“Well okay, Carrie, if you don’t want to tell me that’s fine, but you’re not leaving this room. And they’re going to be asking a lot of questions when Dr Perez comes down here later on.”

“She the shrink?”

“Yep. She’s going to wanna know why you did this to yourself.”

“Who said I did it to myself?” She’s pouting like a petulant child, but my heart still starts thrumming in my chest.

“Why, did…did Zeth do it?”

“No. Of course he didn’t.”

The girl is playing with me. I don’t have the inclination to deal with her today even if I do have the time. I’d rather be helping the nurses change bedpans than deal with attitude like this. “Alright, well, whatever. You can tell it to Dr Perez when she comes down here.”

Carrie stops scowling and sits bolt upright, a real emotion finally controlling her face: fear. “No! Please. I—I can’t handle a shrink. Don’t leave me. Please.” She reaches for my hand, gripping the rail of her bed, and weakly clasps hold of my wrist. It’s going to be a while before she regains any strength in her hands considering how deep she went with the razor or whatever she used yesterday. “You don’t understand,” she breathes.

“Dr Perez is amazing, Carrie. You should trust her. She might be able to help.”

“She can’t! Please. Zeth’s the only one. The only one. I need him. If you leave me with that shrink I—I swear I won’t mess it up this time. I’ll kill myself. I’ll do it and it’ll all be your fault.”

I don’t usually bargain with patients in this situation. They’re hardly ever in a position to know what’s best for them, but I can see from the desperation in her eyes that Carrie’s telling the truth. She really will kill herself.

“Shit.” I exhale, squeezing my hand into a tight fist. “I made a promise when I became a doctor, Carrie. I swore that I would do no harm, and I consider you not seeing Dr Perez harmful.”

“Do you see me dying as harmful? Because that’s what’s going to happen if that bitch comes down here and tries to psychoanalyse me.”

Double shit. I run a hand back through my hair, trying to think of a way to convince her that she’s being foolish. There’ll be no reasoning with her, though. I can see that. But she definitely needs help. There’s only one resolution I can think of where she gets what she wants and I do, too. “Alright. I’m not saying that I’m going to help you leave here because I’m not. That goes against everything I stand for as a health care provider. You still need at least another three days bed rest and we need to check the range of movement in your hands to make sure none of your tendons were permanently damaged. But…I will loan you my cell phone, and I will be gone for the next three hours on afternoon rounds. And I won’t make you see Dr Perez, but I want you to see my friend instead. I can ask her to see you off the books, so you won’t need to tell her your details.”

She’s already shaking her head before I can finish my sentence. “They’re all the same. Your buddy’s not going to make any difference, okay?”

It’s clear that I’m not going to get anywhere with her. That makes me remarkably sad. “How old are you, Carrie?”

She supplies the information begrudgingly, after considering my question and obviously deciding no harm can come from answering. “Twenty-six.”

I nod, thinking this over. “We’re the same age, then. And tell me, Carrie…how long have you felt…” Suicidal. Useless. Unable to control your path through this life. “…like this?”

“Always.” Her swagger from earlier was pretty transparent, but she’s dropped the act altogether now. She’s just a broken girl in a sea of hospital sheets, still clinging onto my wrist like she needs the physical connection to stop herself from drowning in them.

“So for twenty-six years you’ve felt a despair so grave that you wanted to end your life because of it. That seems pretty awful to me. When you look to the future, can you imagine feeling like this for another twenty-six years?” Her bottom lip wobbles, but she keeps quiet. “Wouldn’t it be better if you saw someone who could help you work past whatever is making you feel the way you are? That way, in twenty-six years’ time, you can look back and see the light you’ve had in your life, and not only the darkness.”

Carrie remains so quiet, fixated solely on her knees, which are covered by her blankets. If I were a betting woman, I wouldn’t be laying down money that my little speech was going to have any effect. But the girl surprises me when her shoulders sag. “Okay, fine. I’ll go and see this chick once. If she’s full of shit, then I’m leaving.”

“You promise?”

“I promise. Now hand over that cell phone.”

“Fine. Just make sure you leave it in the drawer of the nightstand when you’re done.” When you go. I can’t believe I’m condoning this.

Despite the bad vibe in my gut when I give her my phone, I also feel like I’ve won three small victories. The first: she’s going to get help, even though I’m going to have to literally beg Pip to take her. The second: she’s going to be out of here today, a full twenty-four hours before Zeth promised to come looking for me. The third: she’s probably going to be too overwhelmed to realize that she’s typing the bastard’s telephone number into my cell phone. Having his number will feel like a small piece of power I’ve taken back, something I have over him. Something I can provide to the cops if I need to.