The Gifting (8 page)

“Thanks,” I mumble.

“So you weren’t at the game on Friday.”

I stand and shrug my bag straps over my shoulders, not entirely sure how to respond. Was he disappointed by my absence, or is he still trying to figure out my odd reaction at the pep rally? Surely it’s not the former. The former doesn’t make any sense. Why should someone like Luka be disappointed by my absence?

“Leela said you weren’t feeling well.” We exit Mr. Lotsam’s class side by side and I scratch at my patch of eczema. It burns, which means I’m not dreaming.

“I had a headache.”

“That’s too bad.”

I have no idea how to respond to that either.

“Do you get headaches often?”

“Unfortunately.” We come to a four-way intersection in the hallway. Luka stops. So do I, desperate to say something—anything—that might be the slightest bit interesting. “You’re my neighbor,” I blurt and the heat actually spreads to my forehead. I didn’t know foreheads could blush.

“Yeah, I know.” His half-smile turns into a whole one. “I saw you on Saturday morning. By that rock.”

Oh my goodness. I officially want to melt. Disappear. Vanish into thin air like a puff of smoke. Luka saw me spying on him on the beach Saturday morning?

He cocks his head and there’s something in his eyes. It’s the same something that was there on Friday, when he picked up my pencil in Current Events. Before I have a chance to give that something a name, a huddle of boys down the hall whistles. “Hey Williams!” the square-faced kid from Current Events calls. “You have to check this out.”

Luka hooks his thumbs beneath the straps of his backpack. “You should come to the next game,” he says, then turns around and makes his way toward the boys. Several of them give me a lingering once-over before refocusing on whatever they think Luka has to check out.

I shuffle away in a mindless stupor, replaying what just happened. Leela meets me at my locker. Her stream of chatter as we walk through the parking lot allows me to mull over my encounter with Luka. Did he purposefully wait for me after class? Does he really want me to go to the next football game or was he being polite? When we reach my car, Leela’s chatter stops abruptly. Pete is leaning against the bumper. He climbs into the back. Leela squirms in shotgun, leaving me to wonder why girls always fidget in front of the boys they like.

When we arrive at my house, my mother is a complete embarrassment. She’s made cookies and has milk, like we are in kindergarten. Thankfully, Leela takes it in stride. In fact, Leela and my mom become fast friends. The two pummel each other with questions and jabber back and forth like long lost BFFs. By Leela’s third cookie, Mom is absolutely beaming and offers to give her the grand tour of our massive home. Cue more embarrassment. I’m already self-conscious about the size of our house, especially given Leela’s reaction to living in Forest Grove. Parading her through the hallways, up the stairs, and into each room makes my self-consciousness explode into a full-out complex. But Mom feeds off my friend’s enthusiasm, going into more and more detail with each of Leela’s
ooh’s
and
ahh’s
.

After the torture ends, we head to my bedroom and paint our toes with the nail polish Leela pulls from her backpack—bubble gum pink for her, lime green for me. She darts glances out into the hall, where angry music blasts from Pete’s closed door. I keep the conversation on him, because if I don’t, I will ask about Luka and I really don’t need a reason to feed my growing obsession. Or call Leela’s attention to it.

She joins us for dinner—Mom’s homemade meatball sandwiches—and asks my dad all sorts of questions about his job. I can tell he’s flattered. I keep waiting for her to mention that she’s Irish Catholic, curious as to how he will respond, but she never brings it up.

Mom attempts to draw Pete into the conversation, but he is unusually broody, so she gives up and smiles at me with this look of tearful happiness in her eyes. I know exactly what she’s thinking. Her daughter has a friend. A real live friend. I’m desperate to get Leela out of my house before Mom verbalizes her thoughts.

Once the meal is over and Leela has had another cookie, I drop her off at home, which is decidedly more modest than our own and not in a gated community.

As soon as I step back inside my house, Mom is there, raving about what a sweet girl Leela is and asking when she can come over again. I almost suggest that Mom invite her over. Maybe the two can have a slumber party. I bite my tongue and go up into my room and do my homework and for the first time in a long time, I have an uneventful night of sleep.

It becomes the first of many.

