Deadly Little Lessons (5 page)

A
DAM PULLS UP
in front of my house to drop me off. We stayed at the carnival for about an hour, during which I tried to have fun. I went on a couple of rides, ate some cotton candy, and fed a few of the petting-zoo goats. But, as hard as I tried, I was way too distracted to enjoy myself.

Adam turns from the wheel to look at me. “I’m sorry if that was a lame idea. I just thought…how can anyone stay sad while hanging upside down on the Twirl-’n’-Spin, right?”

“Except I don’t do upside down,” I remind him, hating myself for sounding so deflated.

“And now I know,” he says, still trying to keep things light. “From now on, it’ll be nothing but right-side up between us.”

“You’re very sweet, you know that?” I smile, the first smile on my face all day, and it actually feels pretty good. I lean in to kiss him good-bye, grateful for his attempt to cheer me up. “I’ll call you later?”

“I hope so.”

I kiss him again, feeling guilty for my lackluster mood, but I can’t fake what I’m feeling.

Inside the house, to my surprise, I find Kimmie sitting perched on the living room sofa awaiting my arrival. In a sleeveless dress with a gargoyle-esque creature adorning the front, she looks more than slightly agitated, as evidenced by the way her arms are folded, the scowl on her face, and the bloodstained tongue of the aforementioned gargoyle. “Your. Bedroom.
Now
,” she demands, before I even utter a hello.

I lead her into my room, relieved to finally be able to tell her stuff.

She closes the door behind us. “So, um, what’s going on?” Her arms still folded, she taps the toe of her stiletto against the floor. “Because you were acting totally freakish on the phone earlier, and I’m not the only one who thought so.”

“Have you been talking to Wes?”

“He said you sounded like a mental patient, and from what he told me, I couldn’t have agreed more.”

“Maybe ‘mental patient’ isn’t one of the most appropriate analogies to make with me these days,” I say, considering the fact that it was only months ago that doctors wanted to lock me up in a mental ward for hearing voices and talking about my premonitions.

“Since when am I appropriate about anything?” she asks, motioning to the front of her dress; there’s a plastic fork stuck in the gargoyle’s bloodshot eye. “Did you not have suicidal fantasies earlier today?”

“Excuse me?” I ask, wondering what Wes told her.

“So, you didn’t threaten to jump out the window?”

“Okay, yes, but not in the way you think. Plus, my room’s on the ground floor, in case you’ve forgotten. What’s the worst damage I could do? A sprained ankle?”

“Just tell me,” she says. “Is something weird going on with you? More voices? Mysterious phone calls? Are you having premonitions about some heinous murder that’s yet to happen? Hence my dress, FYI. I had to block all the evil energy
somehow
.”

“Except my energy is hardly evil.”

“No, but some of the stuff you sense
is
evil.”

Instead of reminding her that my premonitions have in fact helped saved lives, I sit down on my bed and tell her about the past couple of days.

“And I’m just hearing all of this
now
?” Her sparkly, gold-outlined eyes seem to double in size.

“I’m sorry,” I say, feeling horrible for keeping secrets. “I mean, I was going to tell you earlier, but the last thing I wanted was to burst your Bonnie Jensen bubble with my depressing parental drama.”

“Screw bubbles and Jensen. I’m your best friend first, remember?” Kimmie holds me for several moments—the way I wish that Adam had. “So what do we do now?” she asks.

“I don’t know.” I shrug, breaking the embrace. “I mean, I feel like such a mess.”

“A little soap and water might help fix that,” she says, not even joking.

“You have to understand.” I wipe beneath my eyes with a tissue, which comes away with a smudge of residual eye makeup. “It’s one thing when you learn that your aunt is suicidal and that she could possibly be schizophrenic. But it’s another thing altogether when you find out that she’s actually your mother, especially when you have dark thoughts, too.”

“Oh, puh-leeze, Camelia.” She rolls her eyes. “The darkest you get is hot cocoa without the marshmallows.” She stands up to assess her hair in the dresser mirror. She’s growing it out, inspired by 1920s flapper girls and has dyed it a bright shade of red. “You don’t believe that your parents were just trying to protect you?”

“I don’t know what to believe, and what makes matters worse is that I’d planned to visit my aunt at the hospital this weekend. Now, I don’t even feel like I can face her.”

“So, maybe you
shouldn’t
visit.” She turns back to me again. “Maybe you should give yourself some time, Camelia. You’re human. You’re allowed to react.”

“Plus,” I continue, trying to fill her in, “as if things couldn’t get more convoluted, my parents aren’t even sure if Alexia knows that she’s my mother.”

