Deadly Little Games (18 page)

DOCTOR:
I’ve been thinking. I’m not sure how much we’re actually accomplishing in these therapy sessions.

PATIENT:
Does that mean you’re giving up on me, too?

DOCTOR:
Not giving up, just trying to make decisions that are in your best interest.

PATIENT:
In other words, you suck as a therapist.

DOCTOR:
I just think that you might have more luck with someone else, or perhaps in a group setting

PATIENT:
In other words,
you suck

DOCTOR:
I realize you’re upset, but in time you’ll see that I’m doing this for you.

PATIENT:
Where have I heard
that
before?

DOCTOR:
I don’t know. Why don’t
you
tell
me
?

PATIENT:
What for? You’re ditching me, remember?

DOCTOR:
I’ll still be in touch. I’ll be checking in with your new therapist to see how you’re progressing.

PATIENT:
(Patient doesn’t respond.)

DOCTOR:
How does all of this sound to you?

PATIENT:
(Still no response.)

DOCTOR:
Can you talk to me?

PATIENT:
I’m done talking. I don’t ever want to talk to you again.

A
DAM DROPS ME OFF
in front of Ben’s house, but unfortunately Ben isn’t home, and his aunt doesn’t know where he is. I try his cell, but he isn’t picking up.

“Do you want to wait for him inside?” his aunt asks, having clearly just gotten off from work. She’s still wearing her apron from the florist shop, and her jeans are stained with soil.

I accept because it’s freezing out, not to mention that it’s started to snow. I call my mom to pick me up, and then sit down at the kitchen table with a mug of his aunt’s hot apple cider.

“You and Ben are having problems, aren’t you?” she asks, sliding a plate of her homemade sugar cookies at me.

“Did he tell you about them?”

She shakes her head and takes a seat across from me. “But an aunt knows these things,” she says, winking.

“We have a keen sense of intuition.”

“Really?” I ask, taken aback by her words, because my aunt has a keen sense of intuition, too.

“He’s been through a lot, as you know.” She tucks a lock of her kinky dark hair behind her ear. “It’s made him a bit guarded. He has a hard time letting people get too close.”

“Don’t I know it.” I take a bite of cookie.

“But there’s been a change in him in the last couple months,” she continues. “And I believe that change is you. Aside from this minor bump in the road, I’ve never seen him happier.” She reaches out to touch my hand. There’s a bit of emotion in her eyes.

A second later, my mom beeps the horn out front. I give Ben’s aunt a hug, grateful to have her perspective on things, and hoping she’s right.

“Hey,” Mom says once I get inside her car. A nature CD blares from the radio—the sound of birds chirping, with a waterfall in the background. Mom turns it down and takes us to Raw, claiming to have a hankering for hummus wraps and banana smoothies. Though I sense there’s something more.

We take our food and plop down in a booth. “How’s Aunt Alexia?” I ask, wondering if Mom’s finally willing to talk on the subject.

“She asked about you, too,” Mom says. “She was worried that you might be afraid of her after the visit. She feels really bad about her behavior.”

“I’m not afraid of her. I want to see her again.”

“That’s the tricky part. Her therapist doesn’t know if she can help her anymore. They’ve sort of hit a wall in their sessions together, and Aunt Alexia’s been referred to someone else.”

“I don’t understand. She went to Detroit just to work with this therapist. It’s barely been a month.”

“I know,” Mom says, sweeping a clump of curls from in front of her eyes. “But there’s someone else who wants to work with her now. It’s all very recent, which is why I’ve been so distracted. Anyway, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. Just be honest with me. Tell me what’s going on.”

“In a nutshell,” she begins, gulping down the remainder of her smoothie as if it were a shot of tequila, “what this doctor is proposing sounds kind of controversial, and I’m not sure I agree with it.”

“What is he proposing?”

“It’s called electroconvulsive therapy.”

“Electro…as in shock?”

Mom nods again and drinks down my smoothie as well.

“No way,” I practically shout. “You can’t allow it.”

“I haven’t agreed to anything.”

“Well,
don’t
, because it’s barbaric. There’s nothing wrong with her.”

“There
is
something wrong, and this method of treatment is not as barbaric as you might think. Some really cutting-edge doctors still use it. This particular doctor thinks she’s a perfect candidate.”

“She’s not crazy,” I insist, pushing my plate away. “Everyone’s got it all wrong about her.”

“Is there something you’re not telling me?” Mom asks. “Did Aunt Alexia say something to you?”

“Just promise me you won’t allow this,” I say, surprised she’d even entertain such an idea. I study her worried expression and the crackled lines that stretch along the sides of her pursed lips, tempted to finally tell her the truth about me.

But then she nods in agreement, like she knows that shock therapy isn’t the answer, either. “I just don’t want to fail her,” she says, staring down at her plate.

“You won’t.” I slide my hand across the table and touch her forearm.

Mom smiles at the gesture. “I felt bad keeping you out of the loop. I know you have a genuine interest in your aunt, and I’m proud of you for it.”

I take a deep breath, trying to ease the pounding of my heart, the sickly feeling in my gut.

