“TELL ME, WILLIAM. Why are you still here?”
Billy Doheny stared at Dr. Crouch, the psychologist he’d been assigned to since he checked himself into Happy Grounds Home just over a year ago. Dr. Crouch knew Billy’s family history even better than Billy himself did. Dr. Crouch knew everything that Billy’s voices had ever told him to do.
“WHAT WAS THAT?” asked Jenna as they crossed the street.
“What was what?” asked Florencia, although she knew perfectly well what Jenna was referring to. She started to walk faster; glimpses of sparkling blue water shimmered at the end of the street, past a parking lot.
“That,” insisted Jenna. “With that guy.”
“YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS,” said Florencia, staring.
“I know,” said Jenna. “Isn’t it freaky?”
They both contemplated the street sign.
Jenna’s apartment stood on a corner. Its official address was on Sixth Street, but most of the building ran along the other street.
FROM THE MOMENT FLORENCIA stepped off the plane into the hermetically sealed deplaning tube, she knew everything was different. Different not just in the expected way, but somehow more. By the time she had exited into the blare and bustle of the LAX terminal, a world apart from the one-room “airport” of Rose, Nebraska, she knew she was deeply and permanently in love.