by Anna Davies
“Is this one sixty-seven?” I asked, squinting at the address.
“Yes, ma’am. That’ll be thirty dollars.”
I pulled out Jamie’s wallet and peeled two twenties from the front of the stack in the main compartment. A sticky note was affixed to it.
And you think I don’t care about your well-being?
Enjoy Massachusetts.
The note was signed with a heart.
She’d known. She’d known I would come here. The computer history. Of course.
“Thirty?” the driver pressed.
I passed the two crisp twenties toward him.
I balled my hands together, my fingers digging into my palms. It was now or never. My name is Hayley Westin. You knew my mother, Wendy. Almost eighteen years ago, I was born….
It was the speech of my life — literally. All I needed to do was look him in the eye and tell the truth.
Steeling my courage, I walked up the flagstone path and rang the bell. Almost immediately, as though I’d been watched, the door swung open.
I was standing face-to-face with my father. He looked more weather-beaten than the man in the picture on the back of the book jacket, but the piercing eyes were the same.
I took a deep breath. “First, I’m not Jamie. I’m Hayley. And I …”
He laughed, a loud angry bark. “Don’t even do this to us. Not now.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me inside, through a gleaming hallway and into a large, well-lit kitchen. A beautifully manicured backyard was visible through the glass sliding doors, with trees wrapped in burlap sacks for the winter.
“Wait. Do you know who I am?” I yanked my elbow away from him. He grabbed it back.
“Deborah!” he bellowed. I detected the slightest trace of a British accent. In the very rare times I’d ever pictured us meeting, I thought we’d be introduced at someplace cozy, like the Ugly Mug. I never imagined him speaking to me in a hate-filled voice that made me tremble every time he opened his mouth.
A thin woman made her way into the kitchen. She was wearing a pair of black slacks and a purple cashmere sweater. It was impossible to tell her age — she could have been anywhere between forty and sixty-five — but what struck me were her eyes. Large, blue, and flickering, making it impossible to hold eye contact. She was clearly James’s wife, but why did she look so angry with me?
Unless …
“You think I’m Jamie,” I said slowly.
“We’re not playing games anymore. Yes, we think you’re Jamie. Yes, we think you’re our daughter,” the woman said, her voice low, musical, and vaguely threatening.
“I’m not Jamie. I’m Hayley. Her twin. Hayley Westin.”
Deborah and the man — my father — locked eyes, but it was impossible to read what they were trying to tell each other.
“Hayley,” Deborah hissed. “How convenient.”
Jamie’s father shook his head sadly. “Dr. Morrison said this could happen. It’s called splitting. It’s just another sign that she’s a very sick girl. And, of course, knowing she has a twin makes it that much easier to imagine an alternate personality. That’s why Wendy and I had agreed to keep it a secret.” He shook his head angrily. “Anyway, that place he told us about up in Maine is supposed to be the best, and I think with the right therapy, and maybe some electroshock, she could resume a normal life….” he said, as though I weren’t in the room.
“I didn’t know about Jamie. Jamie was the one who found me, and Jamie’s the one trying to take over my life. I came to stop it. And you have to help me. You have to at least believe me!” I locked eyes with James. I knew my voice was getting dangerously shaky, that I was on the verge of sounding like I was having a breakdown. I took a deep breath and went back to what I’d meant to say. “I’m Hayley Kathryn Westin. My mother is Wendy, and eighteen years ago, you and …”
James’s face crumpled, then hardened. He took a menacing step toward me.
“Stop it!” Deborah shouted. She put her hands on my shoulders. “Jamie. Hayley. Stop it,” she said. The scent of her jasmine-and-honey perfume was overpowering. I tried to pull away, but she only tightened her grip. Behind her, a dark-haired boy padded into the kitchen. He was about my age, with shaggy hair that curled over his ears. He had the same blue eyes as his mother, but the half smile looked like my father’s on the book jacket. Which meant he had to be my half brother.
