Lie to Me (A Touched Trilogy) (24 page)

“Phoebe,” Nathan’s hand skimmed my arm, “what’s wrong?”

“Seriously?” I glanced up at him before letting my eyes
flicker over Tonya who was standing behind him, listening in.

“You’re still mad?” His eyebrows soared in surprise.

“Uh, yeah.”

“I can’t believe you’re still angry. I thought you just
needed a breather or something. Look, I get that you’re upset, but it’s not
like I knew what would happen.” He gave me one of his sexy smiles and moved
close enough that I could smell the soap he’d used that morning. “I’m sorry,
okay? Why don’t I come over after school, and we’ll talk.”

“I don’t have anything left to say to you.” I scooped the
note from my desk and tossed it onto his. Walking away, I felt both Nathan and
Tonya watching me. But my double escape was short lived. I barely made it to my
locker when Tonya caught up to me.

“What the freaking hell was that?” she asked.

“What was what?” Maybe dumb would work for me this time.

“Come on, Phoebs. What was up with giving Nathan the cold
shoulder? For a second I thought I was looking at Vivian. Did he cop a feel or
something a bit too much for your virgin sensibilities?”

“Ha ha. No,” I said, choosing to ignore the Vivian insult. I
tossed my stuff inside my locker and grabbed my next set of books. A quick peek
at her told me I was wasting my time hoping that she would drop it. I slammed
the locker shut. “Fine, I broke up with him Saturday night.”

“What?! Why?”

“Because...just because. All right? I don’t want to talk
about it. Now if you don’t mind I have to get to class.” I tried to walk away
again, but she blocked my path, practically squishing me up against my locker.

“No way are you not explaining that. We are so ditching next
period. Now spill.” She placed her hands on her hips and waited.

“He’s why I stopped bugging you about Trevor.” I avoided her
look, knowing she probably didn’t want to even hear his name. “I knew something
was wrong with the guy. I knew that you were covering for him, but Nathan
convinced me to give him a chance. Actually he blackmailed me and said that if
I didn’t stop being suspicious of Trevor then he wouldn’t go out with me
anymore.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“And what does that have to do with what Trevor did?” she
asked, complete confusion evident on her face.

“Because if he hadn’t done that, I would have caught him in
a lie...or something.”

“You can’t blame Nathan for something Trevor did. As messed
up as I am right now with all this crap, even I know that. So, what’s the real
reason?”

Nathan was the reason. He was why Tonya had still been with
Trevor, why Trevor had had the chance to hurt her. That’s what I’d told Nathan.
That was the real reason, wasn’t it? But Tonya made it sound so completely
illogical, and honestly, I think I knew she was right, but still...I couldn’t
let it go. I swallowed hard and closed my eyes, trying to think of how I’d felt
Saturday night.

Vindicated.

It was an odd way to feel after what happened to Tonya, but
it had felt like I finally had proof that I was right. Proof that my gift was
real. Proof that I wasn’t broken.

 “Come on, let’s go outside,” Tonya said.

If we were going to ditch class, I didn’t want to lug around
all my crap. Turning back to my locker, I opened it up and put my books back
inside, then took Tonya’s stuff, and added it as well. Tonya stepped back,
giving me a bit of space, and I took a deep breath, trying to stay calm.
Getting angry, or worse, crying wouldn’t help me escape Tonya.

We walked to the exit, and didn’t say anything until we were
sitting at a picnic table outside the cafeteria. I stalled a minute, picking at
the peeling brown paint covering the table. It was a cool day out and I wished
I’d worn more than just my hoodie.

“Okay, so quit stalling and explain how any of this shit is
Nathan’s fault,” Tonya said, sitting across from me.

“My sisters have had their gifts forever. I mean right from
conception kind of thing. Chloe and Lily always used to talk about feeling Mom
or even having seen her. I had nothing. I was always the one without a gift.”

“Nothing new, Phoebe. Remember me telling you this is the
whole mommy issue you’ve had since we met?”

  “Whatever. You only say that because you’ve got some
serious issues with your mom.” At least that’s what her therapist said, and
apparently it’s what the shrink had said about me too when Tonya had blabbed my
life story once. “Besides, this isn’t about my mom."

“Yeah, well you haven’t gotten to the part where Nathan is
to blame for...you know.”

