Decker sat in Mom’s vacated chair and propped his feet on the bed. “So,” he said, “it’s two a.m. There’s nothing on TV, and the cafeteria is closed. What do you want to do?”

I rubbed at my face and moaned. “I want to sleep.”

“Like you’ve never pulled an all-nighter before.”

“Only for studying.”

“You want to do schoolwork?” He scrunched his face in disgust.

“Actually, I already did.” I picked up Catch-22 and clutched it to my chest. “I need to read this. But I can’t. Headaches.” I held it out for him and smiled.

Decker shook his head and leaned backward. “I don’t read assigned books. Goes against everything I believe in.”

I smiled wider. “I’ll be your best friend.”

“I can’t believe I begged my parents to let me come here for this,” he said. But he took the book all the same. He sat facing my bed, feet propped up on the edge, knees bent. And he began to read.

He looked at me over the first page. “I feel ridiculous.”

“Shh, shhh, you’re perfect.”

I listened. Correction: I watched. I watched his eyes scan the page and his mouth form the words, and I grew entranced by the way he rested his tongue on the corner of his lips every time he turned a page and the way he smiled at all the right spots, same as me, and the way his voice dropped an octave whenever someone was talking in the story.

He stopped after a few pages and said, “You’re not falling asleep, are you?” But I was staring at his mouth, and he saw it.

“No, I’m good.”

Decker had at least three ways of looking at me. Sometimes, he’d look at the surface of me, like when I’d walk into a room for the first time and his eyes would go wide and friendly. He could also look right through me with sharp eyes when he was annoyed, like that day at the lake. And he could look directly into me when he wanted to know what I was thinking or feeling. He was doing that now. I could tell by the way his upper lids drooped to meet the gray of his irises. I could almost feel him in my head, picking at the pieces.

I waved him off. “Just keep going,” I said. And he did.

Dr. Logan came in when the sky was still orange.

“Field trip.” He clapped his hands together once and waited for the nurses to transfer me into a wheelchair. I pursed my lips at him. His eyes weren’t bloodshot. His clothes looked fresh. He had slept. He was cheerful. And when he leaned close to check my stitches, I didn’t even smell coffee on his breath.

“Time to say good-bye to the boyfriend,” he said.

“Oh, him?” I made brief eye contact with Decker and looked away. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

Decker turned his back to me as he shrugged on his jacket, which was all the good-bye I was going to get.

My head felt sticky and cold as Dr. Logan stuck wire after wire onto my skull. I caught a glimpse of myself in the glass window and did a double-take. I was a walking science experiment, thin wires shooting out of my head like a blond Medusa. The wires wound down my side to a small box. And just as he attached the last of the wires, the itching started.

I raised my hands and left them hovering just above my scalp. “It itches,” I said.

“Hmmm.” Dr. Logan rested his pointer finger on his chin. “Itching or discomfort?” Like I didn’t know the difference.

“Itch,” I repeated. “But inside.” Deep in the center of my brain. And, like the day before, the tugging intensified from one direction until it wasn’t a tug at all but a pull. A strong, persistent pull. “I need to get out of here,” I said, swiping at the electrodes on my scalp.

“Wait, calm down,” Dr. Logan said as he gripped my wrists with his hands, preventing the destruction of his work.

“I gotta go, I gotta go,” I said as the itch spread down my neck. I rolled my head back and tried to swing my legs out of bed.

“Go where?”

“I gotta go,” I repeated, because the pull was strong and the itch was spreading down my shoulders and I didn’t know exactly where. Somewhere out in the hall. Somewhere to my right.

And then the itch made its way down my arms to the tips of my fingers and they burned and twitched as the itch tried to escape. Dr. Logan loosened his grip on my wrists and looked at the movement. He frowned at the readout. “No seizure,” he said.

Then he looked back at me, like that should’ve stopped the twitching in and of itself. I got up, jerking the machinery with me, trying to dislodge the wires from my head. Dr. Logan pressed a button over my bed and engulfed me in his arms, almost like a hug, but not really because I couldn’t move. More like a straitjacket. And then someone came into the room and I felt a pinch on my arm and everything went fuzzy and a little bit silly. I was pretty sure I was giggling when the blackness took over.