ONE YEAR LATER

I made it through my third year of medical school in one piece.

Barely.

When the year started, the odds were against me. I didn’t think that

by July of the next year, I would be sitting in a Starbucks, at a corner table, sipping on an iced dirty chai tea latte. A year ago, I didn’t even know what an iced dirty chai tea latte was. My boyfriend introduced me to them, and now I’m weirdly addicted. I may need to go to a support group if I ever want to quit.

I take a sip from my drink. That is good stuff. Even better than peach iced tea. Not better than Ring Dings though.

I put down my drink and raise my hand as my coffee date marches through the door. The guilty party in my addiction. Will Schoenfeld.

Will’s hazel eyes light up and he raises his hand in greeting when he sees me. He looks really cute today in his Columbia T-shirt and baggy blue jeans, with his hair just the right amount of tousled from the wind outside. You can’t even tell that he spent a night in the ICU a year ago, recovering from an overdose of Ativan. We’ve been dating for four months now, and we recently had a talk where we asked each other if we were really boyfriend and girlfriend or if we were just casual. And we decided that yes, yes we are indeed boyfriend and girlfriend. So that’s where we are right now.

“Did you order me one?” he asks as he slides into the seat across from

me.

“I kind of feel like you can order your own damn drink,” I tease him.

He laughs. We laugh a lot together, but that’s not how our relationship started. Well, it really started that night on Ward D, but after that, Will reported on his experience for The Daily Chronicle, and we spent a lot of time piecing together the events of that night for his feature article. Considering he got knocked out prior to the exciting conclusion, he needed me to help him re-create everything that happened, and it helped me to work through it as well. He also spent forever interviewing all the other patients who were at the hospital that night, although he never seemed to be able to locate the original patient who was the one who inspired him to investigate Ward D in the first place.

He admitted later that he didn’t need to call me quite as much as he did. But we did have a lot in common—John Irving was just the tip of the nerdy iceberg of books and movies and TV shows we both love—and I enjoyed hanging out with him. His friendship meant a lot to me during a hard time.

He waited a long while before attempting to take that friendship to the next level. For months, I was having nightmares about that awful night. And I couldn’t stop crying for weeks after Cameron’s funeral. I wasn’t in any mental state to be starting a relationship, and he knew it.

He waited until after his article got picked up by practically every paper in the country, and everyone was talking about that crazy night in the psychiatric ward. It wasn’t until the spring when he suggested maybe instead of that lunch we had planned, I might be up for dinner and then a movie. His treat.

I’m not sorry I agreed to do it.

“So how is the book coming?” I ask him.

“Really well,” he says. “I’m about halfway done. I can’t wait for you to read the whole thing.”

“Have you revised the beginning much?”

“A little.” He smiles crookedly. “Don’t worry. I didn’t change the dedication.”

After Will’s story about Ward D went viral, publishers were clamoring after him to write a book about the experience. Will asked me if I wanted to write it with him, but my life is crazy enough as it is. But when he showed me the first few chapters, it came with a dedication:

To Amy. I wouldn’t be here to write this book without you.

I thought it was really sweet. And also, extremely true.

Of course, we both have scars from that night. Will was in the ICU for a night and then was at the hospital for another week recovering from the pneumonia he developed. We both still have nightmares, but now it’s more like once a week rather than several times a night.

Damon Sawyer survived his attack by the spiderweb. (Or flossweb, as the case may be.) He and Jade were both arrested, although ultimately, they were sent to a psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane. Their insanity defense kept them from life in prison, but I’ve read that some of those psychiatric hospitals are much worse than prisons. After all, they will be surrounded by people just like themselves.

I have no doubt Jade deserves to be locked up for the rest of her life, but a tiny part of me wonders if it all could have been prevented. Maybe if I had done things differently when we were sixteen, I could’ve saved her. I’ll have to live with that guilt forever.

But I’m trying to learn to be more sensitive. I could never be a psychiatrist after everything I’ve been through, but I’m taking another rotation in outpatient psychiatry before embarking on a family medicine career. I’ve even become friends with Spider-Dan. Once his medications were adjusted, he was discharged back to his group home, and I’ve been visiting him a couple of times a month. Usually, we watch a superhero movie together, which is the best way to get him to smile. I’ve learned a lot from our friendship, and I want to do my best to treat patients with psychiatric issues in the future. I don’t want anyone else to end up like Jade.

