by Eva Robinson
Influenced
Eva Robinson
For Mike Omer who helped me with every aspect of this book.
Contents
Chapter 1
2. Twenty-six days earlier
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
One
A sharp blow splintered the back of her head. Pain shot through her skull.
Stunned with the blinding pain, she stared out across the garden. The knock from behind had been a pure shock to her system, robbing her of rational thought. She wondered vaguely if she was ruining the party somehow.
She opened her mouth to scream, but she wasn’t sure if she was making any sound.
Gripping the railing, she tried to make sense of the world around her. A labyrinthine garden sprawled out beneath the old wooden deck. It stretched all the way to Fresh Pond, where dark water glittered in the distance. It should be peaceful here, but pain was ripping her head open, and someone was screaming.
Only now did she realize she’d dropped her phone onto the gravel path two stories below. It lay there, shattered.
Was she screaming, or was it someone else?
She nearly lost her balance over the railing, and she gripped it tighter. The feel of the rough wood under her hands sharpened her senses, and her thoughts crystallized.
Her friend wanted to kill her.
And if she didn’t get away right now, if she didn’t flee from this old mansion, she would die.
Right here, right now, her blood on the stones.
But before she could turn to run, thin fingers gripped her shoulders, so hard that they were digging into her flesh like talons.
Run, run, run.
Her blood roared in her ears.
“Wait—” she cried, but the word came out garbled.
A sharp, angry shove pushed her forward, and she flew over the edge of the railing. Wind whipped over her, and panic exploded in her mind with the rush of the fall.
A single thought rang out.
I don’t want to die.
When she hit the path, pain rocketed through her bones, through her head. She couldn’t breathe. Her lungs were collapsing.
I don’t want to die.
She couldn’t feel her legs anymore, couldn’t move them. She felt only the shattering pain in her head, in her ribs, her arms. When she sucked in a breath, it was like a knife piercing her lungs.
On the gravel path, she tried to pull herself forward, fingers digging in between the little rocks. An agonized grunt escaped her, an inhuman noise as she inched forward. Her legs weren’t working, but her fingers, her arms could pull…
Fractured with pain, her head lolled forward.
She couldn’t do it. Her body wasn’t working properly, and the pain was too much.
Quiet. Be very quiet, and maybe they won’t find you.
Someone still screamed above, shouting her name. Warm blood dripped from her ears, her nose… What if they thought she was dead? Maybe they’d leave her here.
How could she be quiet when her breath was so loud?
Quiet like a mouse. That was what her teacher had said long ago, when they’d hide behind bookshelves or under desks. The lockdown drills had scared her so much back then. The principal would walk through the halls with the bullhorn. He’d pretend to be the killer and they’d hide from the bad man, listening only to the sound of breathing, arms wrapped around knees, eyes closed. Dark rooms and death stalking the halls. Quiet like a mouse. That was how you survived. If you couldn’t run, you hid in the dark and hoped he never found you.
But death wasn’t coming in the form of a strange man stalking the halls. It was coming from a friend. Someone on a Victorian deck surrounded by fairy lights and colored lanterns.
She lifted her head a little, her gaze catching on the little gold bracelet. The fleur-de-lis charm glinted in the moonlight, engraved with S&O, ’09. Her thoughts drifted back to the past. The day she’d gotten it in high school, she had already known she’d never take it off. All the girls in their graduating year at her chichi private school had them. It marked her out as a member of an elite tribe, a graduate of Saltonstall and Oakes. She’d been destined for great things. Anyone could see that back then. Her chest ached for that day.
The sound of screaming pulled her back to the present, to the danger.
Should she be quiet, or try to move again?
Something was wrong with both her arms. The sound of a river rushed in her ears. For a dazed moment, she thought of her mom.
No, it wasn’t her mom she wanted…
Maybe she should try to pull herself forward again.
But shadows were filling her mind.
Two
Twenty-six days earlier
In her cramped school office, Hannah felt like the walls were starting to close in. Morning sun filtered into the room, streaming over a desk strewn with papers. Test kits and books crammed the bookshelves around her room. Once, there’d been a time when she was organized. A time known as September. But by the time the school year was ending, chaos encroached from every crevice, from every mislabeled folder in the filing cabinet.
Sighing, she stared at the poster on one of the filing cabinets. Believe in Yourself, it said in rainbow colors, with stars shooting out from the bottom. She’d bought it two years ago, thinking it would spruce up a drab school psychologist’s office. Now the words seemed to have no meaning.
