With Mom gone, there’s no need to keep wearing my “old Riley” mask. As my mood drops, I remind myself it isn’t like I had anything better to do this weekend. After the incident, there’d been no need to explain to Travis that Shannon had tricked me, though Lucia still made sure he knew. He’d come by our house that week with two volumes of Transmetropolitan because the first time we talked, it was about graphic novels. He paired the comics with a giant Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup because he’d noticed that was my candy of choice from the school vending machines. Can a guy get any sweeter than that? No.
Two weeks later, when he asked me out again, I nearly threw up. A date with Travis would forever be linked to that night. I can barely face him in school. Hell, I can barely go to school. My grades are tanking, and my teachers keep saying they’ll adjust them “in light of what happened.” I don’t want them adjusted. I don’t want a free pass. I just want to pull myself together.
So I’m here, doing a weekend therapy camp. I need to make the effort, like I need to make the effort to get up every morning. If I stop moving, I’ll be stuck forever under that bed, listening to the footsteps of the man who killed the Porters and praying, Please God, don’t let him find us. Don’t let him hurt Darla. Don’t let him hurt me.
Aimee sends me downstairs to find the main therapy room. Easier said than done. Whoever designed this place wasn’t a fan of simplicity and order. It’s a warren of halls. Like someone with bipolar disorder drew the blueprints during a manic episode: “We’ll put a room here! And here! Oh, and we’ll connect them here!” After four months in group therapy, I’ve learned a lot about mental illness. Sometimes I feel like an impostor. As if I’m taking valuable therapy time from kids with real problems.
I’m following the maze to the main room when I pause to consider two options.
“Left,” a voice says. It’s a guy around sixteen. He’s an inch or so taller than me. Dark hair, slicked back. Dressed in a battered leather jacket, ripped jeans and filthy sneakers. The classic bad-boy look, ruined by the fact he’s wearing an Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt and two-hundred-dollar Air Jordans.
“Aaron,” he says, extending a hand.
“Riley.”
His lips twitch. “You don’t look like a Riley.”
Four months ago I would have asked what a Riley looks like. Now I can’t work up the energy. I only shrug and mumble.
“Sorry,” he says. “Didn’t mean to be … whatever. It’s just that I heard there was a Maria here, so when I saw you, I figured you were her.”
He means because I’m Hispanic. Again, the old Riley would have had a comeback. Instead, I hear one— “And why would you think that?” —spoken in a British accent, heavy with sarcasm.
I turn. It’s Max—Aimee’s other patient. About six feet tall. Lean. Denim jacket. Jeans. Doc Martens. Dark blond hair worn long enough that he can tie it back, though today it’s hanging loose.
Aaron says, “I’m not trying to be a jerk. I just meant it’s weird her parents gave her an Irish name when she’s Mexican.”
“Are you Jewish?” Max asks.
“What? No. Why?”
“Then it’s weird your parents gave you a Jewish name.”
Aaron opens his mouth to answer, settles for a glare and stalks down the hall.
Max looks at me, eyebrows arched. “I don’t even get a thank-you?”
“If I wanted to snark at him, I would have.”
“Oh, you wanted to. You’ve just lost your footing, Riley.” He winks. “Or should it be Ril-ia?”
I don’t know Max well. No one in our group does. The rest of us have to sit in the semicircle and talk, while he stays in the back and rarely offers a word beyond a sarcastic comment. I have no idea what he’s there for. I’m not even convinced his accent is real. All I know is that I have to vomit out every last anxiety and fear and self-hating thought in my head, and he gets to listen to it and give nothing in return.
“Why are you here?” I say. “You don’t contribute anything.”
“I contribute my devastating wit and charm,” he says. “What more could you want?”
Less of both, I think, but I only say, “The point of therapy is to discuss your problems.”
“But I don’t have any problems, old girl.” He cranks up the accent for that. It’s his shtick, dialing the Brit-talk up to eleven, like something out of a movie from the twenties.
I give him a look. “Does anyone say ‘old girl’ anymore? Even in Britain?”
“No, they do not. Because I’m over here now.” He grins, and I feel the overwhelming urge to shake it from his face. Well, at least I feel something. Though Aimee might prefer a less violent impulse.
“Since you are here,” I say, “in this group, you do have problems. That’s a prerequisite for the therapy.”
“Not for me. I’m right as rain, Ril-ia Vasquez. Right as rain.” He tosses me another grin and saunters down the hall toward the room.
I bend and retie a shoe that doesn’t need retying, giving him time to get ahead. Then I straighten and I’m about to head in the same direction when I hear the squeak of a shoe and turn to see a girl. She’s maybe fifteen, with dark curly hair, wearing a cute little dress—a bit formal for the occasion, but from the way she’s nervously glancing down the corridors, I don’t think she’s a therapy regular. While the new Riley’s impulse is to turn away and let someone else handle it, I know better. So I call, “It’s this way.”