Page 17 of Ward D
Jade folds her skinny arms across her chest. “Nobody wants your crappy stuff, Mom.”
“Oh yeah?” She comes around the couch and stands over us, teetering on her startlingly high heels. “So where are my pills, huh?”
“I don’t know,” Jade says, although she is not looking at her mother. “You keep everything locked up anyway.”
“I know you know how to get into all my stuff. Don’t lie to my face, Jade.”
“I’m not lying.”
“Yeah, right. Give me my pillsright now.”
“I don’t have them!”
“Bullshit!” Mrs. Carpenter grabs one of the ashtrays off the coffee table, and before I even know what’s happening, she has hurled it at the wall, where it shatters into a hundred little pieces, scattering ceramic shards and cigarette butts all over the floor. “You’re a lying little thief!”
Jade’s eyes widen a couple of millimeters, but she doesn’t react. I, on the other hand, feel like my heart is about to explode out of my chest. I grab the strap of my backpack and snatch it off the coffee table. “I better go,” I mumble.
I hurry out the front door as quickly as I can. I don’t know what to do at this point. I feel like I should tell my mom what is going on at the Carpenter household. Mrs. Carpenter has always seemed different from other mothers but in a fun kind of way. She was the kind of mom that let you eat cake batter, even though it has raw eggs in it. Or she let you stay up as long as you wanted at sleepovers. And when she drove us around, she used to try to hit potholes on purpose, because it was fun when the car bounced. And she had this really loud, infectious laugh that made you want to laugh too.
I barely get to the end of the driveway when I hear footsteps behind me. I turn around just in time to see Jade standing behind me, breathing rapidly, her face slightly pink.
“Hey,” she says. “Sorry about my mom acting weird.”
“Yeah,” I mumble. “It’s okay. I should go.”
“Okay, but…” She scratches the back of her neck. “You’re not going to tell anyone about all this, right? I mean, it sounds worse than it was. She’s just cranky because she was working late last night at the diner.”
“Uh-huh.”
Jade’s gaze crawls over my face. “Amy. You can’t go telling everyone that my mom is a crazy person. Our neighbor called child protective services, so we’ve already got one strike against us. I’m going to, like, end up in foster care. And it will be all your fault.”
I dig the fingernails of my left hand into my palm, and my index finger smarts where the splinter had been lodged. I don’twantto tell on Jade’s mother. I don’t want my best friend to end up in foster care—she doesn’t have anyone else to live with.
She reaches for my arm. “Promise you won’t say anything?”
“What pills was she talking about?”
She lifts a shoulder. “Who knows? She takes some medicine for her blood pressure or something. She probably just lost them.”
Except why would Mrs. Carpenter accuse Jade of stealing blood pressure medication? That doesn’t make any sense.
“Please, Amy?” She squeezes my arm. “That wasn’t a big dealat all. Like, she’s already probably asleep in the bedroom by now. Like I said, she was working super late last night. Anyone would get crabby.”
My gut is telling me that I should at least tell my mom what happened. My mom always knows what to do. But Jade is my best friend, and I don’t want anything bad to happen to her. And she’s asking me to promise. How can I say no?
“Okay,” I say, “I won’t tell.”
10
PRESENT DAY
No.No.
I take a step back from the chart rack, my stomach sinking. I wanted it to be some kind of mistake, but it isn’t. There’s a reason the person in 905 looked familiar.
She was my best friend. Jade Carpenter.
It’s a coincidence, but it’s also not. This hospital contains the largest psych ward in the area, and we’re a stone’s throw from the house where Jade grew up and possibly still lives. And let’s face it, Jade had serious problems. She’s surely been bouncing in and out of Ward D since we were sixteen. So really, I shouldn’t be surprised to see her name on the census.