I stared at him, trying to get him to understand what was going on. I barely knew myself. “I’m not your sister, am I?” I asked, holding a wide, unblinking gaze and hoping he’d see something — a freckle, a gesture, a scar — that Jamie didn’t have.
He turned away, his shoulders stiffening. “I thought she wasn’t coming back,” he said in a hard voice.
“Aidan, go upstairs. You don’t need to see this,” James said firmly.
“See what? See Jamie self-destruct … again?” Aidan asked, sitting down at the kitchen table, his eyes flicking from Deborah to James, then back again. “Should we just call the police this time? Because I bet she did something she shouldn’t have. It was the stolen car last time. What do you think it is this time? Murder? What did you do, Jamie?” he asked.
“I’m sorry,” I said finally, breaking the silence. It was another Alice in Wonderland moment. I’d fallen down the rabbit hole and couldn’t make sense of the information being presented to me. Was I Jamie? Was I Hayley? Or was I someone else entirely? “If you can just listen to me, I’ll explain….”
“We don’t need your explanations. And sorry doesn’t work anymore,” the man said in a low voice, as threatening as the sound of a far-off thunderstorm.
“James,” Deborah said in a low voice. “Why don’t you call Dr. Morrison. We can’t talk rationally with her. It’ll hurt her, and it’ll hurt us. She needs help.”
James paused, then nodded once. As he left the room, Deborah and I stared at each other.
“You stole from us. We’re your family. This is trust. And I don’t know if we’ll ever get that back,” Deborah said slowly.
“I know this sounds crazy. I know you don’t believe me. But I’m Hayley. And if I can just call someone, I can prove —”
“Prove that you’re manipulative? That you’ve found more people to pull into your web of lies? No. You won’t do that. I know James believes in you, but I don’t. I really don’t. You turn eighteen in a few months, and then we’re done. We can’t be responsible for someone who’s so willfully irresponsible about everyone and everything in her life. When I think back to you as a child … the guinea pig —” She broke off.
“What guinea pig?” I asked, fear climbing up my spine.
“Only my favorite thing in the world,” Aidan said. My mind flashed to the picture in the wallet, the childish handwriting.
“Peanut Butter?” I asked reflexively, before I could stop myself.
“Good memory,” Aidan said tightly. “Especially for someone who apparently has no idea who Jamie is.”
I thought of the picture in the wallet.
Deborah shot a warning look at Aidan, then turned toward me.
“Stop it. For all of our sakes, just stop it.” She’d grabbed a napkin from the center of the table and was shredding it into smaller and smaller pieces, which rained down like snow on the table.
Just then, James came into the room. “It’s all set. They have emergency protocol for situations like this. They won’t be long.”
“So what do we do with her until then?” Aidan asked.
“We wait,” James said tersely. He folded his arms across his chest.
“Can we talk?” I asked in a small voice. Being in this house, surrounded by Jamie’s family, made it hard to think. I felt guilty, as if I were Jamie. Everyone was staring at me. No matter what I said, they wouldn’t believe me.
And so I bolted. I ran toward the sliding glass doors and yanked. They wouldn’t budge. I turned on my heel to run toward the front and was tackled by Aidan, who was six inches taller than I was. I lost my balance and fe
ll, my head cracking against the floor.
“Ow!” I yelped. I frantically wrestled against his grip, while Deborah and James looked on.
“Let go! You don’t want to get hurt!” Deborah called.
Aidan let go, and I took the moment to wipe tears of pain from my eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I said helplessly. Everything I’d planned to say had disappeared from my brain. I’d walked into Jamie’s trap. And the worst thing was that even though I knew it, I couldn’t explain it to these people, who were staring at me with hate in their eyes.
“Sit down,” Deborah said tonelessly.
I meekly perched on one of the wooden chairs at the kitchen table, watching the three of them. James kept clenching his jaw, while Deborah stared at the floor. Only Aidan looked at me. I turned away.
Finally, Deborah placed her hand on Aidan’s shoulder. “Can you watch her? We’ll just be in the next room,” Deborah whispered as she and James headed through the archway into the dining room.
Aidan sat down beside me.
