The Gifting (27 page)

Luka glances over at the encyclopedias. “What are you doing here, Matt?”

“Bothering you, apparently.” As if taking the hint, he stands back up and saunters away. “By all means, carry on.”

I can’t bring myself to look at Luka. My face is much too hot.

*

That night, I want to think about Luka. I want everything about him to consume me—his touch, the sound of his voice, the impossible greenness of his eyes. But try as I might, my grandmother has taken up residence in my mind—her presence loud and unavoidable.

As much as I don’t want to, I can’t help myself. I get out her journal and I lie in bed and thumb through the pages, wishing I didn’t know about her. Wishing she really were dead. I fall asleep reading an old woman’s crazy, unhinged words.

“The pills have zapped your strength, Little Rabbit.”

I bolt upright in bed, lungs heaving, unable to press away the sound of gunshots and spraying glass as a black woman with horse teeth wailed and clutched her bleeding son in the front lawn of a rundown apartment complex. The emotionless words, spoken by that man with the scar, reverberate inside my head. I was there. I was in the car while men with empty, white eyes pointed guns outside tinted windows. I sat there unmoving, arms and legs too heavy to lift. I sat there and did nothing while they pulled the trigger.

Cold sweat soaks through my tank top. My heart races so frantically, I press my palm against my chest, as if the pressure might calm it down. My bed lamp casts a circle of yellow onto my ceiling. Outside my room, the hallway is dark.

The house sleeps.

It was a dream. I had a dream. I take a deep, rattling breath and tell myself it wasn’t real. But I cannot get that woman’s grief-stricken face out of my head or the way she rocked the small boy in her lap. The pair scroll through my mind and the words come back, spoken by that man who calls me Little Rabbit. Where was he in the dream? How did I hear him? What did he mean? And why did I have the dream at all?

I glance at my grandma’s journal sprawled open on the floor. And it hits me—my medicine! I fell asleep reading the journal and forgot to take my medicine. I swing my comforter off my legs and stumble, a bit disoriented, into my bathroom. With shaky hands, I untwist the bottle and tip two pills directly into my mouth. I turn on the faucet, cup water in my palm, and wash the pills down. Then I lie back down and wait for sleep to take me.

*

I wake up with a niggling feeling in my gut, but I can’t place it. My eyes are heavy, my head fuzzy, and I wonder if I’m getting sick. The flu has taken the entire state of California by storm. Maybe I should have gotten the flu shot at school.

I brush my teeth, splash cold water on my face, throw on a pair of jeans and a knit top and go downstairs, unable to shake the sense that I’ve forgotten something. A female voice from the television mingles with the sound of sizzling eggs that burn on the stove. The morning paper lays open and forgotten on the table in front of my dad. Both of my parents stare at the screen as the news anchor talks about a drive-by shooting in San Francisco, followed by faces of the victims. And all of a sudden, that thing I’ve forgotten comes raging back.

Last night’s dream.

My mom catches sight of me standing in the doorway, flips off the news, and tends to the burning eggs. A haze of smoke lingers above her head and she turns on the oven fan. “This is exactly why I will not tolerate living in a city,” she says over the drone. “They aren’t safe anymore. I don’t even understand how those guys had guns. They’re supposed to be illegal.”

“It’s a black market, honey.” Dad reengages with the newspaper. “When we removed the second amendment from our constitution, we didn’t eradicate guns. We just ensured that the people who have them are the bad guys.”

“I thought you agreed with the gun laws.”

Their conversation floats around me, impossible to pin down in light of the chaos spinning inside my head. I forgot to take my medicine one night. One lousy night. And this is what happens? My fingers turn into icicles. I stretch and flex them, but it’s no use. They are numb, right along with my heart.

Are people dying because I’m on meds? The words from last night’s dream return—
the pills have zapped your strength
. Is this what Dr. Roth’s warning was all about? The question is too awful to contemplate. I smash my palms over my ears, as if this might shut out the answer. But it doesn’t, because the answer isn’t coming from some place outside my ears. It’s coming from a place in between them. I close my eyes, wishing I could go back, rewind, and leave my grandmother’s journal in the bottom drawer of my desk where it belongs. Wishing I could remember my medication and forget last night’s dream with the dead boy in that woman’s arms and his face on my television screen.

“Tess, are you okay?”

I open my eyes.

My parents are staring at me.

My hands slide down the sides of my face and before I can answer, my cell phone chirps from my back pocket. Saved by the bell. I pull it out. It’s a text message from Serendipity, inviting me to a bonfire tonight at her house—a timely reminder of how normal my life has been lately. This medicine has given me friends. This medicine has given me a social life.

Mom sets a plate of blackened eggs in front of Dad, her attention unwavering. “Tess?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I show her the text, evidence that everything is okay. That nothing has to change. “Can I go to a bonfire tonight?”

She smiles. “Of course.”

Rumors

I
call up the stairs to Pete, wanting to get out of the house before Mom can ask any more questions, but he doesn’t answer. So I stomp up the steps and open his door. He’s still in bed, a mass under the covers.

“Are you coming?”

“I’m sick,” he mumbles. His voice is scratchy—whether from sickness or sleep, I can’t tell. I shut his door and make my way down the stairs. Mom stands in the foyer, looking up into the stairwell.

“Where’s your brother?”

