Lie to Me (A Touched Trilogy) (25 page)

“I’m not being a bitch. You’re acting as if I shouldn’t be
mad. How would you like your boyfriend convincing you that you’re wrong to
believe in yourself? Oh, that’s right you don’t have a boyfriend.”

It was a petty thing to bring up, but I felt like being
petty. With Lily, I had to watch my words, but Chloe could take it. I never had
to worry about hurting her feelings. Then again, I don’t think she had any.

“Oh, get over yourself.” She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t say
you shouldn’t be angry. Hell, I can’t believe you even let Nathan talk you into
doubting yourself. But that’s the thing, Phoebs. In the end it was your
choice.” She spun on her heel and left the room. Just before she vanished down
the hall, she turned back. “Nanna’s coming over this weekend. The two of you
will have an interesting conversation.”

I threw my pillow at her, but she was gone before it even
left my hand. Not that it would have hit her, or even come close. Instead, it
slammed into my laptop and caused a glass jar full of pencils, pens, popsicle
sticks and some random crap to spill onto the floor.

Great. Nanna. Just what I didn’t need - something else to
worry about for the next four and a half days.

Four days to prep for Nanna was not enough time. A year
wouldn’t be long enough. That Saturday I’d made plans with Tonya for an
afternoon of shopping and then a sleepover at her place, but Nanna, damn her,
changed her plans without telling anyone and showed up while I was still
asleep.

I’d pulled myself out of bed just after ten and there she
was in the kitchen, making breakfast. I should have realized by the glorious
smell of sausage and eggs, but I wandered in, completely oblivious to the hell
that awaited me.

“I see you finally managed to pull yourself out of bed,” she
said over her shoulder.

Knowing I’d be shit of out luck with breakfast if I pissed
her off, I bit my tongue hard to keep back a snarky response. My chair scraped
along the floor as I sat at the table and tried to muster a welcoming smile.

“Where is everyone?” I asked as she placed two plates of
food on the table and then sat down opposite me. I picked up my fork and dug in
while she sat silently, staring at me.

“Your father took Chloe to a doctor’s appointment and Lily
is out avoiding you.” She started eating, keeping her eyes on me.

“Avoiding me?” A fork full of food hovered in the air before
my mouth as I finally met Nanna’s gaze.

“Yes, avoiding you. How anyone can stand to be around you
right now is beyond me, but poor Lily has to feel all of your self-pity and
misery.”

“Well, I didn’t ask her to.” Okay, so that was a lame come
back considering Lily couldn’t really help it. “And it’s not self-pity. I have
a right to be angry at Nathan.”

“And at me?” She laid her knife and fork down and leaned
forward.

“Yes.” I’d wanted to avoid this, but Nanna was a pusher and
she always knew just which of my buttons to press. “The only reason Tonya kept
dating Trevor was because I stopped bugging her about him. And the only reason
I stopped bugging her was because you and Nathan convinced me I shouldn’t trust
my gift. So, yeah, I am mad at you.”

 “It amazes me sometimes how much you’re like your mother.”
She resumed eating as if she’d made an innocent observation, instead of
something that was bound to get my back up.

“Really? You’re going to go there again?” Thank God, Dad
wasn’t there, otherwise I’d be so dead for talking to Nanna like that. I stood
and pushed my chair back. It rocked on two legs a moment before tumbling to the
ground.

“You’re overly sensitive, like she was.” Nana speared
another piece of sausage. “She was constantly jumping to the wrong conclusion
and being completely impulsive.”

“So you think because I act on my gift I’m wrong? You’re the
one that kept pressing me about it. That I should be careful trusting it. That
I didn’t understand it or how to use it. So, I trusted you. And you told me to
give Trevor a chance.” I bristled. “I would hope my mom was smart enough to
realize you’re the one that was wrong. Then again, she was too stupid to tell
anyone she was going to die, right? Maybe that’s why you didn’t want me to
believe in my ability and to trust you instead, because then you’d have to face
the fact that your own daughter didn’t trust you.”

The words weren’t even out of my mouth before I wanted to
swallow them whole.

“Well, you told me, didn’t you?” Nanna was whiter than I’d
ever seen her before.

