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the van and then suddenly a single tree would appear, ablaze with crimson and orange foliage that seemed too gaudy to be natural.
    “This is Westley,” Mrs. Gilbert said as they got off the highway and drove though a quaint storybook village. “The town closest to the school. There’s a shuttle to take you into town on weekends, but you have to bring a chaperone. One adult for every five students. At least, until you’re a senior. Then you can have a car and go wherever you like, as long as you have a driver’s license, and as long as you’re back by curfew.”
    “Does a car come with my scholarship, too?” Olivia asked, deadpan, but smiling inside. “A Corvette, maybe?”
    Mrs. Gilbert laughed, hearty and genuine.
    “You wish!” she said.
    The Deerborn Academy had its own private driveway that seemed a hundred miles long. Then, finally, the trees parted and the school was revealed.
    It looked the way Olivia pictured an Ivy League college might look. Venerable brick and stone buildings from the turn of the century. Well-kept lawns and winding, leaf-strewn walkways. There was a rippling, steel-blue lake visible between two buildings on the right, and down a hill to the left was a cluster of more modern structures along with an athletic field. It seemed like the kind of place where privileged, old-money kids played polo and dabbled in art for a few years before heading off to cushy jobs at daddy’s brokerage firm or mother’s fashion magazine.
    In other words, it wasn’t the kind of place a girl from the wrong side of Jacksonville ever imagined she would end up. Never in a million years.
    Yet, there she was.
    The van pulled up to a building and stopped. She got out and went to help Rachel with her bags.

5
December 1995
    Tony sat for the last time in Doctor Chalmers’ office. Director Bloom was there too, along with a stern, shapeless woman in her sixties who Tony didn’t recognize. She had a steely bob and a mouth shaped like a staple.
    The room was stuffy and cramped and felt overcrowded with the four of them sitting way too close together. Tony was wracked with anxiety, but couldn’t let it show. He was nearly free.
    “Tell me, Tony,” Doctor Chalmers said. “How do you feel about transitioning back into a more independent life?”
    Doctor Chalmers really wasn’t a bad guy—he was just trying to do his job. He was blond and earnest and looked way younger than the fifty years he said he was. He was a vegetarian and into fitness in that annoying, almost religious kind of way that made Tony feel like a fat slob, even though he was in pretty good shape for a guy with one arm. It was just that his psych meds made him retain water and kept him from getting real lean.
    He couldn’t wait to get off them.
    Wouldn’t be much longer now.
    “Well,” he said. He had a whole speech prepared in advance, and had been practicing it in his head for weeks. “I’m excited and a little bit nervous, too, naturally. It’s a big change, but I feel as though I’ve gained the cognitive tools I need to manage my symptoms and start really living life again.”
    “And what about Olivia Dunham?” Doctor Chalmers asked. “Are you finally willing to let go of your obsession with her, and accept that the loss of your arm was nothing but an unfortunate accident?”
    This was it. His big Oscar-winning moment. He couldn’t afford to screw it up.
    “It’s been a challenge,” he said, allowing a little emotional quiver into his voice. It wasn’t hard to fake. He always got emotional when he thought of the girl. “It seemed so real to me at the time. But I know now that I was suffering from delusions caused by my substance abuse and the underlying chemical imbalance in my brain. I realize that those obsessive thoughts may never go away completely, but I no longer feel any compulsion to act on those thoughts. I feel like I’m well on my way to becoming a whole person again.”
    There. That should do it.
    Doctor Chalmers