Deadly Little Games

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Deadly Little Lies

Deadly Little Secret

Project 17

Bleed

Blue Is for Nightmares

White Is for Magic

Silver Is for Secrets

Red Is for Remembrance

Black Is for Beginnings

Many thanks to my former editor Jennifer Besser. It was a thrill and an honor to work with you. Thanks so much for your editorial guidance, your contagious enthusiasm, and for always knowing just the right questions to ask. You helped make me a better writer.

A special thanks to my editor Christian Trimmer. Your careful eye, critical suggestions, and keen sense of story have helped make my work stronger. I’ve already learned so much from you.

Thanks to my agent Kathryn Green for her invaluable advice and guidance, and to all the friends and family members who have supported me, offered to read my pages-in-progress, and pitched in to give me time to write (you know who you are).

And lastly, a great big thank-you goes to my readers for their continuous support, boundless enthusiasm, and amazing generosity. I’m so very truly grateful.

W
HEN I CLOSE MY EYES
I can picture his mouth.

The way his top lip is slightly fuller than the bottom. The chapped skin on his lower lip. And how the corners of his mouth turn upward, even when he’s trying to look serious.

My fingers completely saturated with clay, I continue to sculpt the image, remembering that night in front of my house, when I just knew he wanted to kiss me.

It was one of our last dates, and we were sitting in his car during that awkward moment when you’re not exactly sure what happens next. Reaching to take my hand, Adam leaned in. My blood stirred, and my heart started pounding.

But I didn’t kiss him.

I looked away, and his kiss barely grazed my cheek.

Is it possible that subconsciously I’m regretting that moment?

I open my eyes a couple of minutes later. My sculpture looks eerily real. I touch the chalky surface of the lips, almost able to feel his breath between my fingertips.

“Ten more minutes,” Ms. Mazur announces, alerting us to the end of pottery class.

I clear my throat and sit back on my stool, wondering if the heat I feel is visible on my face. I glance around at the other students working away on their sculptures and suddenly feel self-conscious. Because all I’ve sculpted during this entire ninety-minute block is Adam’s mouth.

Adam, who just happens to be my boyfriend Ben’s biggest enemy.

Adam, who I’m no longer even interested in.

Adam, who despite the 300-plus other confusing reasons why I shouldn’t be giving him a second thought, I’ve been thinking about all day.

I close my eyes again. The image of Adam’s mouth is still alive in my mind—the way his lips were slightly parted that night, and the tiny scar that cuts across the bottom lip, maybe from when he fell as a kid. I try to imagine what he would say if he knew what I was doing.

Would he suspect that I was interested in him?

Would he think it was weird that I remembered so much detail about that moment?

Would he tell Ben what I was up to?

I take a deep breath and try my best to focus on the answers. But the only words that flash across my mind, the ones I can’t seem to shake, don’t address the questions at all.

“You deserve to die,” I whisper, suddenly realizing that I’ve said the words aloud.

“
Excuse me
?” my friend Kimmie asks. She’s sitting right beside me.

“Nothing.” I try to shrug it off, adding a dimple to Adam’s chin.

“Not
nothing
. You just told me that I deserve to be maggot feed.”

“Not maggot feed, just—”

“Dead!” she snaps. Her pale blue eyes, outlined with thick black rings of eye pencil, widen in disbelief.

“Forget it,” I say, glancing up at Ms. Mazur, sitting at her desk at the front of the room. “I don’t know why I said that. Just daydreaming, I guess.”

“Daydreaming about my death?”

“Forget it,” I repeat.

“Are you sure you aren’t still mad that I wouldn’t let you borrow my vintage fishnet leggings?”

“More like I didn’t
want
to borrow them,” I say, taking note of her getup du jour: a fringed, fitted Roaring Twenties dress, and a couple of extra-long beaded necklaces that dangle onto the table.

“Even though they would’ve looked totally hot paired with that cable-knit sweater dress I made you buy. Still, it’s no reason to say I deserve death.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, reluctant to get into it. Especially since the words remain pressed behind my eyes, like a flashing neon sign that makes my head ache.

“P.S.,” Kimmie continues, nodding toward my sculpture of Adam’s lips, “the assignment was to sculpt something
exotic
, not
erotic
. Are you sure you weren’t so busy wishing me dead that you just didn’t hear right? Plus, if it was eroticism you were going for, how come there’s no tongue wagging out of his mouth?”

“And what’s so exotic about
your
piece?”

“Seriously, it doesn’t get more exotic than leopard, particularly if that leopard is in the form of a swanky pair of kitten heels…but I thought I’d start out small.”

“Right,” I say, looking at her oblong ball of clay with what appears to be four legs, a golf-ball-size head, and a long, skinny tail attached.

“And, from the looks of your sculpture,” she continues, adjusting the lace bandana in her pixie-cut dark hair, “I presume you’re hankering for a Ben Burger right about now. The question
is
, will that burger come with a pickle on the side or between the buns?”

“You’re so sick,” I say, failing to mention that my sculpture isn’t of Ben’s mouth at all.

“Seriously?
You’re
the one who’s wishing me dead whilst fantasizing about your boyfriend’s mouth. Tell me that doesn’t rank high up on the sick-o-meter.”

“I have to go,” I say, throwing a plastic tarp over my work board.

“Should I be worried?”

“About what?”

“Acting manic and chanting about death?”

“I didn’t chant.”

“Are you kidding? For a second there I thought you were singing the jingle to a commercial for roach killer:

You deserve to die! You deserve to die! You deserve to die!
”

“I have to go,” I say again.

“Camelia, wait. You didn’t answer my question.”

But I don’t turn back. Instead, I go up and tell Ms. Mazur I’m not feeling well and need to go to the nurse. Luckily, she doesn’t argue. Even luckier is that I know just where to find Ben.

DOCTOR:
I just pushed the record button. Shall we begin?

PATIENT:
Let’s get this over with.

DOCTOR:
Why don’t you start by telling me how your week is going?

PATIENT:
My week sucks, just like every other week. Next question.

DOCTOR:
Are you still having disturbing thoughts?

PATIENT:
They don’t disturb
me
.

DOCTOR:
Let me rephrase, then. Are you still having thoughts of hurting yourself?

PATIENT:
You know I was just joking about that.

DOCTOR:
At least that’s what you told me.

PATIENT:
You believed it. If you thought I was actually capable of killing myself, you’d be required to lock me up. I know the rules.

DOCTOR:
Why would you joke about something so serious?

PATIENT:
Are you kidding? Feelings of depression, feeling sorry for myself, lack of self-esteem, eager for attention, craving some serious shock value…Shall I go on?

DOCTOR:
No. Thank you.

PATIENT:
Is this your first time as a therapist?

DOCTOR
: Trying to insult me isn’t the answer. I’m asking you an important question, and I’m not looking for a stock response. Why would you joke about killing yourself?

PATIENT:
Boredom.

DOCTOR:
I think there’s more to it.

PATIENT:
Okay, sometimes I get really pissed when I don’t get what I want.

DOCTOR:
And what
do
you want?

PATIENT:
To stop coming to therapy sessions, for one.

DOCTOR:
I don’t make you come here. You must get something out of it.

PATIENT:
I like to call it self-inflicted torture.

DOCTOR:
There’s the door. You can leave any time you want.

PATIENT:
Is that what
you
want?

DOCTOR:
No. I want to help you.

PATIENT:
It’s too late for that.

DOCTOR:
Why do you say that?

PATIENT:
Because people who have thoughts like mine can never go back. They can never be like regular people.