The words were hateful and I hadn’t really meant them. But
that was the problem with verbal diarrhea. Once you spew it, it’s impossible to
take back. And it was impossible to erase the sickening look on Nanna’s face
which matched the feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Chapter 13

 ‘Things get easier’ had officially become my most hated
saying. Who the hell says that anyways? Because after two weeks of not talking
to Nathan, nothing about it was easier. In fact, it was getting harder
not
to speak to him, to not want to run my hands along his arms or through his
hair. And it was even harder watching him be all buddy-buddy with Vivian.

I tried to remember how I’d ever handled them dating, and it
only made me realize how much I missed being with him. There was no way I could
go back to the casual flirting I’d forced myself to do before; we’d gone past
that.

Nathan had said he would be waiting when I was ready to talk
and I really wanted to. Time had shown me how much of an idiot I was. I’d tried
to stay angry at him, but if Tonya didn’t think he was to blame, then how could
I? And I knew she was right. Nathan wasn’t to blame. Being with him had been
amazing, but there was still a part of me that didn’t want him back. Did I
really want to be with someone who had the power to make me question myself so
absolutely that I would leave my friend in a position to be hurt?

A hand waved in front of my face and I jerked back, turning
to look at the owner. Tonya was giving me a ‘WTF?’ look.

“What?” I asked.

“Exactly what I was going to ask. Last period is over, and
you’ve been staring at your locker for a full five minutes, completely ignoring
everything I said.”

“That’s not true. I was listening.”

“Oh, really?” She wore a skeptical look.

“Sure. There was the thing about a purple hooker shirt and
something about moving to Nebraska.” I flushed as she death-stared me. No way
would I let her walk around in a purple hooker shirt. “Okay, so I wasn’t really
listening.”

“Girl, you are in a major funk.” She twisted her arm through
mine and dragged me down the hall, away from where I could stare at Nathan’s
locker.

“I’m not in a funk.” I absently rubbed my abdomen as a
twinge of monthly cramps hit.

“Oh, please. You’re moping practically every minute of the
day. I’m so glad I don’t live with you, girl. I would totally consider shooting
you if I had to deal with you all day and night.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“You know I love you, but seriously girl, you need to get
back with Nathan and get yourself some action, because I’m living through you
vivaciously.”

“Vicariously. And why? I thought you were going to go for
the new Mickey Mouse guy.”

She shrugged a shoulder, and made some noise under her
breath. “He’s too brainy for me. Besides Gran said no dating until she talks to
my therapist.”

“Well, I don’t think Nathan and I are going to happen.”

“What are you talking about, girl? You know you’re still hot
for him, and unless he’s chopped his hair off since first period, he’s still
cute.”

“Yeah, right, cute, like being attached to Vivian’s hip
every time I see him.” Even as I said it, I caught sight of the two of them
heading out the side exit to the parking lot.

“I told you. You should have taken that bitch out when you had
the chance. You
would
have been defending your territory, but now,” she
snorted, “you’d just look jealous and pathetic.”

“Wow, you really know how to make me feel good about myself,
don’t you?”

“That’s what friends are for.” She laughed and tugged at my
arm, dragging me toward the library.

I helped her find a few websites for a research paper she
was doing for her economics class, and then logged onto my Twitter account. It
had been nearly a month since I’d been on, and I scrolled down the page trying
to make sense of the tweets that popped up. I didn’t follow many people, mainly
because I didn’t know how to find them, but Nathan, Bianca, Chloe, and Karin
were there. I tried not to read Nathan’s because I was not a sucker for
punishment. I reached the bottom of the screen, the list of tweets
automatically expanded, and Trevor’s screen name flashed across the screen.

My eyes flickered over to Tonya, but she was engrossed in
whatever was on the page she was reading. I looked at Trevor’s tweet.

hookin up wit ma gurl 2nite

I wanted to vomit. The prick had managed to find another
girl to suck into his sick world. I wanted to scourer his profile for a clue as
to who she was and try to warn her, or even tweet something about what he’d
done. But every tweet I’d ever posted had actually been done by either Tonya or
Bianca, and I knew if I did tweet anything Tonya would find out. I closed out
of the internet struggling to control my disgust for Trevor as I waited for
Tonya to finish.

