PANDORA

by Rebecca Hamilton

  “Lily!” I cried out, rushing forward, Nathan forgotten as I watched my sister crumple. Dylan tried to hold her up, but the drinks he’d consumed showed in his lack of balance, and she hit the grass lining the roadway.

  I reached her side as she struggled to sit up. I sank to my knees and lifted her head, cradling her in my arms. “Lils? Are you okay?”

  She cleared her throat, somehow managing to look deathly ill and mortified at the same time. “I’m alright. Just help me up.”

  Nathan took one of her arms, helping me get her on her feet. She pressed into the side of the car.

  “Hold her up,” I told him and let go of her arm to take my keys from my pocket. Once the doors were unlocked, Nathan helped her into the back, while Dylan managed to get in on the other side, smiling and giving the occasional drunken giggle, having turned into a happy drunk. I wanted to shove my fist in his face, but then Lily would feel the need to heal him again.

  I started the car and Taylor Swift’s voice filled the small space at an ear-splitting volume. Three cringing faces glared at me and I fumbled with the control until it was blessedly silent, making a mental note to avoid that station from now one.

  “He’s gotta get his hand checked out. It looks pretty bad,” Nathan said, gesturing back to Dylan. I nodded and put the car in drive and pulled out, heading for the hospital.

  “Hey, you’re going the wrong way,” Dylan complained after a few blocks. “I live the other way.”

  “I’m not going the wrong way, because I’m not taking your stupid ass home,” I said. “This is the way to the hospital.”

  “I don’t need to go to the hospital. I’m fine.” He waved his hand through the gap between the seats practically shoving it in my face. I caught a glimpse of his mangled fingers and nearly puked.

  “Dude, your hand’s broken.” Nathan stared at the crooked digits in fascinated horror. He glanced at me and whispered, “He must be in shock.”

  “Nope, Lils here just fixed me up. Right, babe?” He tried to wrap an arm around her, but she sat squished up against the door as far from him as possible, her eyes already closed in a deep sleep. I was surprised she’d lasted even that long. Her reactions to healing were erratic. Sometimes she seemed to be uplifted and energized and then there were times like this - when her body was almost drained of life. She’d probably sleep straight through till morning. I had no idea how I’d get her inside without Nanna or Dad noticing.

  Nathan twisted in his seat to check on her. “You sure she’s okay? Maybe she should get checked out, too.”

  “She’s fine, just dandy,” Dylan said with a slur. When he saw Nathan’s doubtful look, he laughed. “Don’t tell me you don’t know?”

  “Know what?”

  My hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Shut up, Dylan.”

  “Oh, no way.” He laughed again. “This is too good. How could you live here for this long and not know about the freaky Matlins?”

  “Shut the hell up, or you’ll walk to the hospital.” I forced the words through clenched teeth. That Nathan didn’t know about us was one of the things I liked about him.

  “I already told you to take me home.” Dylan shot me a dirty look and leaned between the seats so he could talk to Nathan easier. “Ever since kindergarten they’ve done weird shit - well at least Lily and Chloe did. Phoebe’s only one of them ‘cause she’s just plain freaky.”

  Nathan gave me a smile. He didn’t seem to be taking it seriously, but still, I didn’t want Dylan to tell Nathan anything else, not when I was just getting a shot with him.

  “Weird, huh? Like what? Voodoo stuff?” He cocked an eyebrow at Dylan, clearly trying to play along with what I hoped he saw as Dylan’s drunken ramblings.

  “No man, like Chloe can see the future and shit. She told Andrew once that his dog was gonna get hit by a car and POW! Two days later the dog’s dead.”

  “You’d think he would’ve put the thing on a leash.” Eyes rolling, he obviously didn’t believe anything Dylan said.

  “Whatever. Now, Lily...” He reached over and stroked her cheek with his unbroken hand. “She’s a healer. She can heal people. Like she did with me tonight.”

  “Yeah, have you looked at your hand, bro? It’s still looking broken.”