For a moment, she toyed with the golden fleur-de-lis charm on her bracelet, engraved for her graduation from Saltonstall and Oakes. Things had been much simpler back then, hadn’t they?
She’d never been this tired in high school.
During the first half of the night, she lay awake listening to an amateur house DJ upstairs. Then Nora, the love of her life and the great thief of sleep, would start wailing in the early hours. Last night at four a.m., Nora had started wailing, “Help, please! Help, please!” How could Hannah ignore such a sad, plaintive cry?
Hannah would always scoop her up, kiss her fat cheeks. In bed, Nora would launch into a series of increasingly absurd demands. Water. Milk. Monkey. Go for walk.
Hannah rarely fell back asleep after that. It was, perhaps, the best part of her day, which was why she never bothered to sleep-train Nora. When her little girl fell asleep next to her, Hannah relished the peacefulness of her rising and falling chest.
But the fatigue was starting to eat holes in her brain. When she was really desperate, she’d dose herself with a bit of Benadryl to get back asleep. And now here she was in a Benadryl hangover, staring open-mouthed at a Believe in Yourself poster.
She took a sip of coffee, trying to get some of that caffeinated magic going. She tried not to think about the fact t
hat she’d bought the I Love a School Psychologist mug for herself. Like the poster, it had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now it seemed beyond sad. Who buys something like that for themselves?
With a little coffee buzz starting to brighten her mind, she flipped her work schedule open. Meetings, cognitive testing, then counseling.
Crap. She still hadn’t finished the report for the noon meeting, and that one would be difficult. Hugo’s parents always brought lawyers to scrutinize her findings.
Her office door creaked open, and she found herself looking at the disheveled hair of Hugo himself. “Hey, Miss Moreno.”
She thought about telling him his shirt was buttoned crooked, but there was the risk it would set him off again. “Always lovely to see you. We have a meeting for you at noon. You’re coming, I hope?”
“Yeah. But I have a crisis now.”
Hannah leaned back in her chair. She’d never get his report done in time if he took up her morning with one of his many “crises.”
Before she could answer, her phone started ringing. She muted it. “Hugo, we can come up with a plan at the meeting. We can talk about how to manage your time better.”
“I don’t think time management is my issue. Precalculus is my issue.”
She shook her head. “That is a perfect thing to discuss at your meeting, at noon.”
“My parents won’t agree, though.”
“Well, you’re not eighteen for a few months, so we will need—”
“I have twenty-six missing homework assignments. There’s no way I can make it up.”
The red light blinked on her phone again—another phone call. Hannah’s head throbbed. “Listen, Hugo. I know you feel crushed by the weight of what you have to do now. Everything’s overwhelming, and there’s just too much. There’s too much, and sometimes you lie awake at night…” She trailed off, surprised to feel her eyes stinging. She’d zoned out on the light blinking on the phone. “Hugo, I have to prepare for your meeting.”
Establish reasonable boundaries.
He stared at her for a moment. “Fine.” He whirled and left, slamming the door behind him so hard that the room rattled.
Blinking, Hannah lifted her bag off the floor and rifled through it for his testing protocols. But the door was already opening again. This time it was the head of her department, Jerry. His shirt was also buttoned crooked, but in this case she was sure she should keep it to herself.
Jerry pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Sorry to interrupt. I’m getting frantic phone calls from a mom. She said it’s an emergency.” He pointed at the flashing light on her office phone. “Said she’s been calling you. Says she left a bunch of messages.”
“I was just with a student.”
“Well, she sounds frantic. So… she needs a call back.”
As Jerry slipped out the door, the phone started ringing again, and Hannah picked up.
“Hello?”
“Hannah? You never sent me the report for Hugo’s meeting. I wanted the test reports in advance to review with our advocate and the neuropsychologist, and there’s almost no time left. The meeting’s in four hours.”
Hannah’s pulse raced. There had been a time when she’d sent copies home a week in advance so parents could read them.
“Review?” Hannah repeated the word to buy herself extra time while she figured out what else to say.
“It’s just that we have concerns that Hugo isn’t rising to his potential. We think he has a very unique profile that requires additional support. And obviously, he’s going to need extra time on tests. With tutoring and extra time on tests, he’ll really have the chance to fulfill his potential. I’m sure you’ll agree with our neuropsychologist’s interpretations, but we need to review your testing in advance. We expected to have it by now.”
Without even reviewing the reports, Hannah could tell the meeting would not go well. Hugo wouldn’t qualify for anything. He had perfectly average cognitive skills. The problems were: 1) His parents wanted him to take a full load of advanced classes because they were fixated on Stanford, and 2) He had a video-game addiction that kept him up throughout the night raiding troll caves or slaughtering goblin mercenaries. Or something. She had no idea what the specifics of the games were—only that they weren’t precalculus.