“Does she not remember lying spread-eagled on a delivery table and pushing a basketball-size baby out of a ping-pong-ball-size hole?”

“I don’t know.” I smirk. “You’ll have to ask her.”

“And I shall, in due time.” She gives me a sinister grin.

We continue talking for a while—until I’m so over the drama with my family that I want to switch gears. I try asking Kimmie for more info about her Bonnie Jensen internship, but she isn’t having any of it.

“No way,” she says. “We’ll have gobs of time to talk about how I’m gonna rock the Big Bad Bonnie Apple this summer. But for now, what do you say we head on over to Brain Freeze? I have a sneaking suspicion that there’s a peanut-butter barrel with our names all over it.”

“Sounds perfect,” I say, giving her a squeeze.

I slam my back against the steel door of the cell, wishing that I had the power to knock it down. My legs ache from kicking at it. My hands hurt from clawing, smacking, prying, scraping, trying to tear my way out.

I’m just so incredibly dumb.

When nothing breaks, I let out a scream. It’s loud and shrill, and it scares even me. My heart pounding, I try to catch my breath. It’s at least several seconds before I’m able to settle down, realizing that the hour must be up and that he’ll be returning soon, I finally hit
RECORD
.

“What I love,” I mumble into the mic. “Nothing much anymore.

“What I hate: myself, you, the fact that my friend lied to me that night, the fact that I’ve hurt my parents.

“What scares me most: you; not getting out of here; not seeing my family again; the sound of your footsteps coming toward me; having to see your face again; or worse, having you leave me here to die.”

I press
STOP
and then
REWIND
, knowing that talk like this isn’t going to get me out of here. I have to play along. I try again several more times, pausing when my emotions get the better of me. Finally, I shut off my flashlight so that I can get deeper inside my head. I channel Sandy Dumbrowski from
Grease
, one of the most idealistic characters that I’ve ever played. “I love the stars at night,” I say into the mic, trying to make my voice sound dreamy, like Sandy’s, “and caramel sundaes, hot-air balloon rides, and spending time with my friends.

“I don’t like being by myself, which is probably the most challenging part about being here. It’d be great to have someone to talk to. I also hate books and movies with cliff-hanger endings. I need to know, without question, what happens at the end of every story.

“Including this one—me being here, I mean. What will the ending of this story be? What happens next? And can I help you to write the next couple of chapters or acts?”

I push
PAUSE
and replay my words, thinking myself so cunning. I hate caramel and have never actually been on a hot-air balloon. I never took much notice of the stars at night, either. Of course, now I really miss them: I miss the ability to simply look up and see something other than a steel roof.

The truth is, he has no right to know me. My character is the one and only thing that I can keep from him right now. And that, in this moment, gives me the strength to keep from screaming again, from smashing my head against these cinder-block walls and chucking the litter box toward the hole.

My list of dislikes is equally deceptive. I’ve never minded alone time, but I’m hoping that he’ll feel sorry for me and offer to talk. I read once that if perpetrators see their victims as real people with real problems and real insecurities, they start to think of them in a new light, which is why I mentioned that part about cliff-hanger endings. I want him to know that I’m insecure about what happens next. Maybe then he’ll actually be able to relate to me, to see me as a friend, or at the very least, as human.

Still in my role, I mentally prepare my list of fears before pushing the record button again. “I fear not being able to know why I’m really here,” I say into the mic. “I mean, I thought you liked me and that we had a lot in common. I guess I’m really confused.”

Only part of this is true. I
am
confused, but I couldn’t care less if he liked me or not. And I’m pretty sure now that he didn’t like me at all—not really. Because why else would I be here?

I turn on my flashlight, feeling emotional all over again just thinking about how stupid I was. While all the other partiers were living it up—dancing, drinking, smoking, laughing—he was sitting by himself, watching it all. That should’ve been a big tip-off, but in spite of it, I made a beeline for him.

I remember thinking that he looked a whole lot older than I was (ten years, at least), but there was a degree of comfort in that, in talking to someone more mature, less into the whole show—someone who didn’t care so much about keg stands or hookups.

I asked him his name and he responded by telling me that labels were unimportant. I couldn’t have agreed more. And so we talked about music, and I lied about loving anything by Twisted Monger and Island of Fowl, thinking that both bands were so much more exciting and sophisticated than my actual favorites: Lily Locklin and Tiffany Heaven.

I also remember that he seemed a bit preoccupied, always looking around even when I was talking, and that he insisted on buying me a drink.

A second later, I hear it: the sound of a key turning in the lock outside. My heart tightens. He’s back and he wants the tape.

With jittery fingers, I push the tape recorder toward the hole and retreat into the faraway corner.