“You know you’re so busted, don’t you?” He asked.
I paused and gazed into his eyes. Could I make him my ally? It was a long shot, but at least he was looking at me. I opened my mouth.
“I know this sounds weird. I know it does. But I’m really Jamie’s twin. I can —” The doorbell rang, cutting me off.
“That’s them,” James announced to no one in particular, dashing through the room toward the door.
“I hate you,” Aidan spat.
“I’m sorry.” It was the only phrase I could think of, and even though I kept saying it again and again, I knew it wasn’t enough for whatever Jamie had done.
Just then, James came back into the room, two men in white coats behind him.
“She’s getting violent,” he warned.
That was all they needed to act. One of them lunged toward me, half dragging me from my seated position while the other grabbed my chin and placed two tablets on my tongue. Too surprised to spit them out, I swallowed, tasting their acrid, lawn-fertilizer-like taste.
I coughed to try to spit up the medicine, but it was too late. The pills had dissolved and were already making their way into my bloodstream.
“I’m sorry, Jamie. I hope you know that. And I hope you know we want … we want a change. We believe in a change. But we can’t live like this anymore,” James said sorrowfully. “You can take her. Thank you.”
Fight, a voice in my brain screamed. But I didn’t have any fight left in me. I didn’t have anything left in me. All I wanted to do was curl up into a ball and go to sleep — and never, ever wake up.
“I’m sorry, baby girl. One day, I hope you’ll understand,” James muttered as the two orderlies dragged me to an unmarked black car.
One of them opened the rear door and shoved me inside. I heard the click of the lock as the two of them climbed into the front, closing a barrier between the front and the back.
The car rolled away from the curb. Even though the windows were closed, I could hear garbage trucks beeping in the distance and the nervous chattering of sparrows in the bare tree branches around us. The world was just waking up, and it was impossible to reconcile the fact that my life as I’d known it was falling apart. And there was nothing I could do about it.
I awoke to commotion around me. The two orderlies were standing above me, unbuckling my seat belt and transferring me to a wheelchair.
“I’m awake!” I said, struggling to consciousness. “I’m fine!”
I wasn’t. My brain felt like it was swathed in cotton and my tongue felt far too large for my mouth.
“Steady,” one of the orderlies said. He stepped to the side, and I saw a wiry, short man rushing toward me, a stethoscope flopping back and forth on his chest.
“Jamie Thomson-Thurm,” he announced. He leaned down toward me. “Jamie, I’m Dr. Taylor, and I’ll be taking care of you. Let’s get her inside.”
The two orderlies half pulled me to my feet. I caught a whiff of salt in the air. We had to be near the ocean. But I knew I wasn’t going to get a chance to actually see it. Surrounding me was a series of two-story cottages arranged around a large rough-hewn wooden structure, reminding me more of a summer camp than a mental hospital, which is what it was. It had to be. After all, the property was enclosed by a wrought-iron gate. The very few people I saw wandering around the lawns were either wearing scrubs or had a wristband on their arm. Just like the one on my own arm that must have been placed there while I was unconscious.
Dr. Taylor seemed unfazed by the commotion of the orderlies trying to drag me toward the building.
“I hope you had a good sleep, Jamie,” Dr. Taylor said, falling into step beside me. I kept blinking to try to get my contacts to slide back over my pupils and make everything slip back into focus. “Welcome to Serenity Point. I know that you had a couple sleeping pills, so you’re probably feeling a bit groggy. That’s normal. I’ve been talking to your doctor back home about your medication, and we might do a few tweaks here and there, depending on your response. It’s very important that you keep us abreast of any new feelings or changes that arise as we do, is that clear?” he asked.
“Yesh … I mean, yes,” I said, correcting the lisp that had come out of my mouth. My legs felt like jelly, and I was winded even though we’d only walked a few hundred yards from the entrance to the main building.