“And before I forget,” she continues, wiping her watery eyes, “Aunt Alexia wanted me to tell you something. I’m not sure what she was referring to exactly, but she wanted me to tell you
soon
.”

“Soon?” I ask, feeling the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

“I know; I didn’t understand it myself. At first I thought she might have been hoping to see you again soon, because she even asked me to take her home with us. But then she started talking about some boy in her paintings, and how I needed to call the police to try and find him. She was getting more and more incoherent as the conversation progressed, but I thought I’d ask you about it anyway. Do you have any idea what she might have been talking about?”

“No,” I lie, knowing for sure now how connected Aunt Alexia and I are, and fully confident that she doesn’t belong in a mental hospital.

I
LIE PRETTY LOW
in school the following day, heading straight to pottery class in lieu of going to lunch, and bee-lining it for the exit doors as soon as the final bell rings.

I don’t see Ben at all. Chemistry class got cut due to someone’s lame-o idea of pulling the fire alarm, and I was one of the first people in homeroom this morning, purposely to avoid lingering in the hallways.

Needless to say, I’m pretty disappointed that he didn’t call me last night, especially after our argument in the parking lot, and
especially
after I stopped by his house, cutting my time short with Adam.

It’s just after dinner, and I’m in my room, tempted to write Aunt Alexia a letter. I grab her journal from beneath my pillow, wondering if I should show a few excerpts to Mom—if reading about the beginning stages of Aunt Alexia’s touch powers might help Mom understand her more.

But I’m afraid it might actually make things worse.

Mom would undoubtedly want to read the entire journal, discovering just how miserable Aunt Alexia had truly been growing up—how isolated she’d felt, and how she’d constantly had fantasies of killing herself. Mom would only end up blaming herself even more.

A moment later, someone knocks on my door. I slip the journal under my bedcovers.

“Hey,” Dad says, peeking in. He comes and sits on the edge of my bed. He smells like Taco Bell. “I thought you might want to talk. You seemed really upset about Aunt Alexia last night.”

“I
was
upset. I still am.”

“Anything you want to talk about?”

“I could ask you the same,” I say, thinking about Aunt Alexia’s journal, and how he didn’t even flinch at the sight of it.

Dad removes his glasses. His eyelids seem heavy. His face is flushed. There are heavy, dark circles beneath his eyes. “Your mom told me she filled you in on Aunt Alexia’s possible transfer. I suppose I don’t need to tell you how upset she is—Mom, I mean. She hasn’t been sleeping well at night. She’s mostly been staring out our bedroom window, dredging up the past and still blaming herself. A lack of sleep will do that to you.”

“What does her therapist say?”

“Talk about therapy not working. I think Mom needs to start seeing someone new.”

“What can I do?” I ask.

“Just be patient with her, okay? Help her out. Let her know where you’re going. Eat her healthy cooking without squawking too much.” He smiles. “And don’t do anything stupid.”

“In other words, no stress.”

“No stress.” He winks. “I just don’t think she’d be able to handle it right now.”

“How are you handling it?” I ask, thinking about all the problems that developed between them after Aunt Alexia’s suicide attempt this past fall.

“Fine,” he says, looking away, as if maybe he has secrets, too.

“Are you sure?”

He nods and takes my hand, able to hear the concern in my voice. “I love your mother more than anything,” he says, and then kisses my forehead. He offers to talk some more, but his eyes get heavier by the moment, no doubt because he’s been staying awake at night with Mom.

I tell him I need to finish my homework, and then, once he leaves, I grab the phone to call Ben.

“Hey,” he says, picking up on the first ring. “My aunt said that you stopped by yesterday.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Where were you?”

“Nowhere important. Just riding around.”

I look out my window at the snow-covered branches. “Even though it was twenty degrees out and snowing?”

“Where were
you
?” he asks, ignoring the question.

“You
know
where. You saw me drive away with Adam.”

There’s silence between us for several seconds except for the sound of each other’s breath.

“I just thought you would’ve called me,” I say, disappointed that I even have to mention it, that he doesn’t bring it up himself, and that once again he’s being so closed off—not asking me how I am, or what Adam and I talked about, or even what I’ve been doing all day.

“I know,” he says, finally. “I definitely should have.”

“So, why didn’t you?”

More silence, only this time it’s even louder. And the pain in my chest burrows deeper.

“Is it because I was with Adam?” I ask.

“I’m not jealous if that’s what you’re thinking.”

I bite my lip, thinking how distant he sounds, like this whole conversation is just a big waste of time for him. “Why not?” I ask; the words shoot out of my mouth before my brain has the time to stop them.

“I don’t know. Why would I be?”

I shake my head, disappointed by his response, because maybe in some small and selfish way I
want
him to be jealous. I want him to be superinquisitive as to what Adam and I have been up to—to check up on me throughout the day and be the last person I speak to at night.

“Camelia?”

“Are you going to tell me what you’ve been sensing?” I ask, giving him one final opportunity to let me in.

“I really don’t think—”

“Forget it,” I say, cutting him off. I tell him that I have to go and hang up before he has a chance to say good-bye.