  “But I ain’t feeling it. I ain’t feeling it.” He waved the hand in front of Nathan’s face to prove his point. “That’s how she works. I’m tellin’ ya, a freaky Matlin.” He opened his mouth to say something else, but was cut off when I slammed on the breaks and he jerked forward, smacking his face into the back of Nathan’s seat.

  “Get out.” The trembling in my hands transferred to my voice.

  “What the hell, Phoebe?” Dylan rubbed the pink spot on his head from where he’d banged it.

  “I said get out of my car, asswipe. My sister may not know what a prick you are, but I do. Get out.”

  “Come on, Phoebe. I was just joking. You know I love Lily.”

  I stared at him in the rear view mirror, refusing to respond. Finally, he got the hint, opening the door to climb out and then slamming it shut behind him.

  He began his stumbling trek home, flipping me the middle finger from his good hand as he passed by the front end of the car. Anger burned my insides, and I sat there a few minutes watch him walk away. He’d been a nice guy once, but now I wished Lily could see the dick he’d become. He reached the end of the block and turned the corner, disappearing from view. Maybe I should have taken him home at least. No. He deserved to suffer.

  Nathan stared at me and I was starting to feel like a freak. Pulling the car back onto the roadway, I took a quick glance back at Lily. She was seriously out of it. Whatever she’d done to Dylan had drained her.

  “That was really awkward,” Nathan said in a drawn out voice. I shrugged, exaggerating my attention to the road as I drove a winding path back out of the neighborhood, hoping he’d drop it. But my luck sucked, because he kept staring at me. Waiting. I sucked at the waiting game.

  “He deserves to walk,” I said, cracking under the pressure of his curious gaze. “Too bad Lily wasn’t awake to hear him. I hate it that she does this to herself for him.” I stole another look at her and was glad to see she’d slept through it.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Over the past couple months, every time she’s healed him, she crashes like this.”

  “Heals him? You’re playing me, right? To see if I fell for his crap?”

  He leaned away from me, slightly, but I saw it. Not for the first time, I wished my sisters had kept their mouths shut and hands to themselves. But no, they’d never seen the problem with helping people out, even if it meant some stupid nickname. I never wanted to be included in it.

  “It’s not a big deal. Chloe’s just really good at predicting what people will do. And Lily, well, she only makes people feel better.” Down playing it always seemed to work best, and made people a little less freaked out. “You saw Dylan’s hand. It’s still broken. He just doesn’t feel it.”

  “So why’d he call her a healer?” He’d relaxed a bit and wasn’t giving me strange looks anymore.

  I debated on how honest to be. Having people make assumptions about us or even benefiting from us was one thing, but to actually explain it was entirely different.

  “Lily’s gift is mainly emotional and sensory. She can stop pain and sometimes she can heal minor physical problems, like a little cut. But the big stuff she can’t do. If you’re dying, then you’re shit out of luck, unless you want to go with a smile on your face.”

  “So, Lily heals and Chloe can guess the future, but what about you?”

  I shifted in my seat, wishing for some distraction on the roads, but no other vehicles appeared to save me. “I’m supposed to be able to tell when someone is lying.”

  “Supposed to?”

  “Yeah, well it doesn’t seem to work right for me. I’ve only been able to catch a couple of people and it didn’t work out so well.” I flashed a wicked grin
his way as we waited for a light to change. “But you really shouldn’t try lying to me anymore.”

  “I haven’t lied to you,” he said, but his blush called him a liar before any voice in my head did.

  “Uh huh, if you say so.”

  He said something in response, but the light changed and I revved the engine, drowning out his voice. We passed by Nadine’s place again and a few blocks down, I turned at the corner, planning to take a short cut through Tonya’s neighborhood to the other side of town. There were flashing emergency vehicles ahead of us and as the lights grew closer I slowed down, initially for safety, and then because of my uncontrollable urge to rubberneck.

  A silver pickup truck was curved around a tree, its entire hood bunched up. Glass sparkled on the black pavement, glinting red and blue with each turn of the emergency lights. I hit the brakes when I saw the figure sitting on the ground near the ambulance.

  Tonya.

