Dad comes in first, loosening his tie. Mom follows, worrying her bottom lip. He scoots out Mom’s chair for her to sit, then takes a seat with a loud sigh. When he meets my gaze, his face is as neutral as Dr. Roth’s. “What makes you think your grandmother is alive?”
I raise my chin. “Does it matter?”
Mom and Dad share a look.
“It’s obvious she is. If she were dead you would just say so. Mom wouldn’t have called you back from work.”
Pete looks at all three of us with narrowed, interested eyes. If he were a rabbit, his ears would be cocked back. The thought reminds me of the man with the scar. Why did he call me Little Rabbit? And what did he mean when he said Luka was dangerous company?
Dad folds his hands over the table. “Your grandmother isn’t well.”
“Isn’t? As in present tense?”
He nods.
Pete sits up straighter in his chair, his mouth open.
I shake my head, confusion completely replaced by a hot anger that courses through my veins. “Why did you lie to us? Why did you say she was dead? Where is she? What’s wrong with her?” The questions come out in quick sputters, so close together it’s as if they are tripping over each other’s heels. I think about the old woman from my dream—her frail, wasted form shackled to that bed. I think about her raspy plea for help and her frantic eyes. “Is she safe? Is she—?”
“Calm down, Tess,” Dad says. “She’s in a facility.”
“A facility?”
“Honey, we weren’t lying about her suffering from psychosis.” Mom twists and untwists a napkin with nervous fingers. “We weren’t.”
“Why? Why would you lie about her being dead?”
“We thought it was better this way.”
“Better? How is this better? Tell me where she is. I want to go see her.” I scoot back my chair, but Dad reaches out and stops me from standing.
“You can’t see her, Tess. None of us can.”
“Why can’t we see her? Where is she? And what do you mean, ‘a facility’?”
Dad slowly releases my arm, his shoulders rising and falling with a resigned breath. “She’s in a home for the mentally unstable.”
“Where?”
“Oregon.”
“For how long?”
“Fifteen years.”
“Against her will?” I glare at him, then Mom. Tears pool in her eyes, but I don’t care. I never imagined my parents to be cruel or uncaring. Yet my father has had his own mother locked up for fifteen years?
“She was delusional, Tess. She had very incoherent thoughts. Nothing she said made sense. She was admitted to a hospital for almost a year. The doctors diagnosed her with paranoid schizophrenia. Your mother and I would visit. She seemed to be improving. But then …” Dad folds his hands again and shakes his head.
“Then what?”
“Then she escaped. I was away at work and she showed up at our home while your mother was at the doctor for Pete’s two week checkup. A babysitter was with you. Your grandmother showed up and tried to take you. Thankfully, your mom got home before she could. She had you in her arms and she was babbling like a madwoman. We had to call the authorities. Your mother was terrified she was going to hurt you.”
Dad’s story hits me like a glass full of ice water to the face. I sit there, in shock, blinking dumbly. My grandmother tried to kidnap me? Why? None of it makes any sense. “I don’t get it. Why did she want me? What did she say?”
“It doesn’t matter. She had crazy thoughts in her head. She was unwell. By the time the police arrived, she didn’t even know where she was.”
I look at my brother, who stares at me in the same way he stared at me back in Jude, after the séance—a glimmer of intrigue in his dark eyes.
“After that, she was admitted into an institute for the mentally insane. We visited a few times, but our visits made the psychosis worse. Every time we saw her, she would …” Dad’s voice trails off. He stares at some spot over my shoulder, his expression far away.
I lean over the table. “She would what?”
“It doesn’t matter. She was completely lost by then. The doctors discouraged our visits. When she knew we were coming, she would refuse her medication and her condition would accelerate. So we followed the doctor’s orders and stopped coming. We never told you or Pete about this because it wasn’t your burden to bear. And anyway, it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing any of us can do.”
“Doesn’t matter?” I push back my chair. “You didn’t see her the way I saw her. She was locked up like a prisoner. She was terrified.”
