Page 22 of Ward D
I don’t bother to point out that when Mrs. Carpenter died, Jade and I hadn’t been friends in a long time. It wouldn’t make things better to say that.
“So you read my chart, I guess,” she says.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Liar.”
“I didn’t.” I lift my chin. “I wouldn’t do that. That would be wrong.”
She laughs bitterly. “Yes, you’re just the queen of moral behavior, aren’t you?”
“I didn’t,” I insist. “I was just interviewing the guy in 906. That’s the only chart I’ve looked at tonight.”
Jade looks over at Room 906. The door is still cracked open, and presumably, Will is inside reading again. “Oh, him. He’s cute, isn’t he? Kind of your type. Lanky, nerdy.”
“Jade…” My cheeks burn. “He’scrazy. He has schizophrenia.”
“Oh, so you’ve got something incommonthen, don’t you?”
There have been a few times in my life when I have wanted to smack Jade in the face, and this is one of them. Thankfully, I know enough to restrain myself. But I need to avoid her come three in the morning, because I won’t be thinking nearly as clearly by then.
“Anyway,” she says, “he’s more your type than that other dopey medical student. The big guy who keeps giving you the moon-faced looks. What—is he in love with you?”
“No.” Jade doesn’t need to hear the story about how I got dumped for the board exam. “I hardly know him.”
“If you say so,” Jade says in her singsong voice.
I hadn’t expected Jade to greet me with open arms, but I also hadn’t expected her to be this obnoxious and angry at me. I’ve got to make an effort to avoid her the rest of the night. I’m not in the mood for her mind games.
“I don’t have time to talk right now,” I tell her. “I have to get back to work.”
“Oh, that’s a shame.” She pulls a frown. “Because I’ve got the entire night free with absolutely nothing to do.”
And then she winks at me.
13
EIGHT YEARS EARLIER
Idon’t understand the point of trigonometry.
I’ve been sitting at my desk in my bedroom, attempting to do problems for the last two hours, and I am no closer to having a good understanding of the material. More importantly, I don’t understandwhyI need to know this. Will I ever be at a grocery store and need to know the sine of thirty in order to calculate how much change I’m getting? This is like the most stupid and pointless thing ever. And because of it, I might get my first C of high school.
This is hopeless.
I wish Jade had agreed to study with me. Instead, she is currently getting high with a bunch of losers behind the school. We have always studied math together—it’s what has gotten me through all my high school math classes so far. I need an alternate plan.
I grab the snow globe on my desk and give it a good shake. Little fake snowflakes scatter over a green Statue of Liberty. The globe was a gift from Jade last year. Our high school class went on a class trip into the city for a Broadway show, and she snuck away from the group to get it for me from a souvenir stand. She could have been barred from seeing the show at all for pulling a stunt like that, but she did it anyway. That’s Jade—always willing to take risks.
I slam my trigonometry textbook shut. I lean back in my desk chair, shut my eyes, and rub my fingertips against my temples. Okay, the important thing is not to panic.
Don’t panic, Amy!
I just need to buckle down and study. I can do this. This is going to be fine. Good thing my peach iced tea has a lot of caffeine in it.
I open my eyes, ready to tackle more trigonometry problems. But when I open them, I receive a terrible surprise:
It’s that little girl with the blond curls and frilly pink dress.
