Deadly Little Voices (2 page)

When I finally did show my face, I noticed that you liked to watch me too. I’d see you checking me out as I pretended to do homework at one of the back tables of the coffee shop. One time I spotted you applying a fresh coat of lip gloss when you thought I wasn’t looking. I’d never seen you wear any before, so I assumed it was to impress me.

For months your hair was always the same-in a long dark braid that went down your back-but after I’d started coming around, you wore it down and loose. Am I correct in thinking that wasn’t a coincidence?

It was a while before we said anything more than coffee talk-a large mocha latte one day, a double-shot espresso the next-but I knew a lot about you. That you were sixteen and had never been kissed (cliché, but true). Are you wondering how I knew that? Or is it possible that you already know?

You remember, don’t you? That time, in your room, when your father called you to the kitchen? When you left your diary out on your bed? When your balcony door was left partially open? I fantasized that you’d left the diary there on purpose. That you knew I was lingering right outside. That you wanted me to read it.

Did you miss not having your diary for those days that I kept it? Or maybe you’d fantasized about me reading it too?

I also knew that you used to skate (I’d seen the trophies in your room). And that aside from the spray of freckles across your face, you couldn’t have been more different from the rest of your family-especially your mother: the one who got away.

I’d never let you get away.

The first time I saw you was one day, right after your school had let out. I’d been sitting in my car, waiting for the final bell to ring, when you came stumbling up the sidewalk with a giant backpack over your shoulders. I watched you in my rearview mirror, noticing the defeated look in your eyes. Like a wounded dog, resigned to death.

It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

You were already dressed in your coffee shop attire: black pants, white blouse, and a long bib apron to cover it all. There were groups of kids walking in front of and behind you. One of them had shouted something out-something about the fact that you’d chosen to wear your work uniform before you’d even punched the clock. But you just kept moving forward, sort of hunched over and looking down at your feet, failing to acknowledge that someone was making fun of you.

That’s how I knew that people probably didn’t understand you the way I would. And that’s when I decided to make my move.

…

Dear Jack:

I remember the first time I saw you. It was just after I’d gotten trained to work the front counter. You were sitting at a table at the back of the coffee shop, taking sips of the mocha latte I had made for you, with extra whipped cream and a smiley-face drizzle of chocolate syrup (I wonder if you noticed), and trying to do your homework.

I thought it was kind of peculiar that someone who was studying didn’t mind being wedged in between a table of mothers with their food-throwing kids and a quarreling couple on the brink of breaking up.

But there you were in my direct line of vision, with sandy-brown hair and deep blue eyes, with dark-washed jeans and a sun-faded sweatshirt.

Beautiful.

Which is why I never questioned anything.

You were older than me, definitely in college. I knew because you made reference to a class you were taking: “I need the fuel to pull an all-nighter. I have a huge exam tomorrow.” You gestured to your book entitled Romantics in Literature. It was exciting to imagine you reading love stories at night.

I wondered what your name was, and if you’d ever go out with someone still in high school. But part of the beauty of it was the fact that I didn’t know these things.

And that you didn’t know me.

You had no idea who I was, or what the kids at school said about me behind my back.

Or straight to my face

I remember the day we made physical contact—when I handed you your coffee and your finger brushed against mine, but in a totally obvious way. You gazed into my eyes, causing my pulse to race.

“Sorry,” you said, with a smile that didn’t show any hint of remorse. “What’s your name?”

I opened my mouth to tell you, half excited (the other half shocked) that someone like you would ever want to talk to someone like me, let alone ask my name.

“On second thought, don’t tell me,” you said with a grin. “It might be more interesting if we keep this game going for just a little while longer”

“This game?” I asked. My face was on fire.

You winked and told me that it was my turn “I’ve already made my move. Now it’s all you. As soon as you’re ready, you know where I’ll be.” You motioned to your usual table at the back of the shop And that’s where you sat for the next several months straight.

…

I DIDN’T TELL ANYONE about what happened last night, when I was hearing voices, because the truth is that I’m scared to death of what it might mean.

Kimmie, Wes, and I are sitting at the kitchen island at my house, surrounded by empty Dairy Queen bags and munching the sort of processed, grease-laden, and overly sugarfied snacks that’d be sure to make my health-freakish mom shrivel up, melt down, and evaporate into a
Wizard-of-Oz
-worthy cloud of smoke quicker than you can sing “We’re Off to Eat a Blizzard.”

If
my mom were home, that is. But she’s at work, teaching a class full of preggos how to do a downward-facing dog in a way that
blooms
the hips and
flowers
the pelvis, thus preparing the body for childbirth (or for a centerpiece arrangement; take your pick).

For some reason, Kimmie’s being super reflective today, insisting that we talk about my recent breakup with Ben. “Do you think you’ve given yourself sufficient time to mourn?” she asks, ever dramatic.

“Excuse me?” I pause from popping another fry into my mouth.

“Because if not, you could one day wind up a victim of your own subconscious’s desire to sabotage your every relationship.” She pulls an issue of
TeenEdge
from her backpack, flips open to a bookmarked page, and reads aloud:
“The end of every great relationship is really like
the end of a life, because with it comes the death of something that used to be, followed by a
mourning period.”

“Since when do you read that swill?” Wes asks.

“Hardly swill. It’s
genius
,” she says, correcting him. “Consider yourself lucky that I decided to share such genius in your presence.”

“Except I’m not sure I’d call anything that comes out of
TeenEdge
‘genius,’” he says, pointing to an article titled “How Duct Tape Changed My Life.”

“Well, I think it’s a fairly accurate assessment,” I say. “About the end of relationships, I mean.” Because with most endings, there also comes a loss. And I feel I’ve lost my best friend.