Mom’s face pales. “See her? Honey, what are you talking about?”
“She was in my dream last night.” Mom and Dad exchange worried, skeptical glances. Pete’s mouth gapes even wider. “You don’t understand. She was locked up. She was trying to get out, but she couldn’t.”
The doubt on their faces makes me want to scream. It’s like I’m slipping away, dropping off into some unknown oblivion, and they are just sitting there watching it happen.
“You don’t believe me.”
Mom reaches across the table and puts her cold hand over mine. I want to jerk away from her touch. “Sweetheart, it was a dream.”
“No, it wasn’t.” The words escape through clenched teeth. “It was real.”
Dad rubs his jaw. “Tess …”
“I’m not crazy.”
“We don’t think you are.” Mom looks at Dad, then at me. “We’re just worried. And confused. We thought things were going well for you this past month. You’ve looked so happy. Leela’s a great friend. And Dr. Roth seemed to be helping.”
“It was. He was. It was good. But then …” A headache forms in my temple. I close my eyes and dig my fingers into my hair. “I don’t know.”
“We’ll talk to Dr. Roth. I’m sure there’s some medicine you can take.”
“Medicine?” The word escapes like a pathetic squeak.
“If there’s something that can help you with these nightmares, then there’s no shame in taking it, sweetheart.”
My shoulders sag. Maybe Mom’s right. Maybe medicine is the only way I’ll ever get a shot at being normal. It’s obvious that something is not right in my head.
“This is a hurdle, kiddo.” Dad cups his large hand around the back of my neck and gives it a reassuring squeeze. “Not an impenetrable wall. We’ll get over this. You’re not going to become my mother. We won’t let you.”
“Dr. Roth is the best,” Mom says. “He’ll know how to handle this.”
Dad nods. “We don’t want you to worry.”
He says it like the choice is simple. Like all I have to do is put it out of my mind and go about my day. Only they don’t know. They didn’t see my grandmother and they didn’t see that man sticking a gun in his mouth. They don’t know that what happened in my dream happened in real life. They don’t know anything.
Chapter Twenty-One
A Ruse
I walk to Ceramics with a late slip in hand. When I step inside, there isn’t the usual chattering or wandering energy as students work on various projects. Instead, everyone sits at tables, heads down, pencils scratching against paper. There are a sum total of two tests in Ceramics and I forgot that today happens to be one of them.
Our teacher stands behind his desk, so absorbed in the glazing of his latest masterpiece that he doesn’t notice me in the doorway. But Luka does. He stares at me with his wiry muscles coiled, as if ready to spring like a lion across the length of the room. His green eyes burn with questions. Swallowing, I shuffle over to our teacher on wobbly legs and hand him the late pass. Without looking up, he nods at the stack of tests. I take one off the top, looking from the empty seat next to Luka to the empty seat next to Leela. I’m not brave enough to take the former, so I pretend not to notice his intense stare-down and walk over to my friend, who watches me with wide, eager eyes.
Before my backside makes contact with the stool, she leans close and whis
pers, “I’ve been going crazy. I called you a million times last night but you didn’t answer.”
I look over my shoulder, then whisper back, “My phone was on silent.”
“You have to tell me everything that happened. You were in Luka’s house! What did you talk about? Were you nervous? What does his room look like?”
Our teacher clears his throat loudly and gives Leela and me a high-browed stare. I give her a helpless shrug, secretly thankful to be caught. I have no idea what to tell her.
“After class.” Leela mouths the words, then turns her attention to the test.
My stomach tightens as I jot my name on the top of the paper and try to focus on the questions, but they are a blur of incoherent lines and loops and curves. While I fill in bubbles and write answers that can’t be correct, I try to think of something—anything—to tell my friend. But nothing comes. So I stall. By the time both sides are meticulously filled, class is thirty seconds shy of ending. I hand in my test, the bell rings, and when I turn around, Luka stands behind me with my bag.