After all, there’s nothing worse than losing your mind.

“I’m so excited for you.” I grab Will’s hand across the table. “This book is going to be huge. I can just tell.”

“I could never have done it without you.” He gives me a sober look as he squeezes my hand. “Really. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t be without me.” “I hope I never am.”

And now we are grinning at each other like two idiots. I liked Cameron a lot, and I miss him every day, but my romantic relationship with him was never like this. Will is the first guy I’ve ever dated where I thought it might lead to something more. Like, forever more.

But it’s still so early. Four months in. Just because I have a feeling he might be the one and I’m walking around feeling giddy half the time, I don’t want to get too excited. We’ve got time.

“Hey.” I stand up from my chair. “As a reward for making great progress on your book, I am going to go get you that iced dirty chai tea latte after all.”

“Wow, you really are the perfect woman.”

Will starts scrolling through emails on his phone while I run over to the counter to buy him that drink. He always grabs me one when he arrives first, so it’s only fair.

Fortunately, there isn’t much of a line. I place the order and lean back against the counter, waiting for the barista to make the drink. Will is still at our table, tapping at the screen of his phone. He notices me watching him and flashes me an adorable smile before going back to his screen. Will is just so great. He makes me want to fill a spiral notebook with bad poetry about his smoldering hazel eyes. I could really see this working out. Marriage. Two point four kids. A golden retriever and a house with a white picket fence.

“He’s too good for you, you know.”

I jolt slightly at the voice. I drop my eyes, and my heart sinks.

A pretty little girl is standing in front of me as if waiting for an iced dirty chai tea latte of her own. Her blond hair curls around her heart-shaped face, and she’s wearing an immaculate and frilly pink dress. Her familiar blue eyes bore into me, an unreadable expression on her face.

I hate this little girl. So much.

I avert my gaze, trying to ignore her like I always do. But she is not to be ignored. “He’s probably going to dump you soon,” she says.

I swivel my head to watch the barista making a drink, observing the steps with great fascination. I wonder how they know how to make all those drinks. Do they take some sort of course to learn? Coffee 101?

“He’ll dump you just like Cameron,” the little girl adds. “Just like all the others dumped you.”

“Shut up,” I mumble under my breath.

Her pink Cupid’s bow lips curl into a smile, pleased that she finally managed to get to me. “You know it’s true, Amy. Will is going to break your heart just like all the others.”

“Shut up,” I say through my teeth. “Unless you kill him first.”

My jaw drops as I stare at the little girl’s sweet face, still smiling up at me. I had been feeling so good just a few minutes earlier. Why? Why does

she always— “Miss?”

The barista has finished my drink and has been attempting to get my attention. I snatch the iced dirty chai tea latte out of her hands, although my own hands are shaking so badly, I almost drop it. When I look back at where the little girl was standing, there’s nobody there. She’s gone.

As usual.

She’ll never entirely leave me though. I saw her the most when I was drinking those peach iced teas laced with hallucinogens, but even after Jade left my life, I still saw the little girl from time to time. It’s been nine years, and I have never told a soul aside from Jade. I don’t know if the drugs she slipped me triggered something inside me that couldn’t be turned off, but that little girl is always with me. Always.

And she always tells me to do things. Bad things. But I don’t listen. Of course I don’t.

Well, most of the time.

I did listen at that party when Cameron and I hooked up. I dropped some laxatives from the medicine cabinet into his girlfriend Jess’s drink because I had my eye on Cameron for a while, and the little girl knew how badly I wanted to get him alone. I listened to her when she told me to send a damning letter to the director of that research fellowship Cam applied to because she knew I didn’t want him disappearing across the country for an entire year.

I also listened to her when she told me to go back and check Seclusion One instead of making my escape from Ward D. And when she whispered in my ear to stab Jade with Mary’s knitting needle. I never would have thought to do that on my own.

But I don’t listen to her blindly. It’s not like I would do absolutely anything she tells me to do. I mean, I would never kill anyone just because the little girl told me to. Even though it feels like more and more, that’s what she’s been telling me to do. But I wouldn’t do it.

After all, I would have to be crazy to do something like that.

THE END