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forward, as if about to let me in on a secret. “You’re what, three weeks out of a mental hospital?”
    “Five weeks.” I swallow hard.
    “And how many times have you called and/or come to see me since then?”
    “Four?”
    “Try fourteen,” he says, his voice softening. “Fourteen times in five weeks. Now, I know this must be frustrating, and it’s not that I don’t appreciate your input,
but my advice for you?”
    “Forget it,” I say, getting up from the table. I go for the door, slamming it shut behind me.

D OZENS OF DANCE RECITAL DRESSES hover above my head. The tassels dangle into my eyes. The unsettled dust makes me have to sneeze. But I can’t.
I won’t. I have to remain still.
    I’m hiding inside a closet, tucked behind the dancing bear costume from
The Nutcracker Suite.
    Someone comes into the room. I hear a floorboard creak. The sound of feet scuff against the carpeted floor. There’s a sniffle and then a cough. Did someone open a dresser drawer? Is
that my suitcase being zipped?
    “I don’t think she’s in here.” Midge’s voice. “No, I already searched it,” she says, talking on the phone. “Yes, of course. That one’s
already done too. Are you even listening to me? I think she might’ve left.”
    The closet door slides open. The costumes shift forward and back. I’m at the far end, against the wall, about to lose my lunch. My hand is bleeding. The wound is throbbing.
    “Wait a second,” Midge says, still talking on the phone.
    The costumes push forward again. Sequins poke into my eye.
    “Come on, now. You aren’t really implying what I think you are, are you?” she continues. “Well, then you can go to hell.”
    The phone beeps a couple of seconds later. I think she hung up mid-conversation. I hear the door shut.
    My heart pounding, I grab the lip-gloss tube that’s in my pocket and write the word
KILLER
across the wall.
    “Taylor?”
    I write
KILLER
again, bearing down so hard that the tube snaps in half. Blood from my hand spurts over the rug.
    “Earth to Taylor Monroe,” someone sings.
    And that’s when I realize...when I snap out of my daydream.
    I look down at my notebook. The word KILLER is scrawled across the page. My pencil—not my lip gloss—has snapped in two. There is no blood; the cut on my hand has long since
healed.
    Chantel I-never-stop-playing-with-my-hair Coughlin, my resident advisor, is standing over me, twirling a curlicue around her finger. We’re in the dorm lobby. At school. There are groups of
students sprinkled about the space—doing their homework, sipping their coffee, texting on phones, and chatting among themselves.
    “Holy embarrassing moment, Batgirl.” My face fries with heat. I close up my notebook.
    Chantel flashes me a polite smile, as if my nutty behavior is totally normal and doesn’t warrant a snarky comment.
    “I totally zoned out, didn’t I?” I’ve been doing that lately, having flashbacks, getting cold sweats, murmuring to myself like some
Twilight Zone
–ish freak.
“Lack of sleep does some funky stuff to people, doesn’t it?” I fake a giggle.
    “I have some good news,” she says, straight-faced, all business, still curl-twirling. “It took some doing, but we were able to move your case to the top of our priority
list.”
    “I have a case?” I ask, feeling the confusion on my face.
    “A single room will be opening up sooner than anticipated. We should be able to get you in by the end of next week.”
    “Couldn’t I just switch roommates?” I ask, pretty sure that I sound like a broken record. “It’ll be kind of weird living alone. I mean, I came here to be with
people.”
    “You’ll love having your own room,” Chantel says, bringing a strand of hair up to her lips for a taste. “You won’t have to worry about a roommate talking your ear
off while you’re trying to study, or having her friends barge in at all hours of the day and night while you’re trying to get work done, or—the