Deadly Little Lessons (2 page)

I
T’S NOT UNTIL
late afternoon that I finally venture out of my room. The light in the hallway stings my eyes. Sun pours in through all of the windows, shocking my senses, because everything inside me feels dark.

In the kitchen, Mom’s yoga bag is gone from the hook. She’s already left for work. Dad’s outside, mowing the lawn. I can see him out the kitchen window, past the growing number of my mother’s prescription bottles on the sill. When she first heard about her sister’s most recent suicide attempt, nine months ago, there was only one bottle. But now she’s up to four medications: one to help her sleep, another to make her wake, one to numb her pain, and another to help deal with the side effects of the pain-numbing pills.

Positioned beside the array of bottles is a supersize jar of almond butter (her edible vice), two sizes up from the one she used to buy.

I head into the living room, feeling my body tremble with each step I take toward the bookcase. You’d think that after everything I’ve been through this past year—after having been stalked, held captive, and almost killed three times, not to mention having questioned my own sanity—I wouldn’t let one measly phone call get my world so off-kilter. I mean, who even knows if what my grandmother said was the truth?

But I fear deep down that it is.

I zero in on the row of photo albums on the top two shelves. Back when life was simpler, before things got too dramatic and complicated for any of us to handle, my parents and I used to go through the albums together, reminiscing about things like my sixth birthday party, the time Mom nursed a baby sparrow back to life after a nearly fatal fall from its nest, and my first lost tooth.

I grab the album that documents my parents’ life before I came along, and start flipping through the pages. For all the time I’ve spent perusing the album, laughing at my dad’s dorky bangs and my mom’s hippie clothes, never once did I think to question the fact that there aren’t any shots of Mom when she was pregnant with me, that there are no photos from a baby shower, nor any ultrasound pictures.

I spend several minutes going through the album yet again, poring over photos of my parents’ wedding shower, photos of the big day itself, and then years’ worth of pictures dedicated to their exotic vacations in places like Fiji, Costa Rica, and Capri, hoping to find even one baby-bumpified picture that would make everything right. But all I find is my mom’s concave stomach in an array of tie-dyed bikinis.

A moment later, my cell phone rings. It’s Kimmie.

“Hey.” I pick up, relieved that it’s her.

“Guess who you’re talking to right now,” she bursts out.

“Excuse me?” I recheck the phone screen.

“Bonnie Jensen’s newest style maven.”

“Wait,
what
?”

“Three words for you: New. York. City. This summer. Me: interning for Bonnie
Genius
Jensen. Seriously, can you believe it?”

“No. I mean, yes. I mean, that’s great.”

“
Great
doesn’t even cover it, Camelia. This could be
life
-changing for me.”

“Right. I mean,
so
great.”

“And so what if I’ll be fetching coffee and dusting clothing racks all day…as my downer of a dad says. It’ll be for Bonnie Freaking J. I mean, I’ll wipe her ass if she wants me to, because I’m sure it’ll be with designer T-paper, right?” She laughs.

“Exactly,” I say, trying my best to sound happy for her. And I
am
happy for her. She deserves every bit of this. But right now, amid family photos that add up to only one possible conclusion, it’s all I can do to hold the phone to my ear.

“Is everything okay?” she asks.

Part of me wants to tell her about my grandmother’s phone call, but another part doesn’t want to ruin her moment or admit what could be true.

I glance up at the plaque on the mantel. It’s a framed quote from Don Miguel Ruiz, one of my mother’s many earth-crunchy gurus:
Use the power of your word in the direction
of truth and love.
Mom made a point of putting the plaque here in the center of the room over the fireplace, to remind us always to be true to our word. But what about hers?

“Camelia?”

“I’m so excited for you,” I say.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“Nothing, I just have to go. My father’s signaling for me to help him outside.” A big fat lie. “Can I call you back?”

“Wait, have you been crying? Your voice sounds all nasal-like.”

“Allergies.” More lies. “My dad’s mowing the lawn.”

“And since when have you been allergic to cut grass?”

“I’ll call you later, okay?”

I hang up without waiting for her answer and hurry up to the attic. I start to go through the cedar chest in which Mom stores what she deems to be of sentimental value, still hoping to find that one scrap of evidence that’ll prove I’m truly theirs.

I pull out my old tutu, a caterpillar costume, and my first-ever teddy bear. At the bottom of the chest is a scrapbook. In it are photos of my mother and Aunt Alexia when they were young. Even then, my aunt looked out of place—either standing in the background looking down at the floor or half concealed behind someone else.

As I start to put the scrapbook away, I spot another photo at the bottom of the chest. I reach in and pluck it out.

“Camelia?” Dad calls from downstairs, startling me.

I take a step back, bumping into a pile of old shoe boxes. It’s a picture of my mother on yet another beach, in yet another tie-dyed bikini, completely bumpless. I turn the photo over, noticing a date printed on the back that falls just three weeks before my birth.

“Are you upstairs?” Dad yells when I don’t answer.

I stuff the photo into my pocket and hurry downstairs, feeling my stomach twist. Entering the bathroom, I slam the door behind me and try to catch my breath, but I can’t seem to get enough air.

I move to the sink to splash water onto my face. My reflection stares back at me in the mirror, but I no longer even recognize it. My eyes are bloodshot. My skin is flushed. There are red spots all over my neck.

“Camelia?” Dad asks, rapping lightly on the door. He opens it and our eyes lock. He appears as surprised as I am by what he sees.

“Who am I?” I ask him; my voice breaks.

“Camelia…?” He appears thoroughly confused. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,
who am I
?”