September melts into October and I discover that fall in Northern California is gorgeous, with mild, windy days and chilly evenings, perfect for bundling up and strolling along the beach. It is so much nicer than the unrelenting heat and humidity I endured in Florida over the past two years.

The more time passes, the more my fear over the word
psychosis
recedes. Sure, I’m still sensitive to temperature fluctuations that nobody else can feel and there’s a sense of heaviness in our house that seems ever-present, like it attracts more gravity than anywhere else, and I will occasionally spot a flicker of unexplained light or darkness in the periphery of my vision, but I attribute these to auras—a very scientific, logical explanation that comes with migraines. I know because I look it up. I have no hallucinations and I have no delusions, unless you count my growing suspicion that Luka Williams is keeping tabs on me.

He doesn’t wait for me after class anymore, but when I go to the library during study hall, somehow, he’s there too. When I’m out in the hallway in the middle of class—whether to get a drink or use the restroom—so is he. One time I went to the nurse to lie down because my headache was particularly bad, and I heard his voice in the office, speaking with Mrs. Finch. It seems too much to be a coincidence, but too preposterous to be true, so I keep any and all speculations to myself.

Besides the befuddlement that is Luka, I find it incredibly easy to slip into a routine. Mom and I find a local dojo and I advance to a bona fide black belt. We go to class on Saturday mornings and afterward, on the days I don’t join my father at work, I sit out on our deck with the pretense of reading, but really I watch Luka surf, admiring the effortless way he navigates the waves. Sometimes I explore the cliffs and the woods. Sometimes I take long strolls along the beach, examining shells and rocks along the way.

When it comes to school, Thornsdale High is pretty much like every other high school in America. I only have to sit through a week of lunches in the cafeteria before I know all of the cliques. There’s the popular crowd, which consists mainly of jocks and cheerleaders. They’ve mastered the art of looking down their noses at everybody else. Except for Bobbi. She is president of student council and bubbly and genuine, which makes her attraction to Matt Chesterson all the more perplexing. He’s a major jerk. Sure, he’s the starting quarterback and she’s the head cheerleader. He was homecoming king and she the queen, but other than that, I don’t get it. I think his personality fits much better with Summer, but Summer is way too obsessed with Luka to give anyone else the time of day.

Jared, the square-faced bulky kid who happens to be one of the football team’s linebackers, is decidedly opinionated in Current Events and worships the ground Matt walks on. He also drools whenever Summer’s around, which feeds her over-bloated ego. I’m not apt to dislike people, but she’s a hard one not to dislike. She kisses up to Bobbi and puts on this sickeningly sweet act in front of Luka, but when those two aren’t around, she’s just plain mean. And bossy. Anytime she catches me looking at Luka, which is more often than I’d like, her pretty, spray-tanned face morphs into a mask of ugly. If only I could take a picture and show it to Jared.

The drama students hang out with the drama students and the band kids hang out with the band kids. Poor Scott Shroud tries sitting next to my brother at lunch for a solid week, which is a testament to his commitment as an ambassador. Scott is shier than me and a thousand times more brilliant. He’s the only sophomore in my Honors English class. Eventually he gives up with Pete and moves to a table filled with other skinny, underdeveloped, socially-awkward boys. The stoners and the Goths intermingle more than any other groups, but maintain their autonomy.

The only two anomalies are a boy and a girl named Jess and Wren. I have no idea where they belong. Leela told me once that the boy—Jess—had a procedure his freshman year to get his tongue forked. The girl—Wren—is also in my Honors English class. She gave a very passionate presentation on the Salem Witch Trials and told everyone that her great-great-great something grandmother was burned at the stake and that sometimes, that same grandmother comes to speak with her in the dead of night. When our teacher told her that was enough, Wren started barking at her—like, actual barking—and she was sent to Principal Jolly’s office. She has purple hair and wears a skull necklace and has a tattoo of a pentagram on her pale, skinny bicep and another of a symbol I’ve never seen before on the inside of her wrist. One day in class, I gathered up the nerve to ask her about it, but she looked at me like
I
was the crazy one. I can’t help but wonder if she’s ever been referred to Dr. Roth.

