Suzanne Young - The Treatment

“We have to leave.”

The voice cuts through the room, and I’m on my feet, still blurry with sleep. I find Realm in the doorway, reddish-brown smears on the sleeves of his shirt. I let out a horrified cry, and both Dallas and James jump up, disoriented and confused.

“Oh my God! Are you okay?” My first thought is that Realm is hurt, and I search for a source of his injury. But when I find none, I look past him toward the bedroom. The blood belongs to someone.

Realm is detached, licking the corner of his mouth as if he’s not exactly clear what he’s going to say. “Evelyn killed herself last night. She . . . uh, she didn’t want to go back to The Program. She left a note.” He takes a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket. He doesn’t even look at it though; he stares through it. “She didn’t want them to ever get their hands on The Treatment. And she didn’t want them to get us. She . . . she said she was protecting her brain from the scientists.”

I stumble backward, and James catches me around the waist and eases me back onto the couch. I want to run in and check on her, but I know Realm would never leave her side if there was hope of reviving her. I see the devastation and guilt in his eyes. Next to me Dallas begins to weep, and James quickly takes her arm.

He sniffles back his own tears. “Realm’s right. We have to go.”

“We should call an ambulance,” I say. “Something!”

“No,” Realm says with a shake of his head. “I’m sorry, but it’s too late. I’ve called Kellan and told him already; he’ll send someone when we’re clear. Now, James, grab the keys hanging by the door; car’s through the garage. I’ll meet you out front.”

“Realm . . .,” I start to say, but he’s already disappeared back into the kitchen. I hear cupboards opening and closing, the sliding of drawers as Realm gathers supplies. Evelyn Valentine is dead. She didn’t have to kill herself; she could have come with us. But ultimately her fear was too great. She was right—The Program has become the epidemic.

The next moments take on a dreamlike quality; Dallas cries, and James pulls her along while he shouts for me to hurry. We load the car and wait for Realm. He walks out the front door, pausing to lock it. He stands there, his back to us, staring at the house. I choke up, thinking Evelyn was probably the closest thing he had to a mother other than his sister. He doesn’t talk to us when he gets inside the car, only sits at the window, staring out, carrying a brown leather case.

I never asked what he took from Evelyn’s house that day. But I imagine Evelyn Valentine was a piece of his past he wasn’t willing to forget.

THE FALL OF THE PROGRAM

Once cloaked in secrecy, The Program project has been suspended indefinitely by the US government. Reacting to an interview confirming a system-wide cover-up, Congress moved swiftly to shut down all facilities until further notice.

As more details emerge about the procedures used in The Program, public outrage grows. One handler, Roger Coleman, was arrested on several counts of statutory rape and is awaiting trial. Coleman is accused of soliciting sex from underage patients in exchange for memories, and is facing up to sixty years in prison if convicted.

The scandal originally broke after a taped interview with the late Dr. Evelyn Valentine (a former employee) was leaked. She confirmed The Program’s knowledge of a study indicating their role in the epidemic, substantiating claims of a cover-up.

Since the closure, all patients have returned home and will be provided with follow-up care. But, as of now, the long-term effects of The Program remain to be seen.

—Reported by Kellan Thomas

I ROLL DOWN MY WINDOW to let the warm air blow through my hair. James switches between radio stations, but all we hear are updates: The Program is dead, doctors and nurses testify in front of Congress about the lobotomies and the drop in suicides. Kellan Thomas is a household name—the rogue reporter who got the scoop of the century. He found the studies, and his interview with Dr. Evelyn Valentine was broadcast on every major news outlet. He never even used the story he collected from me and James.

The epidemic continues, but shortly after The Program received a cease and desist order while under federal investigation, the outbreak calmed—much like Evelyn had thought it would. Suicide hasn’t vanished, not entirely, but every month brings better statistics, and hopes are high.

James’s phone vibrates in the center console, and I look down just as he reaches to click ignore. Michael Realm. After all that’s happened, James and Realm have forged a friendship I try not to get between. I’ve never been able to trust Realm again, and I don’t know if I ever will. But my boyfriend is allowed to be friends with whomever he chooses—even if said friend once had me erased.

“I thought he was out of town,” I say. “Wasn’t he making some bad choices down in Florida?”

James pulls the car over to park in front of a pasture with cows milling about so he can quickly type out a return text. “I hate when you use your disapproving voice,” he tells me. When I don’t laugh, he sets down the phone and tugs me closer, resting his forehead against mine. “Be nice.”

“Shut up,” I mumble.

James smiles and then leans back to watch me. “That’s not very nice. Come on, baby. Life is good.” He runs his fingers between mine over and over as he talks. “ We’re good. I don’t want to ruin it with talk of Michael Realm.”

“Says the person who’s now his best friend forever.”

“Not true.” Tingles races up my arm at James’s touch, warming my body. “What I am is grateful,” he says. “He got me out of The Program; he helped me get to you. He was grilled by those investigators and he didn’t once mention our names. We owe him. Not to mention that, without him, you would have ended up lobotomized—”

I pull my hand from his and cross my arms over my chest. “Yeah, I got it,” I say, still uncomfortable talking about my last hours in The Program. Even when I was questioned by authorities, I told them I was too drugged to remember the final details, the escape. I told them to defer to Program records, which I knew had probably been destroyed by then.

James is quiet for a moment, letting my anger pass as it always does. Then he starts in on my new favorite pastime since escaping the control of The Program: recall.

“There was this one night,” he says in that far-off voice he reserves for memories, “where you and Brady were about ready to throw down. I told you both that you were being stubborn, but I was, of course, ignored.” He rolls his eyes, but I’m smiling, the thought of my brother settling over me like a blanket.

“What were we fighting about?” I ask.

“What else? Me. You didn’t want me to stay the night because Lacey was coming over, and you said I was too obnoxious to play nice with others. Brady said Lacey was a lawsuit waiting to happen and that I was the safer bet. It got kind of ugly.”

“Who won?”

James laughs. “Me, of course.”

I lower my arms, grinning at the way the memory plays across my head. I don’t remember any of it, but I love when James tells me the stories. I love that he has them. “And how did you pull that off?” I ask.

He licks his lips, leaning a little closer. “I promised to be sweet. I may have had a little twinkle in my eye when I said it.”

“Hmm,” I say, reaching to take the fabric of his T-shirt in my hand to pull him closer. “I know that look. So, what? I just gave in? That doesn’t sound like me.”

“It wasn’t at all like you,” he whispers, pausing just as his lips brush against mine. “That’s how I knew you loved me. And that’s why I started leaving you notes. I told myself I wanted you to talk me out of it, but really, I just wanted you to talk to me.”