Skipped a grade, tested out of classes, yada, yada. I was a month shy of sweet sixteen when I started my sophomore year at Turing, this science-techie school just outside Milwaukee for brainiacs, which I‘m supposed to be. Considering I‘ve died twice, that‘s really saying something. Well, the year I was fifteen completely sucked. Going back to being Beta-Jenna makes the truth just so attractive. Together, we’ll visit my crispy critter of a mother, who’s a drunk and wants only the best for me-and I’ll cut. Walk out of this room and into the waiting arms of Psycho-Dad-and I’ll cut. Here‘s how Beta-Jenna thinks: They let me go, and I’ll cut. Even if I tell my version of the truth, then what? I‘ll go back to being the old me? Well, what kind of future is that?īecause let me tell you about the old me, Bob, the beta-version of Jenna Lord.

I thought I knew until this afternoon, but now. But the truth? I don‘t know what that is. Because, in the end, she gets away with it and forgives herself. When you spend four months on a psych ward and then the rest of the year at home in exile, you watch a lot of movies.Īnyway, you know what I liked best about that film? The bad girl the shrink who shoots her lover, that con man who sets her up. You know, how something a player does or says tells the other players that he‘s bluffing? David Mamet did this great movie, House of Games, all about that. If you ask me, this is related to a gambler‘s tell. Of course, in that kind of telling, there is another tell, as in telling the difference between night and day, girl and boy, fact and dream. There‘s telling, like spinning a tale, making up stories. You know what I was just thinking, Bob? Tell is such an interesting word. So I really don‘t think meeting that way counts. Only, you know, that first time? When I was eight? I was unconscious and on a ventilator and had already died twice. I guess that considering the first time we met was after the fire and then again just yesterday when you came to the hospital to see my mom. You said I should call you Bob, like we‘re old friends or something. this is kind of creepy, Detective Pendleton.

Drowning instinct by ilsa j bick