Chapter 3

Always On My Mind

The next day, it happens again. Something else seeps into my thoughts, something new, and I can't stop thinking about it.

In the morning I don't even really notice the new obsession because it begins so faintly, buried beneath all of my passing thoughts.

My mom hurries off to work, pausing long enough to give me a hug. Ever since I went missing she always hugs me way too long, not letting go, but I let her do it. "I'm making you baked mac and cheese tonight," she promises lovingly. She's knows it's my favorite, but she's been making it so often since I moved back to Brooklyn that I'm getting sick of it. I don't have the heart to tell her. When she finally releases me and hurries out the door, a number flashes into my head: 7. But I don't notice it because I'm hurrying off to school myself.

Nothing eventful happens on the subway today. Just a bunch of hipsters chatting snobbishly on their way to Manhattan.

But there it is again, repeating over and over: 7...7...7...7...7. The numbers grow so loud when I step off the subway that now I can't ignore them.

I'm really worried that I'm losing my mind.

I'm not even totally sure that I actually found a finger in a cigarette box last night. Before going to sleep, I'd thrown all of my childhood trinkets back into the wall and put all of the toilet paper rolls and cleaning supplies back into the cabinet. When I woke up this morning, it all felt like a dream. Brushing my teeth at the bathroom sink with the lights back on, everything seemed so normal and ordinary again. I'd flushed the finger down the toilet, which I realize now was a stupid thing to do because now I can't turn it in to the police. And now I can't even confirm that I'd actually found the finger at all.

Maybe it was a dream. Maybe it was all just a nightmare caused by seeing the guy on the train with missing fingers. Or, maybe I'm having a psychotic episode, and the finger and the numbers pulsing through my mind are all just hallucinations.