  The streetlight above her shone down, highlighting the blood that matted her dark hair and trailed down her cheek, mingling with tears. I shoved the car into park and practically leapt out.

  “Tonya! What happened? Are you okay?”

  “Oh my God, Phoebs. I...I don’t know. Everything happened so quick.” She trembled violently, and I sank down beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, ignoring the paramedic who squatted beside her making notes.

  “Are you hurt? Was anyone else hurt?” I asked.

  “They said I just scraped my forehead, but Trevor hurt his foot.” She lifted a hand to her head and her fingers grazed over a bandage hidden beneath her curls.

  I glanced back at Nathan who had gotten out and stood watching us, his arms folded on the roof of the car. Lily still slept in the backseat, her head against the window. Even from here, I could see her restless movements. She could feel something wasn’t right. I didn’t want her to get any worse, but this was Tonya.

  “Are you in pain? Lily could...”

  “I’m fine now. They said it looks worse than it feels. But Trevor’s foot looked pretty bad.”

  I didn’t volunteer Lily for that one. Helping my best friend was one thing. Expecting Lily to heal the guy who’d beaten the crap out of her boyfriend would be too much, even if Dylan was a dick and deserved it.

  “I thought you guys were gonna call a cab?” I tried to keep the accusation from my voice, the judgment that she’d get into a vehicle with a drunk driver.

  “Spare me the lecture, Phoebs. Trevor wanted to spend some time with just me, so we left right after we talked to you.”

  “How could you get in the car with him?” I blurted out, unable to hold it in any longer. “You knew he’d been drinking.”

  She pulled away from me, crossing her arms over her upraised knees. “He wasn’t driving. I was.”

  Liar.

  My stomach clenched and I fought the urge to vomit. I wanted to call her out. I couldn’t believe that she would cover for this guy. Her eyes shifted between me and one of the cops with panic I couldn’t ignore. For whatever reason, she was lying and I couldn’t betray my best friend. Not after just fixing up our last fight.

  “Do you want me to drive you home?” The words choked out of me, burning my throat like acid with the lingering taste of her lie.

  She shook her head. “I’m going to go with Trevor to the hospital and wait for his parents to pick him up. I’ll call a cab. Hopefully Gran will be sleeping when I get back.”

  “You don’t think she’s going to notice that on your head tomorrow?” I asked, gesturing to the bandage.

  “I’ll just tell her you dragged me into some girl fight over Nathan.” She cracked a smile and I tried to do the same, but it was hard with the knowledge that she’d lied to me again.

  “Didn’t you blame your last fight on me?”

  “Phoebe, I’ve blamed you for all of my fights.”

  Did she find lying to me as easy as she did with Gran? It wasn’t a question I really wanted the answer to, so I gave her an awkward pat on the back. I didn’t know how to deal with the fact she was lying to me and the police about what had happened. We stood as the paramedics loaded Trevor into the ambulance. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  Lily was awake by the time I got back in the car. Nathan slid in to the passenger seat, and we shared a glance before putting on our seatbelts.

  “Who’s hurt?” Lily asked, her normally sweet voice filled with dread.

  I pulled away from the accident, peeking into my side mirror to see Tonya joining Trevor in the ambulance.

  “Nobody,” I said. She snorted and I sighed with resignation. “Nobody who needs your help. We’ll drop off Nathan and then head home, okay?”

  She gave a slight nod, staring out the window. I was surprised that she didn’t ask about Dylan, and possibly it was my wishful thinking, but maybe she was so glad he was gone that she didn’t want to ask about him.

  “Hey, aren’t you crashing at Dylan’s?” I asked Nathan.

  “Not now. He’s so smashed he’ll wake his parents up, and I don’t think I want to be around to see that. I’m safer facing my dad than worrying about Dylan’s parents calling him at the station. So, what happened back there?” Nathan asked.

  “The truck they were in smashed into a tree.”

  “Who was driving?” He was starting to sound like his father.

  “Tonya said she was.”

  Nathan raised his brows. “She said she was? Does that mean you don’t believe her?”

