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“Sasha,” Amanda leans forward, drops her voice. “You need a new heart; that’s the cardiac center’s job. My job is to help you, and judging by what you said to the medics, you could use it.”

“And whose job is it to monitor you?” I ask. “Someone who wouldn’t be cool with you withholding such information, I bet.”

“That’s true,” Amanda says casually. “But to be honest, I’m not terribly happy with my boss right now. Apparently your dad made a sizable donation to the ad campaign for our next tax levy. I get to rearrange my schedule—and my other patients—to fit yours.”

Amanda says get to in a tone that informs me she’s not thrilled about it, and I get the feeling Dad probably made that donation out of my college savings once he realized hospitals were my better bet in the short term.

“So I was reassigned from a court hearing today for someone I’ve been working with closely for six months to be with Sasha Stone, who answers my questions with monosyllables and sarcasm.”

“Also, I requested you,” I say quietly, eyes on the floor. I’m guessing Amanda hasn’t been requested for anything since eighth-grade lab partners, and I’m right. Her anger deflates like one of my welcome balloons, now hanging limply around knee height.

“I know,” she says, but her voice has a key change, the sharps removed. “Which I would assume means you’d rather talk to me than someone else. So let’s do the actual talking part, and skip the bullshit.”

I like the way she swears; it reminds me of Brooke.

“Okay,” I say.

Amanda resituates herself on the chair and looks back at her notes. I’m expecting her to come at me with something impressive next, a bit of medical terminology or something self-affirming to show me that she knows what she’s doing. Instead she snaps her folder shut.

“So what’s going on with you?”

It throws me. I had my shoulders squared, ready for a verbal sparring match in the thirty minutes that are left in our session. Instead she asked me a simple question, and while my mind ponders the longer answer, my mouth pops out the simple one.

“I’m dying.”

Amanda nods, doing me the courtesy of not insisting along with the rest of the cardiac center that everything will be all right if we put a happy face on.

“A week ago I was alive, and now I’m dying,” I go on. “In a few days they’re putting a machine in me that will do what my heart won’t.”

“Yes,” Amanda says, flipping her folder again briefly. “An LVAD. It’s to assist your left ventricle with pumping.”

I feel a small smile, maybe a three on the pain scale of happiness. Amanda smiles back. “What’s funny?”

“I was thinking of my friend Brooke and how she accidentally googled pump king instead of pumpkin. Or maybe it wasn’t an accident. It’s hard to tell with her.”

“Brooke?” Amanda repeats. “She’s a friend of yours?”

“Yeah, she’s . . . yeah.” I think she is, anyway.

“Can you tell me about your sister?”

Amanda’s folder is shut, her eyes on mine. But I’m willing to bet she’s got every word of my conversation with Jones and Faber memorized.

“I don’t know.” I say. “Can I?”

“Yes.”

I study her, something most people can’t take for long. A liar is easy to spot, and lying is easy to do once you’ve learned how badly others do it. But Amanda isn’t a liar, and all the truth that’s in me comes out, heading for her like a magnet.

“I did jump out the window,” I say. “But it wasn’t me, it was my sister.”

Amanda opens her folder again, writing perfectly on the lines even though she keeps her eyes on me.

“My sister was upset about something and she felt that was the most logical reaction. She’s very emotionally driven. Her name is Shanna,” I tell Amanda, and spell it out for her. “I absorbed her in the womb and her heart took the place of mine.”

Amanda glances up at me, pen still. “What can you tell me about Shanna?”

I feel a small shudder deep inside, a life stretching back into wakefulness at the sound of her name. I hold Amanda’s eyes, waiting for her to contradict me as I speak.