Lie to Me (A Touched Trilogy) (26 page)

I settled onto the couch they had vacated and searched for a
movie, nixing a few Bianca wanted to see, mainly because they were the artsy
ones I had no interest in. We finally compromised on a Ben Stiller flick. Once
the opening credits started, I went to check on Lily.

The knock on her door went unanswered, so I gently opened it
and peeked my head in. She was lying on her stomach, her eyes open and gazing
at me.

“You need anything?” I asked, not moving any closer.

She smiled and rolled onto her back and then propped herself
up against the headboard.

“You can come in, Phoebs.” She laughed at my doubtful
expression. “I’m serious. It’s fine.”

I moved in closer, but took a seat in her computer chair. It
seemed safer than her bed.

“You feel different today,” she said, her eyes narrowing.

“Different good? Or different bad?” I spun the chair around,
loving that I didn’t have to lift my feet over piles of clothing. Maybe there
was a benefit to having a tidy room.

“Different good. Did you talk to Nathan?”

“Ugh! Why does everything have to be about Nathan?”

 “Maybe because you’ve been obsessing over him.”

“I haven’t been obsessing, maybe a little fixated but not
obsessed.”

“So you haven’t talked to him, but you’ve made a decision.”
Sometimes Lily made me wonder if she had Chloe and Nanna’s gifts for seeing the
future and the past.

“I guess. Yeah, but now I don’t know what to say to him.”

“Why? Because you may not always be right, but you’re never
wrong?”

“Exactly. I mean, maybe I shouldn’t have blamed him, but
still, it makes me uncomfortable to think about how easily he managed to get me
to doubt myself.”

“He didn’t get you to do anything, Phoebe. You did that all
on your own.” Her words were so close to what Chloe had said, but it sounded
much more reasonable coming from Lily.

“I know, but it’s easier to be mad at him. I mean it’s not
like I can give myself the silent treatment or anything.”

“True,” she said with a soft laugh that quickly transformed
into a massive yawn.

“I’ll let you get some rest. You sure you’re okay?” I asked
as I rose from the chair.

“I’m sure. Just a little tired.”

I closed the door behind me and went back to the den. Bianca
was on her cell and I collapsed beside her. She said bye to whoever she was
talking to and hung up. I waited a moment for her to say who it was, but she
shoved a handful of popcorn in her mouth.

“Who was that?” I finally asked.

“Tonya.” She popped another handful of popcorn in.

“And?”

“She’s busy doing something with her grandma.”

“She didn’t want to talk to me?”

“Nope. I guess I’m her new BFF now. Besides it sounded like
they were out somewhere.”

It was a bit of a surprise that not only didn’t she ask to
talk to me, but that she’d actually called Bianca instead of me. Then again, it
was nice to not be harassed one more time about calling Nathan. I was going to
talk to him. I just needed to find a way to do it without having to apologize.
Not an easy task considering the things I’d said.

I tried calling Nathan the next morning, but he didn’t
answer and I wasn’t sure what to think about that. He could have been working,
or just busy. Or he could have been laughing hysterically with Vivian at his side
at the sight of my name finally flashing across the screen of his phone. I
ended up leaving a stalker message of heavy breathing while I frantically tried
to think of what to say until I hung up, thoroughly mortified at the magnitude
of my patheticness.

  Tonya was my next call, but she brushed me off with a lame
excuse about being with Gran and hung up before I could tell her what a
horrible idea it had been to call Nathan. Between her therapist and Gran, we’d
barely had any time to talk outside of school. That she wasn’t able to go to
the movies with the rest of us later brought on my pity party full force.

“Do you know anyone in San Diego?” Chloe asked, coming up
behind me as I sat at the kitchen table eating jalapeño flavored potato chips
for lunch.

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“I just had this really weird vision of you there outside an
apartment building.”

“How do you know it was San Diego?”

“I got a glimpse of a street sign and it was definitely not
Beachgrove.” She sat down across from me and stole one of the chips. “God,
these are horrible. You’re not eating just those for lunch are you? You need to
seriously start watching what you eat, or you’re going to end up...”

