“That man—that boy,” I said, pointing toward the hall, “with the nurse. He seems really, really sick.”

“Let’s talk about you, Delaney.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Delaney,” Mom said. “That’s none of your business.” She cast an apologetic look toward Dr. Logan, but the corners of her eyes were tight, so I knew she was annoyed with me.

I stood up and walked to the door, smacking my hand against it. “Are you listening to me? He’s sick.”

I pictured myself standing there, breathing heavy, and I knew I must’ve looked crazy, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

Dr. Logan closed his eyes and broke a rule of doctor-patient confidentiality. “He looks worse than he is. I promise.”

I removed my hand, but there was a print on the door, a watermark from my palm, fading from the outside in. “No, I think you need to check him again. I think you need to help him.” The itch was growing, little by little. It hadn’t started spreading, my hands weren’t shaking, but it wouldn’t be long now. I felt beads of sweat form at my hairline.

Dr. Logan looked at Mom. “I don’t think bringing her here was the best idea. You say she’s been better at home?”

“She has,” Mom said, looking rather proud of herself.

“She had a traumatic awakening at the hospital.” He smoothed the arms of his white coat, as if remembering where I had clawed at him. “I think being there, and being here, is too stressful.”

I was breathing heavy with frustration. They weren’t listening to me. “Doctor. He’s dying, for Christ’s sake. Do something!”

Mom put her hands on my shoulders and started to shush me, but I swatted her hands off. Dr. Logan took out his prescription pad. “For the stress,” he said to Mom. “I think you’d better go.”

Mom pulled my arm and practically yanked me out of the room. Public mortification was a top-five sin in our household. Higher even than tardiness. She grabbed the paper from the doctor, pulled me out into the waiting room, and dragged me toward the door. I turned toward where the boy sat with his nurse. “Hey!” The nurse looked up. So did everyone else. Everyone with and without the wrongness. “He’s dying! You have to do something!”

The nurse’s lips quivered and she grabbed the boy’s wrist. His humming grew louder, higher pitched, and the rest of the room fell away. Then the receptionist was in my face, moving her mouth, but all I could hear was the humming, and all I could see were his eyes, looking right at me, registering nothing. And all I could feel was the itch in my brain, growing with the boy’s humming, spreading with the rising pitch, like it was somehow his fault.

I clamped my hands over my ears and screamed, “Stop it!” but I could still hear him. So I started humming to myself with my hands still pressed over my ears, until I couldn’t hear his voice. But the itch remained. And then two nurses and a man in a suit dragged me backward out the front door, and they helped Mom strap me in the car, and Mom pressed the lock down hard before slamming the door. The tires squealed as Mom pulled the car out and the man and the nurses stood on the sidewalk watching us go. I stopped humming, mortified by their expressions. But nothing was as bad as seeing Mom’s face. Her hands trembled on the steering wheel. And she gulped in air like she was sobbing, but there were no tears.

She dropped me off at home with explicit instructions not to leave the house (or my room, for that matter) while she went to fill another prescription I’d be flushing down the drain. I listened because of the way she slammed the lock on my car door. I listened because I was scared of what she might do.

Except then I heard a loud engine out front and the doorbell rang, and I knew it was Troy. He would understand. So I tiptoed down the steps and pulled him inside and whispered, “You have to leave.” But even as I said that I gripped tight onto both of his hands.

“Why? What happened?”

I leaned into him and he moved his arms around my waist. Everything else fell away as I breathed him in. “I tried to save someone.”

He tensed and pushed me backward. “You . . . what?” He clenched his teeth. “What did you do?”

“I told my doctor someone was going to die.”

Troy gripped my upper arm. “Why did you do that?” Then he shook me. “How stupid can you be?”

I flinched, remembering how little I knew Troy and how little he knew me. “I’m not stupid,” I said, looking at the fingers digging into my arm.