I realize how dumb that probably seems, especially considering that Ben is neither lost nor dead. I mean, I see him all the time. He’s in my lab class. And in the back parking lot after school. He’s down at the east end of the hallway when I go to pottery. Not to mention in the corner study carrel in the library during every single B-block.

Sometimes I catch him looking at me, and I swear my skin ignites. It’s as if a million tiny fireflies light up my insides, making everything feel fluttery and aglow. It’s all I can do to hold myself back and turn away so he doesn’t see how achy I still feel.

Because we’re no longer together.

I know how pathetic this sounds, which is why I don’t utter a word of it to Kimmie and Wes. But still, as deflated as I feel, I refuse to spend my days and nights brooding over our breakup. I don’t write his name a kajillion times on the inside covers of my notebook, nor do I check and recheck my phone in hopes of a call, message, or text from him.

The truth is that Ben wasn’t the only one who wanted to push the pause button on our relationship.

“I wanted to take a break as well,” I remind them.

“At least that’s what you keep telling us,” Wes says, giving me a suspicious look.

“Of course, how am I ever supposed to get that break, when Ben’s so obviously present, and at the same time absent, in my life?” I continue.

“Elementary, my dear Chameleon,” Kimmie says. Both she and Wes insist on calling me reptilian names whenever they feel like it, which is reason number 782 for why I hate my name.

Camelia.

“You need to rebound with a bloodhound,” she says. “Preferably an immortal one with the power to shape-shift into a really hot guy.”

“You want me to date
a dog
?” I ask, half tempted to flick one of my fries at her face.

“Not a
dog
.” She rolls her eyes. “Hook up with your preferred type of predator.”

“Shall it be werewolves, vampires, angels, demons, or zombies?” Wes says, painting his lips with a ketchup-loaded french fry to make his mouth look bloody.

“Haven’t you heard?” Kimmie asks, lowering her cat’s-eye glasses to glare at me over the rims. “Immortals are the hot new accessory of the season. Everyone’s trying to score one before they go out of style.”

“So true,” Wes says, pushing his ice cream to the side. “As if us guys don’t have enough pressure trying to look good, be charming, wear nice clothes…Now we have to run around on all fours and gnaw at people’s necks to be considered sexy.”

“Stop it, you’re turning me on,” Kimmie says, using a napkin to fan herself.

“Thanks,” I say, “but I prefer my men human.”

“Yeah, I suppose I do, too. I’m old-fashioned that way.” She lets out a sigh.

“Adam is human,” Wes says, perking up, curiously excited to point out the obvious.

“So nice of you to notice.” I pick a strand of curly blond hair (fingers crossed that it’s mine and not the cook’s) out of my pool of ketchup.

“Yes, but being a mere mortal does not automatically make him rebound material,”

Kimmie says.

“Excuse me?” I ask, utterly confused.

“Adam’s the kind of guy you fall in love and live happily ever after with,” she explains.

“In other words,
not
the kind of guy you get caught macking with behind your boyfriend’s back…But obviously, that happened anyway.” Wes covers his mouth at the horror of it all, clearly trying to be funny.

But I’m far from amused.

“Honestly, Wesley Whiner, are you trying to get this ice cream dumped over that crusty coif of yours?” Kimmie positions her Blizzard over his new haircut, which is basically a modified version of a Mohawk (buzzed on the sides with an inch-wide landing strip down the center of his scalp).

“I’m sorry,” he says, meeting my eyes, his face even graver than when Mr. Muse threatened to confiscate his bottle of hair gel in gym class.

“That’s better,” Kimmie says, putting her ice-cream weapon down.

“I promise not to joke about Adam,” he continues, “or any of your other hedonistic love trysts again.” He takes an overenthusiastic bite of ice cream, and even I can’t help letting out a laugh.

In a nutshell, Adam is Ben’s ex–best friend. About three years ago, a lot of drama went down between the two of them—drama that involved Ben’s then-girlfriend Julie. Apparently, Adam had been dating Julie behind Ben’s back, and after she died, Adam blamed Ben. A lot of people did. The rumor going around was that Ben had gotten so angry when Julie had tried to end their relationship that he pushed her over a cliff. In the end, it turned out that Ben wasn’t to blame for her death. And thankfully, a jury of his peers agreed.

Like me, Ben has the power of psychometry—the ability to sense things through touch.

When he touched Julie on their hike that day, he sensed the truth right out of her: basically, that she and Adam had a secret relationship going on. And so he touched her harder, eager to know more. Julie got spooked and started to back away. That was when she fell backward off the cliff and died almost instantly.

“Might you and Adam ever make things official?” Wes asks.

“We’re officially friends,” I say, hearing the irritation in my own voice.

“Yes, but are you officially putting your tongue down his throat?” He checks his profile in his pocket mirror, giving a stroke to his Elvis sideburns.

“I haven’t seen Adam in a couple of weeks.”

“And did that encounter involve an exchange of saliva?” he persists.

“I think I’m done with this inquisition,” I say.

But it’s not that I don’t deserve it.

Adam and I started getting close a couple of months ago, when I thought his life was in danger. It’s worth pointing out that my power of psychometry works a bit differently than Ben’s.

He’s able to picture images from the past or future through his sense of touch. Meanwhile, my love of pottery allows me to sculpt prophetic clues—clues that have some sort of relevance to the future. And sometimes, though this may sound nuts, I hear voices when that happens.

In the case involving Adam, my senses proved right. He
was
in danger. Luckily, with Ben’s help—and after Ben saved my life for the fourth time, nearly getting himself killed in the process—things ended up safely for Adam.

But as Adam and I were working together to keep him out of harm’s way, he admitted to some pretty shady things—things he seemed completely transformed by and at the same time remorseful for.