And so I nod, like I have heard them. Like I am listening. “Okay,” I say quietly. “But you’re hurting my arms. Please, let me go.”

They loosen their grip, a little and then a little more. It’s my chance. Maybe the last one. I lunge forward. Run. Run. Run. One step, two steps.

“Stop!” Loud. Right in my ear. That same man, the one who was holding me. And now he is furious.

Run. Run. Run. But he is so close. Like I haven’t gone a single step. And there are more voices. Lots of shouting. The sounds of stomping feet. I am knocked down again, much harder this time.

“Careful! Don’t hurt her!” the woman shouts.

My hands burn against the pavement. And there are so many hands on me. I try to slap them away. But there are too many. There are way too—

“AND THEN WHAT happened?” Dr. Shepard asked.

I’d gotten to that part of the dream: the important part. That was why I’d stopped talking. I was a good patient that way: not easy to fix, but so obviously broken.

“I pushed her,” I said finally, after the silence grew too awkward to bear. “Into the fire.”

I’d been having the dream nightly since Jasper and I had gotten back from the camp. But it was the first time I’d told Dr. Shepard. The dream was so transparent it was almost embarrassing: I felt guilty about what had happened to Cassie so I was having dreams that I had literally caused her death.

“I see,” Dr. Shepard said, in that totally annoying therapist way that I thought we’d evolved past.

“Seriously?” I asked. “You’re not going to say anything about what the dream really means. Me feeling guilty and all that?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “It seems like it’s about you pushing Cassie into the fire.” She shifted a little in her big red chair. “I mean, did you?”

It was a real question.

“Of course not!” I snapped back.

“Well, don’t blame me. It was your dream,” Dr. Shepard said, and in the taunting voice of a five-year-old. It didn’t seem very professional.

Also, couldn’t she at least try to make me feel better, after everything I had been through? I jumped to my feet and started to pace the room.

“I tried to stop her, you know. I did everything I could.” I pointed hard at my own chest.

Dr. Shepard blinked her pretty brown eyes at me, repositioned her small body once again.

“I don’t know why, Wylie, but you did do it. It’s been decided. There is no doubt.”

“I did not!” I shouted, charging closer. I wanted to hit her. I was afraid I might even do it.