy in the car, but she can nap on the way home. I'll sign the discharge."

"Discharge?" I asked. My voice was creaky.

Dr. Taylor turned toward me and nodded. "Yes. It's not what I would have recommended. I think you could make a lot of progress here if you dug in. But we don't keep patients against their will."

I resisted the urge to question that statement.

"Ready?" the nurse asked, much nicer now that she knew she didn't have to deal with me. She helped me to my feet. I swayed on solid ground. My eyelids felt heavy and I could tell my speech was slurred.

"Will I be better tomorrow?" I asked. If I could get home and get to sleep, I'd be able to make it to the interview tomorrow morning.

"Better is a subjective word, Jamie," Dr. Taylor said. "We're here for you anytime you need us."