“You’re not making any sense.”

It’s like we’re speaking two different languages, which makes my heart clench tighter and the air in my lungs feel so much sharper.

“Camelia,” he repeats. He sits me down on the corner stool and gets a cold compress for my face. “What is it? Do you still have that headache? Maybe we should call the doctor.”

“I don’t need a doctor!” I shout.

Dad scoots down in front of me and takes my hands. At first I let him. Because Dad’s the one who soothes, who makes everything better, the one person I can always trust.

But then I push him away. Because this time, his touch makes everything colder.

“How could you do this?” I manage to ask. Tears bubble up in my throat, constricting my breath, making me feel like I’m drowning.

“Do what? Camelia, what are you talking about?”

“I mean,
who am I
?” I ask him again. “Who was I before
Camelia
?”

“Okay, now, slow down.” His voice goes powdery soft. “Take a deep breath and try to help me understand.”

“Why are there no pictures of Mom when she was pregnant?” I blurt out. “And where is my birth certificate?”

Dad’s lips part and his expression changes, morphing from concerned to horrified.

And suddenly I don’t even need to look at a birth certificate. The look on his face is the only truth I need.

I
LEAVE THE BATHROOM
, pulling the door shut behind me. Dad emerges not two seconds later. But instead of following me, he heads into the kitchen. I hear him from the door of my bedroom, leaving Mom a voice mail begging her to come home early.

Meanwhile, home is exactly where I
don’t
want to be.

I phone Adam, even though I know he’s at work. I leave him a message, and then stop myself from dialing Kimmie. I know she’d drop everything in a heartbeat for me, but I don’t want to ruin her moment, so I call Wes on his cell instead.

“Pizza Rita’s,” he answers. “Are you interested in hearing about our cheesy bread special?”

His chipper voice almost makes me regret the call. It’s not that I don’t want him to be upbeat. It’s just that I’m on a completely different emotional page right now, and I’m not sure I have the patience to catch him up.

“Camelia?”

I glance over at my desk. The emergency number for Dr. Tylyn is just inside the top drawer.

“Are you there?” he continues.

“Sorry,” I say, resisting the urge to slip into old patterns—to keep things a secret instead of asking for a little help. “I’m here.”

“And how are you?”

“Honestly,” I say, still staring at my desk, “I feel like jumping off a ledge.”

“Trust me, it doesn’t work.” He sighs. “You’ll only end up breaking something, which will confine you to bed with your mom’s raw-inspired vegan cuisine, and seriously, when you really stop and think about it, does it get any more torturous than her Italian rawsage or her sprouted bean porridge?”

I bite my lip, feeling it quiver, knowing there’s no way I’ll be able to say the words aloud. To him. To Adam. To Kimmie.

“Tough day?” he asks.

“I think I just need some fresh air. Can I call you later?”

“Will it make you feel any better to know that my day has sucked, too? I feel like I wait around all week for the weekend, but then, once it’s here, I’d rather cheese-grate my face than endure another Friday night dinner with the fam. So, what’s
your
cheese-grating gripe?”

“Is your father being a bully again?” I ask, much more comfortable focusing on him.

“My father was
born
to bully. He even had that phrase tattooed to his ass. I’m not joking, by the way. Next time you come over, I’m sure he’d be more than tickled to bend over for you.”

“Thanks, but I think I’ll pass,” I say, reminded of Wes’s journal. A few months back, he let me read it. It was basically a series of poems that documented his struggles at home, struggles that revolved around his father’s disappointment in him.

In a nutshell, Wes’s dad has always wanted him to be more masculine, less in touch with his feelings. He threatens Wes by saying he’ll enroll him in the Girl Scouts and have his car painted pink. The truth is, as I learned from his poetry, that Wes is gay. Only, aside from me, he hasn’t shared the news—
or
his personal poems—with anyone. Nor has he wanted to discuss it.

“Are you
sure
?” Wes asks. “It’d probably make his decade to have a pretty girl take a peek.”

“Well, if that’s the truth, your dad has serious issues.”

“And apparently, so do you, my little ledge-jumper. So, let’s hear it: what’s your motivation for taking the plunge?”

“Would you believe that I’m just PMS-ing?”

“If
you’d
believe that I’m the sexiest stud in Freetown.”

“I’ll have to get back to you on that one.”

“Don’t tease me, Camelia,” he growls.

“I’ll call you later.” I hang up before he can argue and gaze out my bedroom window, thinking about my ex-boyfriend, Ben, of how he used to be able to sense what I was feeling without my ever having to say it. Right now, that would be a blessing.

Like me, Ben has the power of psychometry—the ability to sense the past or future through touch. Ben’s power works best when he touches people—when there’s skin-to-skin contact. But my power works differently, sort of like what happens when my aunt does her finger painting. When I do my pottery, images come rushing through my mind. I sculpt the images in hopes they’ll make sense. And over the past year, since this power emerged, some of the images
have
indeed made sense—at least they have eventually. With Ben’s help, I’ve been able to save a couple of lives, including my own.

But my power doesn’t work the same way every time. Sometimes when I’m sculpting, I’ll envision something significant. Other times, I won’t envision anything at all. And still
other
times, the premonition will be
so
intense that I’ll hear actual voices pertaining to whatever it is I’m sculpting.

“Camelia?” Dad calls from the other room.

Instead of answering, I pocket my cell phone, pull on some shoes, and open my window wide. I know that I should probably call Wes back. He probably suspects there’s something seriously wrong. But right now, I just need to get away. And so I climb out the window and run as fast as I can.