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I nod, but it’s a little too frantic, and he sees it—the anxiety rattling me.

“Do you need a breather?”

I nod again, and he takes me to one of the small therapy rooms. As I pace the floor, my breathing grows shallow and frantic. No matter how many steps I take, it doesn’t stop the utter devastation from boiling beneath my fragile surface.

My hands turn cold and jittery as Marcus calls for someone to come, and when I hear Sebastian’s voice, I turn to see him step into the room right before Marcus closes the door, leaving Sebastian and me alone.

Our eyes lock, he walks straight over to me, and the moment he has me in his arms, I cry.

Thunder and lightning—I cry.

HARLOW

“You have to do it like this,” Max snaps while she sorts the puzzle pieces by color. Her fingers skitter anxiously through the pile as she organizes them meticulously into piles.

Sitting back, I let her do her thing because testing her OCD is something I refuse to do. I did it once and she turned into a rabid beast. So while Max continues to sort, my eyes drift around the room as I watch the other groups.

Coping skills class has been replaced with this stupid activity: learning to work and problem solve with our peers. Instead of giving us something that relates to the real world, they gave us puzzles. I mean, puzzles? Really? What teenager is sitting around doing puzzles? Old people in nursing homes do this crap because their lives have wasted away and they have nothing better to do than to spend hours putting together tiny pieces of cardboard only to break them apart and shove them back into the box.

It’s a pointless activity.

“Max, are you letting Harlow help you?” Shanice asks as she strolls past our table. Max twitches a few times, not liking the idea. “Maybe let her sort some as well.”

To appease Shanice, I pick up a piece before she walks away.

“What pile do you put the ones with multiple colors in?”

She plucks it out of my fingers and huffs. “In the multiple color pile,” she says as if I’m an idiot.

“Why the hell is everyone doing puzzles?” Sebastian asks when he joins us at our table.

“Cooperative learning, I guess.”

“Cool.” He scoops up a bunch of pieces, and Max loses it, swatting his hand and sending the pieces to the floor. “Dude, chill.”

“Max, count to ten,” Shanice says when she walks back over.

After Sebastian gathers the pieces and Max is able to calm down, we sit back while Max returns to the puzzle.

“So, how was your session with Dr. Amberg?” I ask.

It should be an easy response, but he hesitates as caution softens his eyes.

“What happened?”

“I’m going home,” he says, and my body stills.

Common sense tells me to smile and congratulate him, to be happy that he’s getting out of here and going home, but I do none of those things. Instead, I’m sad and jealous. More than anything, I’m consumed by loneliness even though he’s still here.

My smile is pathetic and doesn’t reach my eyes when I nod. “When do you leave?”

“In three days.”

Reaching under the table, he rests his hand on my knee. “You’re going to be fine. Just keep working hard and you’ll be out of here soon.”

“What are you two whispering about?” Max questions.

“I don’t know if I want to tell you. Are you going to hit me again?”