“The point is that when my gift started working, I was so
happy. I was finally going to be normal, or at least normal in my family, but
Nathan made me doubt that. He made me feel like I couldn’t trust my gift, or
myself. That’s why I’m not ready to forgive him.”

Tonya was quite for a moment then said, “Damn, if I could
psychoana-whatever myself like you, I wouldn’t be suffering for two hours every
week.”

The slight change in conversation was like a lifeline that I
readily grasped onto. “Two hours? I thought you were only going once a week.”

“Yeah, well Gran decided that in addition to the shrink, I
need to go to a counseling group, too. I’m kissing my Saturdays good-bye.”

“That sucks. Well, that it’s on Saturday I mean, not
that...anyways, maybe we both need a break from boys.” Maybe I needed a break
from letting Nathan make me doubt myself.

“Ha, speak for yourself. I plan to move on to the next hot
thing. Did you see that new guy? I think his name is Mike or Mickey, something
like that.” She flicked a piece of paint I had peeled from the table into the
breeze.

“Mickey? Are you honestly saying that you would go out with
a guy named after a cartoon mouse?”

“Hey, the guy is hot and he’s got a serious bad boy thing
going on with a tattoo and buzz cut. I can’t believe you haven’t noticed him.
I’m pretty sure I saw him heading into your civics class on Friday.”

“Huh, well if his name is really Mickey then he’s all
yours.” Besides it wasn’t as if I was completely over Nathan, or even a little
over him yet.

“Well, if you’re really done with Nathan, maybe I’ll go for
him.” She smiled. I knew she was joking, but still my gut twisted.

“If you want to die anytime soon.”

“So, why did you break up with him again?” she asked.

“Fine. So he might not be directly at fault, but... if he
hadn’t convinced me to stop distrusting Trevor maybe you would have finally
listened to me. You even said that was one of the reasons you gave him another
chance.”

“Girl, you could twist the words of a saint just to prove
your point.”

As wind picked up and the clouds drifted in front of the
sun, my arms broke out in goose bumps and I shivered. “Come on, let’s get back
inside before Mother Nature decides to dump rain on us as well.”

We ran back into the school as gusts of wind blew in more
storm clouds from the coast. The halls were deserted, so Tonya and I sank to
the floor in front of her locker and spent the rest of the class period
flipping through a Cosmo magazine and debating when a person’s butt crossed the
line into fat ass territory.

After the bell rang, Tonya and I headed to my locker to grab
her books. I’d just handed them to her when I spotted Nathan walking down the
hall toward me. I tensed, expecting another confrontation. Or at least some
response from him. Maybe even just an acknowledgement that I was still
important to him, after all I’d broken up with him. His eyes settled on me
before darting away to look at the person walking beside him.

Vivian.

Vivian. And I wanted to punch her face in, even more than
when she’d soaked me at the theater. She was smiling. First it was up at Nathan
and then at me. I knew she’d been waiting. I just hadn’t expected Nathan to go
back to her. He said he didn’t double back in the dating department, so why was
he with her?

I slammed my locker shut. Vivian didn’t know how lucky she
was. If Dad hadn’t drilled me with the importance of not starting a fight, and
if I wasn’t a bit freaked at the idea of being in an all out fight, I’d have
popped her in the face so quick she wouldn’t have even seen it coming.

Later that afternoon, I was lying on my bed listening to
music, trying to block out the lingering image of Nathan and Vivian together,
when Chloe opened the door. I pulled out my earphones and glared at her.

“Nice of you to just barge in,” I said, sweeping strands of
hair from my face.

“I didn’t barge in. I knocked and then took your silence for
permission to come in.” She leaned against the doorframe. “Nathan is upstairs.”

“Tell him I’m not home.” I seethed. How dare he come here,
after he’d been hanging with Vivian all day?

“Too late. He knows you’re here.”

“Then tell him I’m washing my hair or better yet, tell him I
don’t want to talk to his cheating face.”

“Not cheating if you’re not dating. Besides I don’t think he
was banging Vivian in the halls between classes, Phoebs.”

“I don’t want to talk to him.” My aggravation with Chloe
nearly beat the anger I felt toward Nathan.

“Tell him yourself.” She disappeared from my door before I
could argue anymore. Then just as quickly as she left, Nathan took her place
and my heart sank to the very depths of my stomach.