He puts his hand on the small of my back and ushers me out of class. I manage a quick glance over my shoulder. Leela stands with her mouth open, watching us leave. As soon as we’re out in the hallway, he pulls me toward the wall. Students shuffle past, all of them looking at us, some more discreetly than others.
“I waited for you in my driveway all morning, but you never showed.” He leans closer, bringing with him the clean, fresh scent that is him. “What happened? Where’ve you been?”
The chill that’s haunted me since that man put a gun in his mouth ripples up my spine. I cross my arms as Leela walks out of class. I try to muster up the energy for a friendly smile. She clutches her books to her chest and hurries past, but not before I catch a glimpse of hurt in her eyes. She thinks I’m intentionally leaving her out.
“Tess, you’re killing me.”
My attention zips back to the boy in front of me, waiting for an explanation I’m not sure I’ve found yet. His attractiveness doesn’t bring any coherency to my erratic thoughts either. “Last night, in …” I look around, checking for eavesdroppers. We’re about to enter into a very strange conversation. “Our dream. What happened to me? Where did I go?”
“I don’t know.” His voice is low, for my ears only. “One second you were in front of me, the next you weren’t. But I could hear things. It sounded like you were struggling, like you were fighting to escape something. And then you weren’t in class this morning.”
I look into the green depths of Luka’s eyes. “I wasn’t the one struggling.”
“Who was it?”
“My grandmother.” I press cold, clammy fingers against my temples. I still can’t believe she’s alive.
“Your grandmother? Wait a minute, you mentioned her. Right before …”
A group of seniors walks toward us, their pace slowing like cars at the scene of a crash. They obviously don’t get it—me and Luka. Their skepticism oozes into the air.
Luka leans even closer, so much so that his breath tickles my neck and tingles my skin. I close my eyes, wishing everything but him and the feel of his nearness would disappear. “We can’t talk about this here. I’ll find you at lunch.”
By the time my eyes open, he is already gone.
*
I step out of line with a tray of my usual—apple, sandwich, chocolate milk—and catch Leela waving from our table. Uncertain as to whether I should join her or not, I wave back. Then Luka’s hand presses firmly against the small of my back. “Follow me,” he whispers.
So I do. Because if I don’t dispel all the junk expanding inside my head, I will explode. I just wish me not exploding didn’t have to hurt Leela. Her face clouds with confusion as I give her a helpless shrug and follow Luka past his friends. Summer and Bobbi and Matt and the others stare at me like I’ve grown a beard or a third ear. I can feel the entire room’s eyes on me as we find a table on the periphery of the cafeteria. Luka pulls out my chair and takes a seat beside me, his back to the student body, which ogles with equal parts curiosity and disbelief.
My attention snags on Pete, who sits at the same table as yesterday, with Wren and Jess, the school freaks. Only instead of sitting in silence, their heads are bent together. Pete’s lips move and I have this unexplainable sinking sensation. Pete and I didn’t debrief after this morning’s impromptu family meeting. Surely he knows that the things we learned are strictly confidential. But when he finishes whatever he’s saying, Wren leans back in her chair, a disturbing, enigmatic glow to her cheeks.
A surge of heat rises in my chest. I would like nothing more than to go over there, grab Pete’s arm, and yank him away. He doesn’t belong with those two. Instead, I swallow the impulse and look down at my tray.
“You okay?” Luka asks.
“Besides the fact that I’m going crazy? Sure.”
“You’re not going crazy.” He folds his arms on the table.
“My grandmother was crazy. It must skip a generation.”
Shaking his head, he cracks open his Mountain Dew.
I glance past him, at our classmates. “Everybody is staring.”
“Let them,” he says, opening my chocolate milk and setting it in front of me. “And while they stare, why don’t you tell me about your grandmother?”
“She suffered from psychosis.” My voice is lifeless and dull.
“I take it you didn’t know this?”
