Читать книгу The American Girl: A disturbing and twisty psychological thriller - - Страница 21

JULY 31, 2015

The phone was charging, the battery percentage nudging slowly up. I’d found an outlet under Quinn’s bed and plugged it in with my charger, arranging my bag and feet on the floor to hide it from view. Every time a trolley squeaked past the doorway, I twitched around, trying not to look too suspicious and reasoning that if someone did come in I would just say the phone was mine.

As soon as the battery looked more green than red, I unplugged it and went to the bathroom, latching the door with unsteady hands. I sat on the toilet and clicked the phone on, feeling a passing moment of triumph that there was no passcode. I studied the wallpaper photo, of Quinn and Raphael Blavette huddled under a towel. They were beaded with water, grinning, his arm slung over her shoulders, her head half on his chest. They looked more than close—intimate. I wondered if they’d been an item, before whatever went wrong went wrong.

The big discovery was her blog on the Blogger app, which I glanced at with the same blushing fascination with which I read my older sister’s diary when I was a nerdy middle schooler and she was a popular senior, navigating the world of crushes and boys and Shakespearean friendship dramas. The blog’s title—Sympathy for the Devil—revealed an unexpected side to Quinn Perkins, one kept invisible in her Facebook account.

I made a note of the url and flicked through the phone’s other apps, cryptic emblems of the mysterious life of the teenager—Tumblr and Spotify, Tinder and Snapchat. The photos were much like her Instagram account—snaps of the sunny beach and hunks at the pool, though there were quite a few more of Raphael, including some glowing selfies of the two of them together that only confirmed my sense that they were involved.

The time caught my eye—I’d been in the cubicle for nearly twenty minutes, though it had felt like five. I hurried out of the cubicle and back to the room, glancing up and down the corridor before I went in. I didn’t see anyone, so it seemed safe to go to the chest of drawers and slip the phone back into the plastic tray. As I did, I noticed a pink iPod shuffle lying tangled in the hair band. I remembered reading an article about how familiar music stimulates the brains of comatose patients. Some patients who were thought beyond hope had woken after hearing their favorite songs.

No sooner had I taken the shuffle out than I heard Sister Eglantine’s voice from behind me. “I’m afraid visiting time is almost over,” she said apologetically.

“No worries,” I said, turning around slowly and trying not to look guilty.

“Look at her sleeping,” she said, putting her head to one side. “The poor angel. Anything you need—truly—you must inform us. We are here to hold you up in your necessity.”

“Well, there is one thing,” I said.

Eglantine hovered nervously while I pushed the earbuds into her patient’s ears, noting how their delicate folds looked translucent in the light streaming in from the window. As if she was carved from wax, not flesh. I tried to explain the coma theory. Embarrassed at not understanding me, she smiled and nodded and drifted away, reminding me one last time about visiting hours.

I pressed Play on the shuffle. Some Tom Waits song or other started up, sounding tinny and warped. I don’t know how long I stood over her, but my strongest impression from the whisper of the songs was that she had music taste a lot like my dad.

After a while, I had to sit down because my legs were shaking. I’d been standing so still, worried that she would move and I’d miss it. I don’t know if it was because I’d looked through her photos, her blog, but something had changed. I felt as if I belonged there somehow, with her. I noticed new things about her—the pale purple shadows under her eyes, the scars on her face knitting together, the new growth of hair on the shaved part of her head. I held her hand, and this time it wasn’t a lie.

I was just unplugging the charge from under the bed when I saw something out of the corner of my eye: a tiny movement, just like before. I looked up. Nothing. She was as still as a waxen effigy or a statue carved on a tomb. Perhaps it was wishful thinking or a trick of the mind or something. I dropped the charger in my bag.

As soon as I did, there it was again. And this time I saw it clearly: a twitch of her littlest finger, tiny, but definitely a movement. And then a twitch of all of her fingers, as if she were clutching at the sheets.

“Sister Eglantine,” I called.

She didn’t answer, so I called louder, my voice hoarse with excitement. It had worked. Her P300 wave or whatever was responding to meaningful stimulus, which meant she could wake up.

Sister Eglantine came in and I hurriedly explained. She summoned the doctor. They prodded and poked and checked the machines, but when they saw nothing, the mood turned into one of vague disappointment. Eglantine smiled apologetically. The doctor cautioned me not to feel too hopeful.

Like all relatives, of course I did secretly feel hopeful: that she would wake. And unlike relatives, I secretly worried: that she would wake.