“Can we talk?” God, his eyes had pure puppy begging power.

“What do you want me to say?” I asked, sitting up
cross-legged.

“I just want to know that this is going to...I don’t know,
get fixed.”

“It can’t be fixed.” I pulled up a mental picture of Tonya
the day after the assault, and it helped the bitterness I needed to feel flare
to life. “It’s not broken. It’s just done. We’re done.”

“Oh, come on. I’m sorry. It’s not like I knew Trevor was
gonna do something like that.”

“But I knew!” I jabbed myself in the chest. “And when I told
you, you talked me out of it. You convinced me to give him a chance. God, you
blackmailed me into it.”

“I never forced you, or blackmailed you into anything,
Phoebe.” He pushed away from the doorframe and stepped into my room.

“No, you just threatened to stop dating me if I didn’t give
him a chance.”

“That’s not what I said. I was just sick of constantly
listening to you talk about the guy. I asked you to think about me when we were
together, instead of Trevor. I felt like you didn’t even know I was there half
the time,” Nathan argued. “I never said you had to like him, or that you had to
stop warning Tonya about him. But I was dating you, and guys don’t like their
girlfriends obsessing over other guys.”

“You made me doubt myself, Nathan! I waited years for my
gift, and when it finally happened you made me think I didn’t understand it,
that I couldn’t trust it or myself.”

“Phoebs, I didn’t mean to make you doubt your gift. I was
frustrated with constantly listening to you go on about it.”

“Yeah, because it made me such a horrible person to worry
about my friend being hurt.”

“I didn’t say that,” he sighed. “It’s just that you had no
real proof that anything was actually happening.”

“Maybe I didn’t have proof, but I knew it.”

“Because of your gift?”

“Yes!” I yelled. “But that wasn’t enough for you! Because
you don’t believe I have a gift.”

“Whoa! That’s what this is about? You think I don’t believe
you have this gift? Because I do believe you. I never thought you were making
things up.”

Stay mad
. Even if he wasn’t wrong, he wasn’t right
either. “What does it matter now anyways? You and Vivian picked up right where
you left off.”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m not dating Vivian again, especially
considering I’m still with you. She asked about borrowing my notes from last
Friday. That’s all.”

“Sure. And I just imagined that she’s been stalking you for
weeks. I just imagined the gloating smile she gave me in the hall today when
you were walking with her.”

“I don’t really care what Vivian did.”

“Well, neither do I, because we’re not dating anymore. She’s
welcome to you.” I folded my arms across my chest and glared at him.

He looked hurt. As hurt as I was at the idea of him being
with someone else, especially with Vivian, but I couldn’t forget how he’d
manipulated me.

“You don’t mean that, Phoebe, and you’ll regret saying it.”
He took a small step back.

“I don’t think so.” I already did, but pride kept me from
admitting that. Instead, I flung myself back on the bed and jabbed my
headphones back on. No music flowed out, but he didn’t know that and I didn’t
want to look for the iPod in the tangled sheets.

“Call me when you’re ready to talk.” He spun around and
left. I heard his stomping feet on the stairs and then moving across the living
room. The door slammed. He was gone.

I vibrated with anger and the urge to cry hysterically. I
wanted to call him right then and apologize, beg him to come back, but I
wouldn’t. He’d been the one in the wrong. Not me. He was the one that needed to
keep apologizing until I was ready to forgive him.

“You okay?” Chloe asked as she came into my room.

“No, obviously.” I yanked out the ear buds and levered
myself up on my elbows. “Nathan is mad at me! As if this is all my fault. I
know that Vivian is trying to get back with him. God, she’s such a skank. And
he’ll probably just go along with it. How can he be so stupid?”

“Can I tell you something?” she asked.

“Chloe, I’d really appreciate it if you kept my future to
yourself. I’m so not in the mood for your gloating.”

She arched her eyebrows in a way that told me I was about to
hear what she had to say regardless of whether I wanted to or not.

“Nathan made a choice, just like you did." She pointed
a finger at me. "Maybe he wasn’t one hundred percent right, but neither
were you. Something is coming. Something real bad, Phoebs, and you’re going to
realize just how much of a bitch you’re being to Nathan. He’s not perfect, but
he’s a hell of a lot better than Trevor, or even Dylan.”