  “I think she’s covering for Trevor because he’d been drinking.” As soon as I said it, I wanted to pull the words back into my mouth and swallow them. Why would I tell the police chief’s son that my best friend was lying to the cops and her boyfriend should be arrested for DUI?

  “Chill, Phoebe. I don’t tell my dad everything. You think I would’ve been at the party if I’d told him there was going to be alcohol?” He gave me a half smile. “You may just want to head home, unless you want your dad to start asking questions about what went down tonight.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Lily’s asleep again and, even though she’s tiny, I doubt you can carry her all the way to her room.”

  I resisted the urge to smack him. He had a way of knowing just what to say to nettle me. But he was right. Lily was out of it and, small as she was, I wouldn’t even be able to get her out of the car, let alone to her room. Waking Dad up to help wasn’t an option, at least not if the three of us wanted to have any social life for the rest of our lives.

  Strange as it was, Dad would have been okay with us drinking, but using our gifts in public? No way. While Nanna and the rest of the family had no problem with using their gifts, Dad was more protective, which Lily and Chloe didn’t make easy for him. Maybe it had to do with losing Mom, but if he knew what was happening to Lily when she healed Dylan, we’d all be grounded from using our gifts for life. Not that that would really affect me.

  “I know, you hate it,” he said and laughed as I sighed and made a turn, changing directions from his place to mine.

  “Hate what?” I asked.

  “That I’m right, but that’s okay.” He gave me a wickedly smug smile. “One day you’ll love that about me.”

  I rolled my eyes. I refused to consider the idea that of all the things that I already liked about him, that him being right would be something I’d love. His cute butt and stormy eyes definitely. Being a know it all? No way.

  “Whatever.” God, was that the best I could do? But any smart remark I would have normally come up with was gone. I shot him a glance then followed it up with a smack on the arm when I saw his smug smile.

  He laughed and a bit of the stress I’d been feeling ever since the fight left me. We pulled up to my house and I shut the engine off.

  “This is your place?” he asked with surprise as he looked at the house and I realized that he’d never actually been over.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “I don’t know. I just thought with your dad being so
me fancy lawyer you’d live in a bigger place.”

  “Nope. Dad is big on the pro bono cases. Nanna calls him a bleeding heart. Besides, Mom picked the place out and Dad said this is where Mom would have wanted us to grow up. He even let Nanna help decorate it. So be prepared to get bombarded with lace and flowers.”

  We got out of the car and Nathan opened Lily’s door, catching her in his arms when she slumped out. He shifted her carefully as he lifted her out of the car and her head flopped back. Watching how gently he held her, a stab of jealousy hit me before realizing how ridiculous it was to be jealous of my sister’s ability to pass out simply by touching someone. I shut the door softly as she gave a loud snore and both of us had to muffle our laughs. As delicate as Lily was, she could pull in a snore like a linebacker.

  Nathan followed me to the front door and I opened it slowly, lifting it slightly to avoid the loud shriek of protest it would let out when opened at the wrong angle. Inside was dark, the only light coming from a lamp either Dad or Nanna had left on in the living room. I didn’t want to disturb Lily or risk waking anyone, so I left the other upstairs lights off and led Nathan down the steps, flicking on the hallway light in the basement as we went, and then into Lily’s room. The light in her room revealed what a perfect reflection of her it was - perfect. Everything neatly put away and no dirty laundry piled on the floor. Even her desk was meticulously organized, three pencils sticking out of a mug in a perfect tripod.

  After laying Lily on her bed, we left and closed the door behind us. I walked into the small sitting area that Dad had designated as our area and switched on the light.

  “Thanks for helping me. Dad would have killed me if he’d seen her like that,” I said, turning around to face him. He nodded absently, his mind clearly somewhere else.

  “That stuff Dylan was talking about...He was just joking, right? And you were only going along with it to tease me? To see if I would fall for the freaky Matlin thing, right?” He sat on the arm of the couch, crossing his arms over his chest. The doubt was there, not just in his question, but in his eyes and defensive stance. I couldn’t tell if it was because he was worried it was true, or if he was a bit put out by the idea that I would try and mess with him.