“Fat?”

“No.” Good to know.

“Dead?”

“No.” Also good to know.

“So?”

She rolled her eyes and swiped a second chip. “Just very
unhealthy. There’s some left over avocado you can have.”

“Uh, no thanks.” Just the thought of eating that stuff made
me gag. She sat there staring at me. “What do you want?”

“You should know that Nathan is going to the movies tonight
with friends. He’ll want to talk to you.” Despite her complaints, she took
another chip. “So, if you’ve realized you were wrong to blame him, have you
realized the same about Nanna?”

My head tilting down, I glared at her from under my brows.
“Don’t push it.”

She held up a hand in resignation. “Fine, I just think-”

“Shut it, Chloe.”

“Fine.”

I grabbed my bowl of chips and went into the living room to
finish eating in peace and quiet, but sitting quietly and alone on the sofa
didn’t mean I actually felt any peace.

Nanna was like a hangnail I couldn’t clip. Constantly poking
me, rubbing me the wrong way, but if I just ripped her out it would hurt a hell
of a lot more. And Nanna was constantly poking my Mom Button. For a while, I’d
thought I’d gotten the whole mommy issue out of my system, but after the fight
I’d had with Nanna I knew it was still there. And I finally realized why.

Chloe and Lily had always understood what was happening the
day we were born. Chloe had seen it, while Lily had felt our mother’s every
emotion. But I had only a sick feeling to remember.

I surged off the couch, and marched into the kitchen. The
bowl of chips flew from my hand into the sink. I stood for a moment, watching
it circle the silver space before tipping over and spilling the greasy snack.

“I’m going for a drive,” I stated, though not to tell Chloe.
No, it had been more of a command from my brain to my body, just in case it
decided to rebel and go back to the chips.

Chloe didn’t respond, other than to raise an eyebrow in...
something. Probably not curiosity, because she most likely already knew where I
was going, even if I wasn’t totally sure of it myself.

Thirty minutes after walking out the front door, I was
standing in front of my mom’s grave. There wasn’t much, just a small headstone
with her name followed by the date of her birth and then death. It had been a
long time since I’d been there. The trees had grown, and there were more plot
markers around. We used to come every month, flowers in hand, each of us waiting
for our turn to say something. I never did. When my turn came, I would just
stare at her name. Dad assumed I was talking silently. I wasn’t. I had nothing
to say to her.

“You lied to me.” The words burst forth, catching me by
surprise. I paused, maybe hoping that the supernatural would allow for a
response. But nothing came. Mom wasn’t here. It was just a place for us to hold
on to her.

“How could you have lied to me?”

It had taken my gift finally working to really understand
why every time I thought of mom I had felt nauseous. My memory of my mother had
been of her lying to me.

“Is that what you think she did?” Nanna stepped up beside
me. Her appearance should have startled me, but it didn’t. Somehow, part of me
had known she would show up once I finally made it there. Maybe that was the
reason I’d avoided coming.

“It’s what I know,” I answered.

“Because your gift tells you?”

My head snapped up, and I stared at her in amazement.

“Are you really trying to get me to question myself again?”

She sighed and knelt to brush a bit of dirt from the
engraving and pull a few weeds that had dared to creep above Mom. “It was a
long time ago, over seventeen years. That’s a long time to hold a feeling.”

“She lied to me. I know she did.” My voice quivered and I
struggled to hold my rage in. How could my mother have made her only words to
me a lie?

“There’s only one way to know for sure.” She reached her
hand up, asking for help to rise, seeking a memory I’d been too young to hold
clear. I placed my hand in hers, wincing at the tight grip she took.

  She froze midrise, her eyes focused on some point through
my chest. Her hand tightened painfully on mine, and I knew this was the first
time she had seen her daughter’s last moments.

“What did she say?” I asked when her eyes fluttered and
refocused although they filled with tears. Seeing what had happened could not
have been an easy thing, and I was glad I didn’t have to see that part of my
past.

“That she loved you.” Her tears overflowed and wove a
crooked path down her deeply wrinkled face. “And that she’d always be with
you.”