“We’ll have to decide as a team in the meeting,” said Hannah. “I can’t come to any conclusions without teacher input.”
“There’s another matter. Hugo doesn’t know where his phone is. He emailed me. He thought maybe he left it in the library before classes started. Can you look for it and bring it to him? He gets anxious without his phone, and the meeting won’t go well at all if he’s anxious.”
Is she kidding? “It would be better if he learned some independent skills, I think, instead of having adults swoop in to fix things for him. He’s nearly eighteen.” She tried to keep the irritation out of her voice. “And I’m not able to leave my office at this time. That’s not really part of my role.”
“Our neuropsychologist said disorganization is a function of his unique profile. She said she thinks he has the most unique profile she’s ever seen—I mean, she was really blown away by it. That’s why he needs the extra support to reach his true potential. We just want what’s best for him.”
Already her palms were sweating, and her mouth was going dry. “I’ll send you my testing in just a few minutes, and we can discuss it in the meeting at noon.”
Just a few minutes—a lie.
“But how will you get Hugo’s phone to him?”
“No. I’ll see you at twelve.” Hannah hung up, her pulse racing.
Part of her wanted to just give them whatever they wanted. Extra time on tests, tutoring for AP classes. A special rule that meant Hugo personally was not accountable for homework while still getting As.
But it wasn’t fair, was it? The kids who couldn’t afford private neuropsychologists were getting overlooked. Those with money plowed their way further to the top, securing their position in society with financial privileges.
Her phone started blinking again, but she ignored it. Just write the report. It was already May. She just had to make it six more weeks, and the school year would be over.
She toyed with her S&O bracelet. Even at one of the fanciest schools in Cambridge, she didn’t remember students demanding that teachers find their lost belongings. Then again, maybe she’d just had no idea what the other kids were doing. She supposed teenagers had always been pains in the neck, and they always would be.
She started searching her bag and pulled out a small stack of manila folders and dropped them on her desk. A sense of unease climbed her throat as she searched through one folder after another, looking for Hugo’s results.
These were all the wrong folders. She was losing her mind. Oh, freaking hell, she’d brought the wrong folders home last night.
Where were his test results?
She felt like her brain had holes in it.
With her heart slamming, she jumped up from her chair and crossed to the filing cabinet. The metal cabinet groaned as she opened it, and she pulled out Hugo’s folder with a sinking feeling.
Empty.
She’d lost Hugo’s test results, and now she was about to lose her job.
Three
What if she’d left it in a booth at McDonald’s when she’d taken Nora for a Happy Meal on the way home? What if anyone saw his confidential results?
Deep breaths.
She closed her eyes, trying to picture the testing protocol. What were the scores? They’d been all average, but she couldn’t remember all the subtest scores. What had he got on the Block Design test? A nine? Ten?
Vaguely, she could picture the folder on the table next to a Happy Meal. She had a vivid memory of the googly-eyed Happy Meal toy, and wondering if any parts could fall off and choke Nora to death. And maybe that was the problem. Some percentage of Hannah’s work brain had been replaced with perpetual nightmarish parenting scenarios.
<
br /> She threaded her fingers into her hair, ready to pull it out. Short of sleeping with a student, leaving a test report in a public place might be the worst thing a school psychologist could do.
She couldn’t tell anyone about this. The parents would sue. Hannah would lose her job, and she’d never get a new one. She and Nora would have to move into her mom’s tiny apartment. Nora would spend time around an angry, alcoholic grandmother who told her that juice would make her fat, and a mom with cognitive damage from long-term insomnia.
It would last about three months till Hannah took Nora out of her mom’s house. The old quote from the Saturday Night Live skit blared in her mind, and she imagined herself living in a van by the Charles River.
Her hands were shaking, her stomach churning with nausea. Now her clothes felt too hot, the waist of her pants too tight around her belly. Her breath sped up. She was suffocating in this office.
She wanted to be at home, with Nora in her arms, making her laugh. She wanted to be blowing raspberries on her daughter’s potbelly, chasing her around the apartment and listening to her squeal with laughter. Why was Hannah stuck here in this suffocating office?
For a moment, she wondered, what if she just… made up the results?
No, that was totally unethical. She couldn’t go into a contentious meeting with numbers she’d just pulled from the air, defending her position.
A knock sounded on her door, and before she could respond, Jerry was opening it. “Sorry to bother you, Hannah, but Hugo’s mom seems upset.”
