He sat on the floor in front of the television watching a late night talk show host do his opening monologue.God, how long had she perched on this ledge?Her bent legs ached a little. When she took her hands off the glass, she left greasy palm prints behind. The air smelled like rain, but none had started falling yet.The sound of the helicopters grew louder.Jessie knew who they belonged to. Dad had come for her.But she’d be damned if she left here without accomplishing something.That something hinged on her earlier turn of phrase.She stared at the back of Ryan’s head.I want to make you all better.I will make you all better.Hell, I choose to make you all better.She slammed her hands against the glass again.A number of the patients in the common room heard the sound and turned toward the window. She could feel all their eyes on her, could feel all their hurt. Their delusions, illusions, depressions, mania, paranoia, and things Jessie didn’t have names for, feelings that didn’t make sense in a person, but that churned in some of them, tearing up their minds like a tossed handful of jacks with sharpened ends.At least fifteen people stared toward the window.Jessie concentrated on pulling the night in around her, thickening the shadow she had made of herself, but they saw her.