Neither of those brought the suffocating pain like I
experienced thinking about Mom.

“Then she spoke to your father and told him everything would
be fine.”

There it was. The lie. Mom knew that nothing would be fine.
She died and we weren’t fine. I wasn’t fine. On the surface, it may have looked
like we were, but underneath there was the hollow part in all of us that could
never be filled. Dad had done his best to be normal, but he had closed himself
off so his life consisted of work and us. My sisters had clung to Dad and, even
now, they constantly checked up on him. And Mom’s one lie had destroyed my
ability to trust not only others but myself as well.

“She lied. The last words I heard her speak were a lie.”
Bitterness tinged my words, giving them a sharp edge that cut through my heart.

“You see your gift much like Chloe sees hers. Black and
white. There’s no space between for what could be or may have been.” She sighed
and smoothed her hand over my hair. “People lie for many reasons, Phoebe.
Sometimes it is meant to deceive, or trick, or conceal, like how Tonya lied to
you. But there are white lies, meant to spare someone’s feelings.”

“This was not a white lie, Nanna. She was dying, and instead
of telling them what would be coming, instead of preparing Dad, she lied.”

“No, it wasn’t a white lie. But she wanted to protect you
and your sisters and Michael. Maybe it wasn’t the right thing, or even the best
thing, but I know my daughter, and her every thought and concern would have
been for the four of you.”

“I’ve felt it every time I thought of her. The cramps, the
nausea.”

“She wouldn’t have wanted you to feel that way. Your gift is
unique, Phoebe. There’s no way she would have known you would feel that way, or
hold on to it for so long.”

 “That’s why I stopped coming here, because being this close
to her made it worse.” I dropped to my knees and stared at the puffy white
clouds pushing across the sky.

“And now?”

It was gone. There was no memory of what it had felt like to
hear my mom lie. There was nothing but an aching hole. I didn’t answer Nanna’s
question and she eventually smiled and slowly lowered herself to sit beside me.

“When I questioned you about your gift, I didn’t want you to
stop trusting it, I just wanted you to realize that the truth can have many
layers, and lies are not always about deception.”

I tilted my head so it rested on Nanna’s shoulders and, for
the first time in years, I cried for my mom.

Chapter 14

 “You called him, right?” Bianca asked as soon she I found
her at the cinema.

“I did.”

“And what did he say?”

“He didn’t answer.” I flashed a sly smile as we got into the
concession line.

“But?” She gave me an expectant look.

“Chloe said he’d be here tonight and that we’d talk.”
Chloe’s vision had originally given me a lot of hope, but as I repeated it for
Bianca, I started to realize that Chloe hadn’t said anything about it going the
way I wanted. And that could be pretty crappy. “I guess we’ll see soon enough.”

 “There’s Owen.” She gestured to the ticket booth where Owen
was waiting in line. “I think he walked here just to avoid getting a ride with
Karin. He told her he wasn’t sure he was coming, so she ditched us.”

“Too bad Tonya isn’t here. She’d love a Karin free night
out,” I said.

“You’re lucky she isn’t here. You know she’d be all over you
about Nathan.”

“Well, lucky me that her gran has put her back on lockdown.”
When Mrs. Robinson first found out about Trevor, I’d thought that I’d finally
have Tonya back full time. No more bailing on us, but it was like nothing had
changed. Instead of Trevor taking up her time, it was her gran.

“At least you’re looking hot tonight.” She fingered the long
side braid Nanna had done for me as part of our bonding experience at Mom’s
grave, something I just didn’t see happening again anytime.

“Are you implying that I normally look like crap?”

“Whatever. You know I would kill to have your hair. If my
parents stopped being so fanatical about me having long hair, I might actually
grow it out.” She ran her hands through her short spiky hair, which had changed
from purple to blue tipped sometime in the past week.

“You could always let them think you were conforming.”

She looked at me like I was crazy. “Uh, you have met my
parents, right? One small move in their direction and they’ll have my entire
life mapped out before I could take a single step back. I’ll be finishing
college before you’re out of high school.”