Sweet Evil (The Sweet Trilogy #1)(10)
“Happy birthday!” Patti said, standing and pulling me into a big hug, then cupping my face and gazing into my eyes. “You feeling okay?”
“Um...” My eye glided to the cloud thing, which moved around her, never changing its general appearance.
“What’s wrong?” She looked down at her shoulder where my eyes were, and wiped down the length of her arm, right next to the cloud. “Please don’t tell me I have dandruff.” She ran a hand through her waves, pulling her hair to the side to get a look at it.
“No, you don’t. Nothing’s wrong. Sorry. I’m still tired, just zoning out.”
She squeezed me again, kissing my head.
“I can’t believe my little girl is sixteen! There’s a card from Nana on the counter. Let me go make your hot chocolate.” The shadow thing floated along next to her, following her into the apartment as if attached.
I sat down in a plastic chair, feeling jittery, while Patti made my cocoa. Most mornings were relaxing, sipping warm drinks on the balcony, but not today. The combination of the humid morning air and the weird vision made me feel claustrophobic.
I couldn’t believe I was seeing something else. Nothing strange had happened to me for more than two years. I thought it was over. I closed my eyes and laid my forehead on the table. Would it ever end?
I sat up when Patti returned, setting my cocoa in front of me and sitting in the other plastic chair with her coffee. I sneaked another peek at the cloud when she wasn’t looking.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked me.
Time to act normal. I cleared my throat.
“Yeah. So, there’s a party next week for the end of the school year. I was wondering if I could maybe go with Jay, if it’s okay.” I thought of Scott and hoped she’d say yes.
Patti sniffed and twitched her nose.
“Will this person’s parents be there?” she asked in a tight tone.
Would they? “I don’t know.”
“Well, I’ll need to talk to them first. If it’s just a small get-together with parental supervision, then I’ll consider it.”
Sheesh. Patti made it seem like I was prone to bad behavior or something. Me! The school’s Little Miss Goody-Goody. I didn’t understand why she couldn’t trust me. I must have been pouting, because she set the paper down and gave me a consoling pat on the arm.
“You still want to get your license after school today, hon?”
“Yes,” I answered. Because that was what normal sixteen-year-olds did. And I would feign normalcy if it killed me.
“All right. And then dinner at La Tía’s?”
“Yes!” I said, my mood lightening. Mexican food was our favorite. We went to the little rinky-dink restaurant for every birthday, and whenever Patti got an unexpected bonus, which wasn’t very often. Newspapers and other agencies hired her sporadically, so her income had never been steady. We’d struggled during the years I attended private school, despite partial financial aid. I put my foot down after eighth grade, insisting on public school when I found a pile of late notices tucked between two cookbooks.
“Sounds good to me. I’ll pick you up after school. I hate to run, but I have to get some stuff done this morning, since we’ll be busy girls this afternoon!” She kissed my cheek with a loud smack. “You sure you’re feeling okay?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. Love you,” I said.
“Love you, too.” I watched her go inside with the cloud trailing close behind.
Birds were chattering to one another in a nearby tree, and the air smelled like wet grass. I pushed my hearing out to the birds, testing my ability. I concentrated, sending it in an invisible, pencil-thin line, then bubbling it around them. The birds sounded as if they were perched on my shoulder.
The heightening of my sense of smell and taste had come together the night of the fire, leaving a deadly flavor in my mouth. It had been like being stuck in a small, closed, unvented room with a smoking barbecue grill. I had no way of knowing I could control it at first. I’d thought I was dying or going insane.
Every year or so, the nightmare would return as a new sense blossomed. My head wanted to explode when my hearing enhanced. Hundreds of voices and sounds within a mile radius shouted like blaring televisions with no volume control. I couldn’t hear my own cries.
My enhanced vision, the fifth and final sense, welcomed me into my preteens. At least I could close my eyes with that one.
Mastering each sense had taken major practice, not to mention causing migraines, vomiting, and nosebleeds. Being able to hear and see and smell everything within a one-mile radius was major sensory overload. And unfortunately, perfect health did not make me immune to pain.
I’d been to the doctor only for annual checkups. Other than the migraines, I never got sick. Cuts and scrapes and bruises healed in a matter of hours, sometimes less. It wasn’t like on television, though, where a superhero’s gash closed and mended itself in seconds before your very eyes. I could watch it happening over the course of a couple of hours, like a flower tilting and opening to the morning sun, but who had time for that?
I missed a lot of school during those days. The only advantage of having no friends before ninth grade was having nobody to explain myself to. At least I had Patti. She’d fostered me as an infant, adopting me as soon as the states of California and Georgia would allow. I was old enough to call her “Pat-Pat” by that point.