“Not until we moved to Thornsdale. For as long as I can remember, my parents have always told me that she died of a heart attack when Pete and I were really little, but last night I dreamt about her.”
“And that means she’s not dead?”
I pick at a fray in the knee of my jeans, battling uncertainty. The man in my nightmare warned me against hanging out with Luka. And now here I am, spilling my guts. I don’t know who to trust anymore. “Luka, can I trust you?”
He draws back. “Why do you ask that?”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
“Of course you can trust me.” His eyebrows pinch together. “Tess, what’s going on?”
“There was a man in my dream last night. He said you were dangerous company.”
“Dangerous?” Luka’s eyes narrow. “Who was this guy?”
“I don’t know. He was with my grandma. I think maybe he was her doctor or something. After I left the beach, I was in this white room and there was this old woman who looked like my dad. She was restrained to this bed, only she was trying to get free.” I squint, trying to recall the details. “And the guy was there. I don’t really remember what he looked like, except he had a scar on his face. He told me if I wasn’t careful, I’d end up like her.”
A muscle ticks in Luka’s jaw. He looks angry.
“Then all of a sudden I was somewhere else. In a house with a man.”
“The one with the scar?”
“No, somebody else. He was really sad and he had a gun.” It was the first time I’ve ever seen one so up close. People aren’t supposed to own guns. “He stuck it in his mouth and he …” I close my eyes, wishing I could blot out the memory. “He pulled the trigger. That same guy committed suicide last night. I looked it up on the computer and his picture’s the same. He lived on the other side of town. He had two kids and a wife.”
Luka sits very close and very still, his expression unreadable.
“Then this morning, I found out that my grandma has been alive all this time. My parents have been lying to me all these years. Supposedly, she tried to kidnap me when I was a baby and now she’s locked up in some mental hospital.” A hot lump expands inside my throat. How did my world turn upside down so quickly? Is it really possible that last week, I was a nobody eating lunch with Leela? Now I’m talking about impossible things with the most sought-after boy in school, an invisible target on my forehead. I dig my fingers into my hair. “I know you see what I see, Luka. But how do I know you aren’t another delusion? How do I know I’m not sitting here a
t this table, talking to myself?”
“I’m real, Tess. You can touch me if you want.” He extends his hand, palm up.
I stare at the offering, doubtful it will do much to settle my nerves. Or get rid of the stares. “I bet that’s the kind of thing people suffering from psychosis tell themselves.”
Luka pivots so his chair faces mine, reaches under my seat, and pulls my chair closer. My eyes widen. “You aren’t suffering from psychosis.”
I let out a long breath and catch Leela picking at her food, her shoulders devoid of their usual perk. I wish more than anything that I could tell her the truth. I need someone to confide in. “I wish I could tell Leela.”
“That’s not a good idea.”
My insides deflate. Luka is right, of course. “What am I supposed to tell her, then?”
“About what?”
“This.” I motion from him to me. “Us. She’s going to ask.”
Luka chews on his thumbnail, as if considering. I take an unenthusiastic drink of my chocolate milk, trying to think of a believable explanation, but my headache makes thinking impossible. “You could tell her we’re dating,” he says.
I laugh.
“What?”
“Nobody will believe that.”
“Why not?”
“Because …” My cheeks catch fire. He needs to go look in a mirror. Boys like him do not date girls like me. The student body would have an easier time believing there are angels in Ceramics. “It’s not believable.”
He opens his mouth, but before he can say whatever it is he was about to say, Matt and Jared plop down at our table. Luka leans back in his seat, away from me while Matt plucks the apple off my tray and takes a bite. “What’s up Williams? Too cool to sit with us now?”
Jared motions toward my chips. “You going to eat those?”
“Go ahead,” I say.
“Summer glared at you the entire lunch period.” Matt takes another bite out of my apple, specks of juice spitting from the flesh as he does. “I thought her head was going to pop off. It wasn’t attractive.”
“Summer’s always attractive,” Jared says, opening my bag of chips.
The Gifting Page 13
