Page 95 of Never Leave, Never Lie

“I talk when it suits me.”

She tapped the tip of her pen on the yellow notepad in her lap. “I’m glad you’re still with us.”

“That makes one of us.”

“What happened?”

He crossed his arms. “I’m sure you’ve been told precisely what happened.”

“I want to hear it from you.”

“Ask a different question.” He looked down and plucked a piece of lint from the black shirt he was wearing.

The shirt was Ian’s, the one Alek had tried to take with him. Ian had dropped it off when Alek transferred toElmsdale, along with the piano key and his uncle’s letter. At first, Alek wanted to rip the shirt to shreds with his bare hands, but his plans were thwarted by a beastly security guard and a stab of sedation, and now he was grateful he hadn’t. Later, when he could move again, and later still when they’d released him from his restraints, he had put the shirt on and held the key to his chest.

“How are your meds treating you?”

“I remain as depressed as ever.”

Whilst in purgatory, Alek had been forced to take his medications exactly as prescribed. None of the methods he’d used to fool Ian worked on the staff atAlder Home. They’d seen it all.

“Give the medications time. Remember, it can take up to six weeks for them to work. What about the nightmares? The ringing in your ears?”

Now that he thought about it, the ringinghadquieted some. The nightmares were worse than before, though that could be due in part to the fact that he was actually sleeping more than a few hours each night.

After he relayed as much, Dr. Dhawan said, “And the hallucinations?”

“The fox is gone.” In more ways than one.

“How do you feel about that?”

“Alone.”

“Dr. Hills told me you’ve been declining visits, refusing all phone calls, and correspondence.”

Dr. Hills was the psychiatrist Alek had been assigned atCedar Refuge. He was toxic positivity personified. Alek suspected that it was an act, that each night the doctor came home to an empty house and drank a liter’s worth of box wine before staring longingly at the barrel of a gun until his self-prescribed sleeping pills carried him off to sleep.

“What happened between you and Ian?” she tried.

“I don’t want to talk about Ian,” he said.

“Why?”

He fisted his hand until his fingers dug into his palm, but there was no bite from his nails. They’d been trimmed short, and filed down even shorter after he’d failed to sever his carotid with brute force three nights before.

“Ian’s called my office to ask after you,” she said. “There’s nothing I can say without your consent. As far as I know, no onehas updated him and you won’t speak to him. Why won’t you speak to him?”

“Hmm?” Alek was trying to decide if he felt satisfied or guilty that Ian had been forced on an information diet. Maybe both.

“I was asking about Ian. Why won’t you speak to him?”

Alek wasn’t thinking about Ian, which meant he wasn’t talking about not talking to Ian.

When Alek didn’t break the silence, she asked, “You said your relationship was in its death throes when I first met you. Did your relationship die? Is that why you tried to kill yourself?”

Alek scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not a teenager with a Tumblr account.”

“Why did you try to commit suicide then?” she pressed.

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