“Sick in bed, apparently.” I swing my backpack over my shoulder and head out the door to a cloudy, cool day. I glance over the hedge into Luka’s yard, but he’s not leaning against his car like he usually does, waiting to drive us to school. Instead, his front door flies open and he stalks outside. Even across the distance, I notice the rigid set of his jaw and the deep furrow in his brow. His shoe makes contact with a rock—not by accident—and he swears beneath his breath. When he reaches his car, his eyes meet mine and his expression softens.

I approach hesitantly.

He meets me at the passenger door, but avoids eye contact. “Hey,” he says, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“Hey,” I say back.

He glances over his shoulder, toward his house. His mother peeks through the drapes of the front window. When she sees us looking, her face disappears and the drapes swing back and forth. Luka opens my door, a muscle in his jaw ticking. It would appear his day is starting off much the same as mine.

I duck inside and clasp my seatbelt, unsure if I should tell him about last night’s dream and this morning’s news. How is it possible that everything came rushing back after one lousy missed dose of medicine? Is my mental illness really that close to the surface, itching to escape and ruin my life? And if I don’t have a mental illness, what’s the medicine doing? I shake that last thought away and the shudder that follows it.

Luka slips inside and starts the car, tension radiating from his body. I wait for him to say something, perhaps explain what’s bothering him. Instead, he reverses out of the drive while I nibble my bottom lip, stewing over my grandmother. She won’t leave me alone. Neither will the face of that grieving mother from my dream. For once, I’m thankful for Luka’s mom and the highly suspicious way she acts toward me. She serves as a nice diversion. “Is everything okay between you and your mom?”

“She likes to worry.”

“About?”

Either he doesn’t hear me, or he’s choosing to ignore me.

“She doesn’t like me.” It’s the first time I’ve said the words out loud to him. I wait to see if he’ll deny them.

His knuckles whiten as he grips the steering wheel and pulls the car out of our gated community—one that is safe from drive-by shootings. “She knows you go to the Edward Brooks Facility.”

The words scrape against my already frazzled nerves. All my anger—about last night’s dream and my forgetfulness with the medicine and my messed up mental problems—somehow, they are Luka’s mom’s fault. “Does she forget that you went there first?”

The muscle in his jaw tightens. “I know. But I’m her son.”

I cross my arms and look out the passenger side window. Even in January, a mass of dense green whizzes past. We drive in stony silence, which gives me plenty of time to reach some conclusions. Like the fact that my mother is more understanding and forgiving than Luka’s. If my mom knew he went to the Edward Brooks Facility, she wouldn’t care. Which means she is the better person. And if, on the off chance she did care, I wouldn’t justify her behavior. Luka shouldn’t defend his mom. Not about this.

He pulls into the high school parking lot, finds a spot, and turns off the car. The stony silence remains. Well, I’m not going to be the one to break it. Eager to get away from him, I swing the door open and step out into the nippy air. I know my level of irritation is misplaced. I know that this wouldn’t be such a big deal if last night hadn’t happened. But it did and my emotions will not be reasoned with. Luka’s car door slams shut and he catches up with me. As much as I want to look at him, as much as I want to gauge his thoughts, I keep my attention pinned on my Converse All Stars.

He opens the door to the hum of high school. “I need to use the restroom,” he says. “I’ll meet you in class.”

I stand inside, staring after him. Abandoned.

I turn toward my locker. Leela leans against the one beside mine, staring off in the opposite direction, her hands unusually fidgety considering Pete is nowhere to be seen. I try to bolster my spirits for her benefit. She doesn’t deserve my dark mood. I stop in front of my locker, slide my backpack off my shoulder, and twist the lock to the first number of my combination. “Hey.” I twist to the second number. “You might want to stay away. Pete’s sick today. I could be contagious.”

“Is it true?”

My fingers stop twisting. “Is what true?”

“That you go to the Edward Brooks Facility?”

Leela’s blunt question hits me like a sucker punch. The shock of it steals my breath. All I can do is blink at her with my mouth ajar.

Her face lengthens. “It’s true.”

“Leela …” I want to erase the betrayal and hurt in her eyes, but I’m too stunned to do much of anything.

“And I defended you against Summer.”

“Summer?”

“Does Luka know?”

I don’t know how to respond.

“He does.” Leela shakes her head. “I thought we were best friends.”

“We are.”

“Best friends don’t lie to each other. They don’t keep secrets from one another.” She turns around and makes to walk away, but I grab her elbow.

“Wait.” Why should it matter? The question bulges in my throat. I mean, really, how conditional is her friendship if she ditches me because of my once a week appointments with Dr. Roth? Maybe Leela and Mrs. Williams should get together for lunch. “I didn’t want anyone to know. It’s not exactly the kind of thing you go around telling people.”

“I’m not
people
, Tess.”

“Right. You’re the first best friend I’ve ever had. I was afraid if I told you, this—whatever we have—would change. Obviously I was right.”

“You didn’t even give me a chance to prove you wrong.” Leela yanks her elbow from my grip. “This whole time, you told me you were taking piano lessons.” Tears build in her eyes as she turns and stalks away.

Scott Shroud gapes at me, his pointy Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. I quickly look away, only to find other students staring too. Small huddles of them fill the locker bay, whispering and darting furtive glances. When I spot Serendipity and Jennalee peeking at me sideways, my heart sinks. I finish the rest of my locker combination and attempt to hide inside.