T
HE FOLLOWING MORNING
, after a night spent tossing and turning, I call Dr. Tylyn and ask her if I can see her right away. Luckily, she agrees.

I emerge from my room. Mom and Dad are out on the back patio having breakfast. The sound of a woman moaning comes from Mom’s iPod. I’m sure the music is meant to be soothing, but it sounds more like someone’s bout with stomach flu.

“Good morning,” Mom says, spotting me standing in the patio doorway. “Sprouted-wheat ginger-pear scone?”

“Maybe later. I have an appointment.”

“This early?” The corners of Dad’s mouth turn down.

“It’s with Dr. Tylyn,” I explain. “I told her it was an emergency.”

“Are you planning to tell her everything?” Mom asks, perhaps intentionally being vague; perhaps the words are too toxic for her to say.

“Is that a problem?”

She takes a thoughtful bite of scone and makes me wait while she chews it. It must have the consistency of hay, because I feel like it takes her five minutes to swallow. “No problem,” she says, though her worried expression tells me otherwise. Still, she allows me to borrow her car.

About twenty minutes later, I pull in to the parking lot of Hayden Community College, where Dr. Tylyn has her office. I climb the steps to the second floor. Her door is already open.

“Good morning,” she says, standing up at her desk to greet me. Her short dark hair is pulled back in a clip, showing off her rounded cheeks. “Can I get you some tea?”

“No, thanks,” I say, noticing the smell of vanilla in the air. A cone of incense smokes from the bookcase, a couple of shelves above her collection of voodoo dolls.

We take a seat on her leather sofa, and I proceed to fill her in. Dr. Tylyn’s eyes never leave my face as she listens to every word I say without showing so much as a speck of surprise.

“So,” I say, after a pause. “What do you think?”

She takes a sip of her steaming tea. “What do
you
think?”

“You didn’t already know this information, did you?” I ask, surprised that she doesn’t seem more alarmed.

“Tell me what you’re feeling.” Dr. Tylyn says.

“Betrayal, for one. I mean, they lied to me. They let me take for granted something that wasn’t true.”

“Do you think they had good reason?”

“I honestly don’t care what their reasons were. I deserved to know the truth, especially about something so big. I mean, this changes everything for me.”

“In what way?”

“In the way that my
real
mother has spent the majority of her life fighting for her sanity. In the way that we both hear voices and have this psychometric power…”

“Yes, but you knew those things before. You just thought it was your aunt with whom you shared them.”

“And now it’s my mother, one degree closer. I mean, haven’t you heard…the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree?”

“Do you really believe that?”

“Why not?” I shrug. “Everyone else seems to.”

“Are you
everyone else
? It seems we’ve been down this road before. Just because you have this lineage doesn’t mean you have to follow the same path.”

I look down at my hands, less than convinced.

“You have choices, Camelia. Remember? So, make a detour. Choose a different path. Talk about your problems. Accept the fact that you have this power and that sometimes it’s apt to knock you on your ass. But don’t choose to be alone. You have the resources. It’d be a shame not to use them when Alexia didn’t have that option.”

I nod, knowing that we’ve indeed been down this road. But it feels good to go down it again—to be reminded that it’s not too late for me. Not yet, at least. “I guess that’s why I called you.”

“And I’m so glad that you did.”

I manage a polite smile suddenly remembering that I didn’t call Wes or Adam back last night; they’ve been great resources, too. “I still feel betrayed, though,” I continue. “It’s like I can’t get over this anger.”

“Why do you think you’re angry?”

“Because I count on my dad to be honest with me. Because both of them said they were going to tell me the truth when I turned twelve, and then when I turned sixteen, but now I’m seventeen, and they still kept it a secret. I had to find out by accident.”

“Nothing is accidental, Camelia. It was the right time for you to know.” She takes another sip of tea. “But one thing I think we should explore—you seem very concerned about age: how old you currently are versus how old your parents said you needed to be in order for them to tell you, for example.”

“I just don’t get why they kept it a secret at all. Some kids are told right from the get-go that they’re adopted. There isn’t some big unveiling.”

“And some kids don’t know until much later,” she explains. “The point is that there’s no steadfast rule. Your parents had a choice, too. And, whether or not you agree with that choice, you have to accept that they made it. It’s done. No one can go back and change it.”

“So, then, what do I do with this anger?”

“Talk to them. Spend some time trying to understand why they made the choices they did. And then ask yourself if you’re truly angry at them or instead just fearful of the fact that Alexia’s your maternal mother.”

“Thank you,” I say, grateful for her help, but also anxious to get some air. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.”

“Of course.” She winks at me over her mug of tea. “That’s what I’m here for.”