“Good. Let’s bring her to my office,” Dr. Taylor commanded once we stepped inside the lobby immediately past the building entrance. It was empty except for one couch, and a coffee table with pamphlets spread along the surface. Frequently Asked Questions about Electroshock Treatments, read one of the brochures. But before I could read the other titles, the two orderlies dragged me down a small corridor. From the outside, I’d assumed the building would look like a hospital, with long, polished linoleum floors and an antiseptic smell. But the walls were covered with terrible paintings of landscapes and the floor had a dingy blue carpet on it. Finally, I was unceremoniously deposited into a small, spare room.
“Sit down,” one orderly grunted, nodding toward a couch with a thin, stained cushion.
“Let the nurses’ station knows she’s here so we can make sure her room is ready,” Dr. Taylor said as I tried to get my bearings. The tiny room seemed similar to one of the ones in the guidance suite. But instead of piles of papers, Dr. Taylor’s desk contained only a laptop and a single sunflower in a bud vase. The walls were bare and I felt a sudden longing for Miss Keeshan’s stupid hang in there! sloth poster. Anything that would make this place seem more human.
Dr. Taylor perched in the chair behind the desk, steepled his fingers together, and stared at me. “Now, tell me why you’re here, Jamie.”
I glanced up at the ceiling. A watermark looked like an oddly shaped heart. The sound of the white noise machine whooshed in my ears. Think, I urged myself. My brain used to gear into overdrive under pressure. Not anymore. All I could think about were James’s eyes. The terrified look Aidan had shot me when he mentioned his guinea pig. The fact that there truly wasn’t anywhere to escape to.
“Jamie?” Dr. Taylor prompted.
Trapped. Trapped trapped trapped, my mind screamed. I twisted the hospital ID bracelet around my wrist.
Dr. Taylor leaned his elbows on his knees. “That was an unfair question. I apologize.”
I glanced up gratefully into his beady pupils.
“Why don’t you start by telling me a little bit about yourself. As you can see, I have some notes, but I’d much rather hear it from you. In your words.” He rapped against the stack of manila file folders with his fingers. I leaned forward, trying to see what was inside them, but they were rubber-banded together, making any chance of reading an impossibility.
“I’m not Jamie,” I said finally, my voice husky and unfamiliar to my ears. “I’m her twin. I’m Hayley. I went to Brookline this morning because I knew that was where my father lived. And I needed to explain what she’s been doing for the
past few weeks. But that means she’s in Bainbridge, and I’m just … I need to stop her. And now I’m stuck. And I feel like that’s what she wanted.”
“You’re not Jamie.” He glanced at his pad of paper and made a note. “All right. Then why don’t you tell me a bit about who you are.”
“I’m Hayley,” I said again, trying to mask my frustration. “Hayley Westin, from Bainbridge, New Hampshire. I never knew I had a twin. I always thought I was an only child. And then my mom told me that I did have a twin, but that she had died. And now … well, now I don’t know. I mean, my mom lied to me. But I don’t know why.”
A low, single chime sounded and Dr. Taylor stood up and strode around to the front of the desk. He reached down and held his hand out toward me.
I looked away. I didn’t want to speak to him, much less touch him. He dropped his hand to his side.
“Well, Hayley, it’s nice to meet you. Unfortunately, we don’t have a full session today, but we’ll make sure to get the schedule sorted out so you’ll have a full forty-five minutes with me tomorrow, and every day following.”
“No!” I screamed. “I don’t need that. I need you to believe me.” The pills had worn off, unleashing my panic. “I need to get out of here and call the police. Jamie is impersonating me, she may have killed someone, and if I don’t get out of here, then everyone will believe her. Seriously, people are in danger.”
Dr. Taylor nodded impassively as he tapped his pen against the folder. “It sounds like you have a lot of anger, Hayley. That’s understandable, and we’ll discuss it in detail. But the one thing I ask, if that makes sense, is that you bring Jamie to the session tomorrow.”
“How can I do that? She’s not here. She’s in New Hampshire, pretending to be me!” I screamed. A hint of a smile crossed Dr. Taylor’s face. “I mean,” I said, trying to calm down my breathing and my hammering heart, “I think there’s been a terrible mistake. What could I do to get you to believe me?”