Page 50 of Ward D
Right now, he’s passing out exams. As he walks by me, I get a whiff of that moldy cheese smell, and it’s all I can do to keep from pinching my nose with my fingertips. Instead, I breathe through my mouth.
After he passes by, Jade pokes me from the seat next to mine and makes a funny face. Well, at least she’s not still mad at me from last night.
When Mr. Riordan gets to the last student, he hesitates. He looks down at the test paper in his hand, then frowns at the classroom.
“Did anyone get two test papers?” he asks.
Twenty-two kids shake their heads in unison.
He presses his lips together. “I thought I had one extra, but…”
He did have one extra. And now it’s lying in the garbage in my bedroom.
Jade and I exchange looks. We would both be in a huge amount of trouble if he had any idea what really happened to that extra test paper. But nobody knows the truth except the two of us.
Mr. Riordan finally gives the student the last test, but there’s a troubled look on his face. It doesn’t matter though. Absolutely anything could have happened to that extra test paper. He has no idea.
And he never will.
29
PRESENT DAY
“You haven’t changed at all, have you?”
Jade has her arms folded across her chest, and her lipstick is slightly smeared, which makes her look like she’s wearing a perpetual sneer. Although to be fair, she actuallyissneering at me.
“What?” I toss the copy ofCider House Ruleson the sofa. “What did I do wrong?”
“Don’t act so innocent. I saw the way you ratted out Will.”
I look at her in surprise. “Did you know he wasn’t taking his medications?”
Jade hesitates for a split second. “No, I didn’t. But that’s his right if he doesn’t want to take them.”
“Jade…”
“No, don’t you dare lecture me.” She holds up her hand—her fingernails are bitten down to the quick, covered in chipped dark purple nail polish. “You don’t know what it’s like to be on an antipsychotic. You have no idea the way it feels to be drugged up on Haldol. And the side effects… First, you feel like a zombie half the time. And the weight gain…”
“Jade…”
“And some of the side effects never go away,” she says. “The last time I was at the hospital, I met this woman and because of the meds she was on, she can’t stop smacking her lips. Every two seconds, smacking her freaking lips. And it’spermanent. She’ll be like thatforever.”
She still has her arms folded, and she’s glaring at me, like it’s my fault that poor woman can’t stop smacking her lips.
“I did it to help him,” I say.
“Because you think you always know better than everyone else, right?”
I flinch. “That is not trueat all.”
Jade taps her foot against the ground. She’s wearing gray socks with no shoes, and there’s a hole in the big toe on the right. “What do you think Dr. Beck would say if he found out that you had your own little problem withhallucinations?”
I swallow. “I don’t. That would be a lie.”
“Oh, please, Amy. It’sme.” She taps faster now, almost like a tic. “We both know how screwed up you are. You just don’t want to be drugged up like what they did to me. And Will.”
“I’m not like you,” I croak. “I wouldneverdo something like what you did.Never. I’m not—”
