“You mean I might slip again,” I said.

“It’s not slipping,” she said, shaking her head, her curls bouncing. “There’s no reaching perfection. Just living and learning to thrive. ‘Slipping’ implies failure, but you can’t fail at being you.”

“Right.” I nodded like I understood but I’m not sure I do. But I think that’s started to change with what happened after therapy.

As I was walking from Dr. Loving’s office to the main desk to finish my release forms, I took a wrong turn and ended up in some weird back hallway I’d never been in before. There was basically nothing in it—just a door that looked like it led to a broom closet and two bathrooms that looked FOR REAL haunted. The whole hallway did—it had these old stone and vaulted ceilings that Mags had pointed out the other day, talking about how the AM had been here for a long time but had only built the main complex a few decades back, integrating it into the old, stone halls of the original nineteenth-century building. Except this hallway didn’t have that blend of old and new: it was all that old stuff. Like they just kind of forgot to build in this part. I walked all the way to the end, where it led to a locked stairwell—an old emergency exit I assume—and when I turned around to walk back, I got the strongest swell of déjà vu.

I was practically dizzy with it, the light around me feeling like it was flickering, the world tilting slightly. I stumbled, throwing my arm out to the stone wall, catching myself so I didn’t fall over. The wooziness subsided as I focused on the feeling of the cold stone beneath my palm. When I pulled back my hand, I half expected to see it covered in blood.

My dream. This was the hallway from my dream. The same stone walls, the same length and shape. The same feeling. But the dream hallway had had so many more doors and … interior windows. Windows like the hallway was lined with hospital rooms.

I turned around to try the door to the stairwell again, thinking there might be hallways above or below that looked the same, wondering if it’s possible there was someone there whose head I had visited. Someone who had been dreaming wild and beautiful and terrible things. Someone who had a head I wanted a closer look at.

But no dice.

Except.

Then.

The checkout desk.

It’s a Friday today, which seems to be the standard checkout day. The lobby was pretty busy, with Mags flitting from person to person, handing out paperwork, intaking and releasing. When I approached the large, round desk, she whirled over.