Page 25

“WAIT A SECOND. You want me to sleep here?” Emma asks, incredulous. Lori Bly, the therapist, and the school nurse have just tag-teamed her outside the dining hall and led her, protesting, straight to Pemberly Hall.

Lori lightly touches Emma’s shoulder. Emma flinches like she’s been burned. “Just for a night or two,” she says. “So you can rest.”

Emma takes a reluctant step into the room.

It’s on the second floor, with two large windows looking out onto the quad.

On the left is a queen-size bed with a pink comforter and six decorative pillows.

Two polished bedside tables sport matching brass lamps and fake succulents.

There’s a desk, an overstuffed armchair, and an antique trunk with a vase of real pink roses on top.

Everything is clean, impersonal; the air smells like furniture polish.

“The poet Mark Plante stayed here last year when he came to lecture—did you see him?” Lori smiles. “Quite a few illustrious people have slept in this room, in fact.”

“But illustriousness is not why I’m here,” Emma says. She knows what this is: a pretty jail cell. A gilded cage. “I don’t have any of my things. What about my toothbrush and pajamas? My laptop? My homework?”

Never mind that she’s been blowing off homework all semester.

Never mind that she’s usually too wrecked to brush her teeth at night, or that she barely sleeps in the first place.

Never mind that she only uses her laptop for posting incendiary YouTube videos.

Grades, gingivitis, insomnia—they don’t matter when you’re dead.

Lori’s voice is gentle when she answers. “I know this isn’t what you want, Emma. But it’s important for you to be here. A lot of people are worried about you. We need to keep you safe.”

Emma walks over to the casement window, cranks it open, and leans out. Twenty feet below: hydrangea bushes, not yet blooming, and the footpath to the library and the theater building. “It wouldn’t be hard to jump,” she says mildly. “If I really wanted to get out of here.”

Why does she even say this? She’s not going to jump. It’s not part of the plan, and it certainly wouldn’t kill her. Also, she knows enough about her rights to know that they can’t keep her here against her will.

In an instant, Lori’s hands are on Emma’s shoulders again, and this time her touch isn’t gentle. “I need you to promise me that you’re not going to do that.” The therapist’s gaze is frightened. Urgent.

“I’m not going to jump out the window,” Emma says. She’s really not, so it’s an easy promise to make. She pulls away from the therapist’s grip. “I’m also not going to hurt myself in my dorm room, so I think you should let me go back there.”

I could burn in the newspaper office. Or at the Ridgemont radio station. Somewhere in the media arts building, anyway. I need a door with a lock.

Am I going to have to disable sprinklers? I don’t know how to disable sprinklers.

“Like I said,” Lori says, “this is only temporary. I’ll have Jade pack up your things. What do you need to make yourself comfortable here?”

Emma realizes that there’s no talking her way out of this, at least not tonight.

She sighs. She perches on the ledge of the open window, purposely trying to make Lori nervous, as she reluctantly lists the items she wants—her velvet pillow, her slippers, her sweatpants, Advil.

When she mentions her laptop and phone, though, Lori shakes her head.

“Tonight should be a time of pure rest,” she says.

Emma widens her eyes at her. “You’re afraid I’m going to make another video!”

Lori chooses to ignore this, which means that Emma’s right.

“You can read a book, write in a journal … There’s a radio here, see?” Lori smiles. “You can just enjoy a little peace and quiet.”

“I haven’t been able to enjoy anything since Claire died,” Emma snaps. “Don’t make this out like it’s some kind of staycation. This is Ridgemont’s version of a padded cell.”

“Emma”—Lori sighs—“we aren’t locking you up. We’re just keeping an eye on you.”

“Is there a cot? Are you going to sleep here too? Should we make it a goddamn slumber party?” With each sentence, Emma’s volume climbs. This isn’t how the plan was supposed to go. She was going to borrow Celia’s car tonight, but now she’s locked in the administration building.

“Someone will be outside your door, but you will have privacy, don’t worry,” Lori says gently. “But I think there are some people who’d like to come see you.”

Emma rolls her eyes. “Great. Visiting hours at the jail.”

She walks over to the window again, her thoughts like dark clouds, swirling. She wonders if she could get Pringles and a canister of gas from Circle K with Uber Eats.

“Can I get you anything?” Lori asks. “Tell me what you need.”

A gallon or two of unleaded, Emma thinks.

“No,” she says.