As far as me—I’m the quiet new girl who is largely ignored. And Leela? I am indebted to Leela. She is a lifesaver—my first real-life friend in well … ever. We hang out in our free time and she even convinces me to go to some football games. When I’m there, I never let myself look for Luka, despite his suggestion that I come. Surely he was just being nice. Searching him out would make me pathetic. So I stand next to Leela while she hoots and hollers, inwardly rejoicing whenever Matt throws an interception. The Thornsdale Dragons lose spectacularly to every team they play.

If not for my Monday visits with Dr. Roth and the headaches and the sensitivities I’m growing adept at hiding, my birthday wish would be entirely within the realm of possibility. Normalcy draws closer, dancing just out of reach—enticing and so very real.

Then Sunday happens.

Hypnosis

L
eela is not big on hiking. She doesn’t like the bugs or the dirt or really, anything outdoors. But the day is uneventful and my physics homework is a particularly heinous shade of dreadful and I find it impossible to get warm inside my big, drafty house, all of which makes the towering forest bordering my neighborhood irresistible. A variety of songs play from the iPod stand on my desk as I gaze longingly out my bedroom window and Leela digs in my oversized closet, making various outfits out of my hodgepodge ensemble of clothes. I have no idea how she does it, but everything she puts together—even items that don’t seem like they should match at all—looks impressively fashionable.

I remove my pencil from my mouth. “Want to go exploring in the woods?”

Leela sticks her head out of my closet, eying me with a doubtful brow. “The woods?”

“Yeah. It’ll be fun.”

She comes out with a sequined top I never ever wear, looking at it longingly. “I wish we were the same size. You have amazing clothes.”

Too bad I don’t wear half of them.

“My mom thinks I should go on this new cleansing diet she read about in her latest issue of Health magazine. Maybe if I tried it I could fit into this top …”

I scrunch my nose. Leela’s mom is skinny and overdone. I always get the impression she’s overcompensating for something and I hate the way she constantly comments on Leela’s weight. “I think you look great how you are.”

Leela’s cheeks redden and she slips back inside my closet.

I sit up in bed. “Whadaya say?”

“About what?”

“The woods.”

Leela comes back out again, this time without any clothes in hand. “I’ve heard rumors that the woods in Forest Grove are home to Sasquatch.”

“You mean like … Bigfoot?”

She nods, her expression solemn.

I can’t help myself. I laugh and swing my legs over my bed. “All right, that settles it. Now we have to go.”

“I’m serious, Tess. People have disappeared in those woods.”

“We won’t disappear, I promise. I’ve been in them at least a dozen times and haven’t yet vanished. Now come on, let’s go hunting for a big, hairy, imaginary man-thing.”

Leela cracks a smile, which means I’ve won. I close my physics book with a thump, hurry out into the hallway, nearly plowing into Pete, who asks where we’re going. I can tell Leela wants to stay and talk, but I give him a vague
out
and hurry down the steps, throw on my sneakers and a jacket, and lead the way outside.

It’s damp. The sky overhead is thick with rain, but nothing falls. Leela talks about school and her siblings and this hot actor on a television show she watches as I stare at the dark windows of Luka’s house and wonder what he’s up to. The foliage underfoot is dense and green and wet and soaks a bit through my shoes.

“This is gross,” Leela says, lifting her feet extra high into the air, as if this will stop the seepage.

I swipe a large stick off the ground and lead the way into the trees.

“Bobbi’s having a Halloween party next Friday,” Leela says a bit breathlessly, trying to keep up behind me. “She has one every year, but I’ve never gone before. Wanna go?”

I use my walking stick to bat aside a low-hanging branch and bite the inside of my cheek. Me and costumes? We don’t get along so well.

“C’mon, it’ll be fun. We can be the poor little kittens who lost their mittens.”

I continue further up the path, my steps silent and quick, the gap between Leela and me widening. She stumbles over a root, but catches herself before falling. I stop and wait for her. “Aren’t there three of those?”

“We can make Kiara come.” Kiara is Leela’s younger sister. A freshman and just as talkative as my friend. “She’ll love it. We can dress up as cats and go around asking people if they’ve seen our mittens.”

A crow caws from a branch right over Leela’s head. She screams and ducks.