Didi
The hallway echoes with my footsteps—a hollow sound that matches my heartbeat. The ward is dark but for the emergency exit lights on the far door and the soft glow of a reading lamp at the empty nurse’s station.
I walk past Dodds’s room and my step falters. The door is ajar, the bed stripped bare. I stop and stare at it. The ground tips beneath me, and the world upends briefly before righting itself once again. I lean against the wall, breathing hard, staring at the plastic-covered mattress. How can he be dead?
My brain can’t compute. Everything hurts so much. It’s as if my ribs have been ripped open and my insides are being torn out and shredded in front of me. I can’t stop screaming. Though no noise makes it past my lips.
He’s dead. And it’s my fault.
If we hadn’t been so wrapped up in ourselves . . . if we had stopped to actually look at him, we would have seen the signs. They were so obvious, even a freshman psychology student could have spotted them. His depression, his mood swings, the way he started giving his things away. He gave me the playing cards. He gave Sanchez his lucky lighter.
Suddenly I remember the night we watched The Shawshank Redemption. He left just after the scene where the old man hangs himself. I falter and have to lean against the wall to steady myself. Vomit rushes up my throat and fills my mouth. I gave him the idea. For a moment I think I might collapse.
I should have known. I should have guessed. It’s nobody’s fault—that’s what my mom and dad have been telling me over and over. Dodds wanted to die. It wasn’t a cry for help. He wanted out. One way or another he would have found a way to do it. But is that true? Can I believe it?
A sob bursts up my throat as I push open the door to Walker’s room. It’s as empty as Dodds’s room—the bed stripped bare, the closet door hanging open. I can’t believe he’s gone, and I have to lean against the wall again, shuddering as I try to breathe through the pain. I stumble toward the nightstand, trying to ignore the assault of images that rush at me—of the first time I ever saw Walker, sitting on the bed stabbing at the yogurt pot, or one of the last times I saw him, standing in the doorway, staring after me as my dad led me away sobbing, following the stretcher bearing Dodds’s body.
I kneel down by the bed and reach beneath it, searching for my phone. I lost it that same night, and after racking my memory I’m fairly sure the last place I had it was here. I find it wedged down behind the back of the nightstand and pull it back. It’s dead. I stare at it, wondering if Walker tried to call me during those three days we didn’t see each other, or if he was too busy with his fiancée.
A noise startles me and I spin around. I get to my feet and walk out into the hallway. It’s empty, no one in sight. But then I hear it again—a low sobbing noise, like someone is crying and trying to muffle the sound.
I take a few steps down the hall and notice a light seeping out from beneath Sanchez’s door. I draw in a breath.
There’s another noise. A moaning sound.
Heart thrumming, I push open the door.
What I see is this: skin, a solid wall of muscle. Then I see her, her head thrown back in abandon, her lips parted and her eyes squeezed shut as though in pain. His hands are on her hips, gripping them tight, possessively, and she’s straddling him, her arms around his neck, hands knotted in his hair.
For a moment I can’t reconcile what it is I’m seeing, and then, when the pieces finally fit together, I stumble backward in shock, banging into the door.
They start at the noise and her eyes flash open. She sees me. He turns to look over his shoulder. I stare at him, mouth open. He stares back at me, his expression as horrified as mine.
I turn and run.
Nothing is certain.
Everything can change in a heartbeat.