The Collide

“Sorry. I probably sound like a spoiled brat,” she says. “I’m grateful, don’t get me wrong. I’m just also really annoyed. Does that make sense?”

“Completely,” Jasper says. Lethe is describing exactly the way he feels now. “My mom works her ass off to give me, like, everything. But I still wish I had, I don’t know, more options or something.”

Lethe turns and looks at Jasper for a long time. “Exactly,” she says. “You know, not that many people are willing to admit it, though. Whenever I say something like that, I always end up feeling like a monster.”

Jasper smiles, shrugs. “I have low standards.”

She nods. “So if you’re at BC, what were you doing all the way over here?”

“I was going to see a friend,” he says.

“Oh, I don’t want to hold you up,” she says. “If she’s expecting you.”

Did Lethe nail the she in a way that was supposed to be a flag or something, or did Jasper just imagine that?

“She’s not,” he says. “I was going to surprise her.”

“Oh,” Lethe says—and like she wants to ask something more but doesn’t.

THE TWO OF them are quiet then as Jasper drives the rest of the way to campus. Finally, Lethe points toward a gate up ahead. “I’m in Mavis Hall. You can drop me on the corner. It’s faster to cut through from here.”

Jasper double-parks at the curb. “I’ll get your bike.”

It isn’t until Jasper pulls the bike out of the back that he sees just how messed up it is, totally unusable, actually. When Lethe gets out, they stare down at it together.

“Let me get it fixed,” he says, turning to look at her. In the sun, her eyes shimmer. “It would make me feel better.”

“No, I can just . . .” But then she frowns. “Can I just say okay?”

Jasper smiles. “I hit you with my car. You can say whatever you want.”

“Let’s start with fixing the bike.”

And when Lethe smiles this time, her whole face glows. She pushes her hair out of her eyes and looks down. She has a leather cuff on one wrist. It’s the kind of thing that Cassie would have worn. Cassie. Wylie. Lethe? Why do you need them all so much? But his mom is wrong. He’s just being polite with this girl. It’s not an actual situation they’re having. Jasper wants to be with Wylie. He cares about her, a lot.

After Jasper puts the bike back in his Jeep, he and Lethe exchange numbers. Then there is a long, strange silence in which Jasper almost tells Lethe that she should know that he is actually in love with Wylie and he is just being nice, fixing her bike. Luckily, he manages to keep his mouth shut.

“I’ll call you as soon as the bike is done,” he says instead. “Good luck with lacrosse.”

“Thanks.” Lethe smiles as she turns for the gate. “Good luck with hockey.”

WYLIE

“THE HOSPITAL SENT YOUR PHONE BACK,” GIDEON SAYS WHEN I FINALLY GET back downstairs from the longest shower I have ever taken. He puts the phone down in front of me on the coffee table. “I charged it for you, too. I mean, it probably has like nine kinds of tracing crap embedded on it. You should take a look at your missed messages or whatever. Then we should burn it.”

Gideon thinking to charge my phone feels like the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. I stare down at it and try not to cry.

“Thanks,” I manage.

When I turn it on, one hundred and thirty-six texts flood in. Jasper accounts for 90 percent of the messages, all sent in the twenty-four hours between when he saw me grabbed on the bridge and when he finally snuck his way into the hospital and found me, all some version of “Where are you?” or “Are you okay?”

None of the messages are from today. It’s already two thirty p.m. now, and I still haven’t heard from him. Jasper’s mom might not have told him that I called, except I have a hard time believing that—I feel like he knows I’m out. And yet he hasn’t called, hasn’t come looking. I want it not to nag at me, but it does.

After tapping onto Jasper’s old messages, the number of total unread ones drops to twenty-three. A few of the others are from Gideon. They also came in while I was in the hospital, after he stormed out of the house that morning so angry at Dad and me. Before he knew anything bad had happened.

Gideon sees his messages, too. “Wait, um, I don’t think I would—”

“It’s okay,” I say, knowing as well as he does that whatever he had to say to me then probably wasn’t very nice. “I’ll delete them.”

“Read the one from Dad, though,” he says, pointing.

“Oh,” I say, surprised to see it there. “That’s weird.”

Because it was sent the day I was grabbed, but at three p.m., after I talked to my dad from the hospital. By then, he knew I didn’t have my phone. Why would he have been bothering to send me messages? I have such a bad feeling as I tap on the message.

It’s just a single word: Cassie. That’s the whole of it. It makes me shudder.

“What does that mean?” Gideon asks. “‘Cassie’?”

“I don’t know.”

Breathe, I remind myself. Breathe. But it’s not easy with all the facts crowding in. First I’m drawn to Cassie’s house, then Holy Cow, and now here’s a text from my dad with just Cassie’s name? These things have to be related. I’m just afraid to find out how.