“Are you coming over tonight?” I asked as we headed through
the parking lot toward my car fifteen minutes later.

“Can’t,” she said. We tossed our backpacks in the back seat
and climbed into the front.

My stomach clenched and I let out a hiss of air. God, I
hated cramps. I waited a moment for the pain to pass, and then started the car.

“I can’t believe Gran is being so strict all of a sudden,” I
said. “She seemed okay at first, but she won’t even let you out except for
school. What about the movies tomorrow?”

“Probably not. What are you guys going to see?” she asked.

“Some Greek god movie. Owen and Bianca have been raving
about it, so now Karin wants to see it, too.”

 Tonya launched into her typical anti-Karin monologue and I
pretended to listen. What I was really doing was thinking about Nathan. It was
his type of movie. I could call, and invite him to come with. As a friend. Or I
could ask Owen to call. He’d do that. He still owed me for covering for him in
seventh grade when he lied to Mr. Stevens about his homework being stolen.

“You’re off in Nathan-dream-zone again.” Tonya’s loud
comment pulled me back to reality.

“What? No, I’m listening. Karin’s so stuck up, blah, blah,
blah.” Thankfully, we’d pulled up to Tonya’s house. “Are you a prisoner all
weekend?”

“Don’t know yet,” she said, sliding out of the car. She
grabbed her bag from the back and then slammed the door closed. “I’ll text you
tomorrow.”

“Call!” I yelled after her. She turned around and kept
walking backwards to the door.

“Call Nathan!”

I rolled the window up and drove off. By the time I got
home, I’d decided. I would call Nathan.

Maybe.

Maybe was where I stalled. Three hours later, I was
wrestling my cell from Bianca who thought it would be hilarious to call him for
me. I wished I’d never told her about possibly getting Owen to call him.

“I will never drive you anywhere ever again!” I yelled,
twisting around her curled up body, and attempting to snatch the phone from
her.

“Okay, okay! But I am calling Tonya. Maybe she’ll talk some
sense into you.”

We stopped fighting and I watched carefully as she pulled up
Tonya with one push of a button.

“How did you get her number to come up so fast?” I always
had to scroll through the list.

“She programmed your numbers in for you.” She said it like
it should mean something and I stared in confusion. “She put herself as number
one. She got hold of my phone once and redid everything. Somehow, my home phone
number disappeared and I ended up stranded at the mall when I couldn’t remember
it. Thankfully she left Karin on as number eight.”

We waited as the phone rang, but Tonya didn’t pick up.
Instead, it clicked to her voice mail and Bianca left a quick message then hung
up.

“There, you called,” I said and grabbed the phone. “Now, if
you don’t mind, I want to go watch TV.”

We went into the den and found Lily and Dylan already
huddled on the sofa. Lily looked like she was about to fall asleep and Dylan
was flipping channels, his feet propped on the coffee table. I tossed my phone
so it hit his feet, hoping he’d take a hint. He didn’t.

“Can you switch it to the on demand screen?” I asked,
glancing at him as I filled a glass of soda from the side counter.

“Uh, I’m watching this,” he said, continuing to
channel-surf.

“Hey, Lils, we were gonna order a movie, do you want to
watch?” I stepped near her, and watched as her hands twitched. I really was a
horrible person. She’d been fighting the past few weeks to respect my wishes
about not ‘healing’ me, and I felt bad about causing her discomfort on purpose,
but Dylan was a douche-bag and there was no way I was going to get in a power
struggle with him in my own home.

“No, you go ahead. We’ll go upstairs.” She struggled to get
up and guilt consumed me. I was truly despicable. She wobbled, and I went to
grab her, but stopped short when I realized what would happen then. Luckily,
Dylan caught her.

“Maybe you should lie down,” he said, genuine concern
softening his voice. I might not have liked Dylan, but it was obvious he loved
Lily.

Lily pulled away from his hold. “I’m okay. But maybe I’ll
take a nap.”

Dylan followed her to her room and a few minutes later left
without a word to me or Bianca. Usually, I felt required to see guests out, but
not Dylan.