I reached for the bag, then felt a sizzle of guilt and fear and pulled back. I hated Noelle for doing this to me. She'd turned me into a paranoid freakball. Pretty soon I was going to need some psychotropic meds, thanks to her. But now that she'd planted the seed, I couldn't not know. I glanced toward the stacks. No Josh. I grabbed his bag.
All I was going to find were vitamins. That was all he was taking. He had told me as much. I was going to open this bag and all I was going to find was some special one-a-day formulation for overprivileged teenage boys.
My heart was in my throat as my sweaty fingers ripped the flap open. I pawed through the contents. Books. Notebooks. Pens. A mushed, empty M&M's bag. Random crumbs. A crusty paintbrush. Dammit.
I swatted the flap closed again and ripped open the side
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pocket. His cell phone clattered out onto the table, causing the non-iPod-sporting Dreck boy to shoot me a death-ray glare.
"What're you doing?" he demanded.
"Looking for a pen," I shot back.
'You have a pen." He was very cocky about this declaration.
Mind your own business, Detective Dork.
"I. . . need another color. It's a study-system thing."
He narrowed his eyes but went back to his work.
I almost cried. I was becoming a better liar by the day. But the close call was too much for me. I was just about to shove the phone back and give up when out slid a long, thin, plastic box with seven small compartments. Each was marked for a day of the week.
Every one of my vital organs was moving up my throat now. I opened today's compartment. There were five pills nestled inside nice and tight. So many they barely fit. If Josh had to take these everyday, he hadn't yet taken today's dose. Today's huge dose. The pills were blue and orange and green and white, with various milligrams stamped on their surfaces. My heart stopped, then thumped so hard it hurt.
All kinds of drugs, from Haldol to Ambien.
Noelle had not been lying. At least not about this. Which begged the question, what else had she not lied about?
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* * *
I rushed back to Billings like my shoes were a pair of ticking time bombs. I had just looked up Josh's various drugs in The Pill Book at the library--once I'd gotten over the shock that the Easton Academy library owned a copy of The Pill Book. I only even knew the drug-cyclopedia existed and how to use it because my mother had been referencing her battered copy for years. She kept it in her nightstand, and why not? It was her bible.
It turned out Josh was on medication for depression, anxiety, insomnia, and seizures. And now everything was as clear as daybreak to me. Of course Josh was medicated. Of course he was. He'd been acting strangely ever since Thomas's funeral. First, he hadn't reacted at all aside from at the very moment he heard the news. No tears. No sorrow. No nothing. Like he couldn't feel a thing, even when this horrific tragedy had happened. Then, a few weeks later, the even-tempered guy I knew had started to become way more emotionally askew. He'd gotten so tense with me when I'd missed his Boston trip. And then the manic state on
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Thanksgiving. I'd thought he was nervous about potentially hooking up with me, but apparently he was just on an upswing. The pupils, the jitters, the quick mood changes, the sugar addiction all pointed back to some serious issues. Had his medication stopped working? Or had he missed a few doses? Who knew?
God, now that I thought about it, there were so many clues. I'd never seen Josh drink more than half a beer. He'd been the only sober soul at the Legacy. And what was that crack that Gage had made about him the other day? Well, maybe it just hasn't been diagnosed. Everyone knew about this. Everyone, as usual, but me.
The walls of Billings House shook from the force of my door slam. Natasha looked up from her desk at the ceiling as if she expected it to cave in.
"Reed! What is it?"
"I need to use your computer," I said.
I dropped everything on the floor. My bag, my new coat--all on the floor near my bed. I must have looked half out of my mind as I approached her, because she stumbled out of her seat without another word. The pocket of her fleecy sweats got caught on the arm of the chair and she tore herself free.
"What's the matter?" she asked me.
I sat down and double-clicked the Google icon. For someone in the midst of a panic attack, I was experiencing a pretty sharp clarity. I couldn't believe I was even able to function, let alone type. But I did. I typed Joshua Hollis.
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