Jasper. Now I really want him here. He is the only person who would truly understand why this has me so freaked out. He was the one who was with me when Cassie died. He was there with me in the hospital, as we swam away from Russo’s house in the dark. But my only option to find him now would be to go to the BC campus to search. And I will if I have to, but I would so much rather he just showed up at my door. But why? What am I afraid I might find? Another girl? I wish I was more sure that wasn’t exactly what I was worried about.

I turn back to my unread texts, hoping to keep myself from thinking any more about it. Wylie, Dr. Shepard checking in. I am always here if you need to talk. Call anytime. Five days later, while I was still in the detention facility, there is another: Wylie, Dr. Shepard again. Getting a little concerned now that you’ve missed two appointments. I haven’t been able to reach your dad, either. I’m sure you’re fine. Just check in. And then the last one from her, one week ago—a week into my being locked up: Spoke to Gideon. I heard what happened. Coming to see you.

“ARE YOU OKAY?” Dr. Shepard asked as I sat down across from her in the detention facility visiting room. “Sorry, that was a stupid question. I’m sure ‘okay’ isn’t the best word to describe how you are. How are you feeling?”

Dr. Shepard laid her hands on the tabletop. And I so desperately wanted to grab them. I just needed so badly to know that I was going to be okay. I wanted to feel some promise seeping through the surface of her skin. But touching wasn’t allowed, and I had never in my life touched Dr. Shepard. Besides, that wasn’t a promise she could make.

“I didn’t do this,” I said.

“Of course you didn’t,” she said.

And she was so genuinely sure of this fact—like without an ounce of doubt. It made me start to cry. Hard and out of nowhere. I’d been working so hard to keep it together, hadn’t cried once since they arrested me. But as soon as the tears started, I could not make them stop. Soon I was sobbing so loud that a guard came over to investigate. Luckily, he just kept walking.

“Sorry,” I said when my tears finally slowed and I was able to take a breath.

“You don’t need to apologize.” Dr. Shepard reached over to give my hand a quick, forbidden squeeze. “I’d cry if I was in here, too.”

“My anxiety is out of control,” I said. “I can’t remember what it’s like to take a deep breath.”

“That’s understandable,” Dr. Shepard said. “You’ve never had less control over your surroundings. How are you coping?”

“I’m not, I guess.” I shrugged. “I almost passed out once. A guard told me they’d put me in solitary if I did.”

Anger popped Dr. Shepard’s eyes wide open.

“No, no, no,” she said, with a shake of her head. And wow, was she pissed. She looked around the room, as if searching for someone to attack. “That definitely won’t happen again. I’ll make sure of it. They’re legally obligated to make accommodations for your anxiety. Certainly they can’t punish you for it.” She took a breath, tried to calm herself. “But we should focus on what you can do in the meantime. I know that breathing exercises don’t always work for you. But your options in here are limited. How about visualization? We did that once, right? Where you picture a place that makes you happy?”

“My happy place?” I asked, trying to smile.

Dr. Shepard smiled, too. “Yes, your happy place. Believe it or not, it does work.”

“I’m just not sure where that is anymore,” I said, and Dr. Shepard just nodded. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” she said, grateful for the chance to maybe have an answer for something.

“I know you can’t tell me details of why you saw her or whatever because of confidentiality, but how did you meet Teresa?”

Dr. Shepard’s eyebrows bunched up. “Teresa?”

“I don’t know her last name. I was in the hospital with her. She told me she was your patient. She was the girl who died in the fire.” Dr. Shepard looked skeptical. “She lived with her grandmother? Small with big glasses. She even talked about your red chair.”

“I’m sorry, Wylie. But I’ve never had a patient named Teresa. And I would remember. That’s my mother’s name.”

“So you never sent your patients to take my dad’s tests?” That’s what I’d been assuming.

“My patients?” She looked shocked by the suggestion. “That would be unethical, at least potentially. Not to mention that using a sample of only people already in therapy for a psychological experiment would certainly affect your dad’s results.”

It wasn’t until that moment that I realized how much I had made up. So many false connections, so many blanks filled in based on one wrong assumption. No, not assumption. Teresa had brought up Dr. Shepard. I wasn’t inventing that.

“Oh,” I said, trying not to let my mind spin out into even more troubling explanations.

“I’m sorry, Wylie,” Dr. Shepard went on. “I feel as though I’ve let you down.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “I was pretty let down already.”

WHEN THE DOORBELL rings a second time, Gideon and I both flinch. Rachel coming back so soon doesn’t feel like a good thing, not at all.

“It could be Jasper,” Gideon offers hopefully.

“I don’t think so,” I say as I head over to look out the window alongside the door.

I blink once, hard. But unfortunately, when I open my eyes, it is still definitely Jasper’s mom standing there on our front porch. Still looking pissed. I take a breath, my hand on the knob. When I finally yank open the door, it’s like I’m pulling off a Band-Aid.

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