His words struck a chord. Anger sparked and fired through me.
“And I think it would be best for you, too. You don’t trust us.” Kurt smiled. “We don’t trust you.”
“Where would I go?” I asked. “Live on the streets so I’m not your problem?”
If he was surprised, he didn’t show it. “I don’t care where you go. Money won’t be a problem. How much do you need?”
“Are you serious?” He couldn’t be, but the look on his face said he was. “You know what? I don’t care what you think or what you want. The only way I’m leaving without Olivia is if you drag me from here. And I’d like to see you try.”
Kurt opened his mouth, but closed it. I got the satisfaction of stunning him into silence. Spinning around on my heel, I left him standing in the foyer.
My run-in with Kurt empowered me. Instead of hiding in my room to sketch or forcing Olivia to entertain me, I started practicing with the plants on my own. Each night I crept downstairs once the house was silent and painstakingly carried a plant back to my bedroom. With my bum arm, I could only carry them one at a time. A garden of dead plants littered my room, serving as a painful reminder that I had yet to figure out how to control my touch.
If control was even possible.
The evening before Thanksgiving, I sat on the floor with a plant in front of me. Six withered plant corpses filled the pots in the corner. I stared down at the new one—the live one—then closed my eyes and tried to clear out my mind. Hayden had said it had to be one thought that triggered it. He’d tried to use Parker to get to that thought, but everything had turned to crap after that.
Parker—something Parker had said to me.
I wrinkled up my nose and held my breath. What had he said? Something about how we all coped with our gifts, everyone except Gabe. But it had nothing to do with Gabe, because he didn’t have to cope.
Neither did I, right? I didn’t cope with it because I always believed there was nothing I could do.
I couldn’t help what I did.
Like when Dustin had touched me in the grocery store parking lot. I couldn’t have helped what’d happened. I had no control over it. It wasn’t—
My eyes popped open and I exhaled. That was it—what Parker had said. I’d convinced myself that I had no control so that I didn’t have to deal or have any responsibility.
And oh shit, maybe Kurt had been right—kind of. I had wallowed in my self-pity for two long years. If wallowing were an art form, I’d be on a gallery wall.
I placed my hands on the cool ceramic. Could that really be it? Was control over my fingers of death really something as simple as actually believing I had control? Taking responsibility for it—for my gift?
No. I don’t have a gift. Olivia has one. Hayden has one. I don’t have—
“I’m doing it,” I said out loud. “I’m doing it right now.”
What about my self-revelation courtesy of Catcher in the Rye? I’d decided I didn’t want to be like those statues in the museum, but I was. My thoughts worked the same. My actions did, too. I’d tried everything except believing I wasn’t a freak of nature.
Because it wasn’t that I didn’t have a soul. I mean, there were minutes when I truly wondered—when I thought about what’d happened when I’d died and how I’d felt afterwards—but I didn’t want to hurt anyone. What’d happened to Dustin had been an accident. I hadn’t wanted to hurt him. I never wanted to hurt anyone—not really. I’d had moments when I’d entertained the idea, deep down, times when I’d felt threatened, but I didn’t want people to be afraid of me.
It was more than that.
I didn’t believe I was gifted, but maybe I was. Maybe my gift worked differently than the rest—like something had to trigger it to become active. That something had been dying. Who knows, maybe I would’ve come back anyway, even without Olivia. Dying could’ve been a part of the great plan or something.
“Okay, now I sound crazy,” I muttered, running my fingers over the rim of the pot. “Like I walked into a cheesy sci-fi movie, but it’s something. I think. I guess.”
I dragged the pot into my lap. Earlier, I’d changed into linen shorts and a long-sleeved shirt. Both were thin enough to sleep in, if I ever decided to go to bed. It was well into the early morning hours.
Everyone else had gone to bed hours ago…
And my brain was rambling again.
I made a face at the plant and sank my fingers into the rich, soft soil. Well-hydrated—Liz took good care of the plants here. I’d come to believe her other gift was a green thumb, because all of the plants grew so beautifully.
Until I killed them, that is.
“So I have a gift. A gift—not a curse—and the gift is the fingers of death, right?” I asked myself, feeling stupid when I waited for an answer. “Think about how badass that would be if I could control it.”
I stopped there. Thinking about that inevitably led to what could happen if I could control it.
Touching, holding hands, kissing… Hayden.
Not the most helpful train of thought.
I focused for hours on telling myself I did have a gift before I finally felt confident. Only then did I pull my dirt-stained fingers out and took a deep breath.
Now or never. I focused on the plant. It was dark green, and on the tall, slender stems there were marks much like the skin on a snake. It had become my favorite of all plants, because it looked so weird.
I took a deep breath and tried to speak in my most confident tone. “I have a gift.”
Slowly, I brushed my fingers over one smooth stem, then jerked my hand back and waited.
A few seconds went by, then maybe a minute. Then five, and holy crap, nothing happened.
I started to stand, but my legs gave out. “No,” I whispered, clutching the pot until it chafed my skin.
My heart sped up until a faint buzzing filled in my ears. This could’ve been a fluke. There was only one way to find out.
I needed to touch it again.
Calming down took a few minutes, but when my heart did beat somewhat normally, I touched the plant again. It moved under my fingers. It didn’t die. Not for ten minutes or twenty.
Around the twenty-five minute mark, I think I started crying. My cheeks were wet so, unless it’d rained inside, I guessed they were tears.
I had to share this with someone.
Jumping to my feet, I rushed across the room and yanked on the door with my good arm. In my excitement, I forgot I had locked it. My fingers were shaking so badly it took me a few tries to open it, but once I did, I raced down the hallway and prayed Hayden hadn’t locked his door.
His room was three down from mine, and I stopped in front of his door. What if he didn’t care? I’d be crushed. I turned the knob and it gave way. Breathing a sigh of relief, I eased it open and let my eyes adjust to the darkness.
I could barely make him out sprawled across the bed, but he was there. Remembering his last reaction when I woke him unexpectedly, I resisted the urge to pounce on him. I felt along the wall until I found the switch and flipped it. Bright light flooded the room. It didn’t faze Hayden, but it stole my breath. I stood there, unable to tear my eyes away from him.
The blanket twisted around his narrow hips, one muscled arm thrown over his head, and he was naked. Okay, at least from the navel up.
Snap out of it, I ordered myself. “Hayden? Wake up.” I inched closer, raising my voice. “Hayden!
Wake up.”
His arm dropped from his face and blinked several times. Slowly he eased himself up on his elbows, squinting.
“Good.” I swallowed and tried to smile. “You’re awake.”