Cursed

“Gabriel,” Liz warned. “Peas are not gross, Olivia. They help you grow up to be big…”

I blocked her out at that point and tried to manage what I hoped would be an inconspicuous glance across the table. Except, when I did look, Hayden stared right back at me, slouched in his chair, jaw clenched. He hadn’t even touched his plate. Averting my gaze, I accidentally settled on Phoebe. Her hands clenched the edge of the table. I couldn’t believe that she still sat here, at dinner, after everything she’d done. Stupidly, a part of me felt bad for her, and I hoped someone would get her help.

Parker, as always, had his nose in a book. He hadn’t even looked up when Olivia knocked over her glass of milk when I tried to get her to not throw her peas.

I sank in my seat. This dinner couldn’t get any worse.

“Peas!” Olivia flicked a spoonful toward Gabe. In turn, Gabe threw a biscuit at her plate. She took a bite and erupted into giggles, chunks of bread falling from her mouth.

Cromwell lured Hayden into a discussion about which football teams would be playing on Thanksgiving Day while Olivia and Gabe continued their food play.

“Can we go like we did last year?” Phoebe asked Hayden. “We could leave Wednesday afternoon and stay over.”

My ears pricked up. They were talking about the parade in the city— the big one. Would Cromwell let her go after everything she’d done?

Hayden’s eyes flicked away from his plate. “I don’t know. I don’t really feel up to it this year.”

“Come on. It’ll be fun.” She pouted. “I could really get away.”

I tried to act like I wasn’t listening, but the moment I looked up, Hayden and I locked eyes. He was the first to look away.

Finally Cromwell seemed to hear what Phoebe was suggesting. “I do not believe that will be possible this year, Phoebe.”

Phoebe opened her mouth, then clamped it shut. Her gaze, full of accusation, drifted to me like I was the reason she was in trouble.

I wanted to throw my peas at her.

My stomach twisted as I poked a lump of meat around my plate, and I couldn’t sit here anymore.

Pressure built in my chest. Without looking at anyone, I pushed away from the table and headed out into the hallway. No one stopped me. I think, if anything, the stress around the table lessened. It was like I was the one who’d been doing crazy things, not Phoebe. It blew my mind.

Drawing in a deep breath and letting it out slowly, I stopped in the foyer outside one of the dark sitting rooms. No matter how many times I did this, the walls still closed in around me. Minutes ticked by. I just stood there, staring into nothing.

“Are you okay?” Hayden asked me. “Your arm?”

I closed my eyes. “Yeah, my arm is okay.”

“You didn’t eat anything.”

A snappy retort died on my lips when I faced him. He stood so close that I could smell his aftershave.

“You didn’t, either.”

Hayden shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing. You?”

“Nothing.” He nodded, then pulled his hands out of his pockets and ran one of them through his hair.

“Em?”

“Yes?”

A moment passed in silence, and then Hayden shook his head. A tight, tense smile appeared on his face. “Never mind, I’ll talk to you later.”

Then he was gone, and I stood there, wanting to cry.

“You need to stay away from him.”

Startled, I spun around. Kurt slouched against the wall, the strands of long blond hair practically obscuring his eyes. I had no idea how long he’d stood there. Obviously it’d been long enough. “Are you following me?”

“I’m not the one who’s been following you, and I think you know that.” Kurt pushed off the wall. “You need to leave Hayden alone. You’re not good for him.”

My hands balled into fists. “I’m not bothering Hayden.”

“He loses sight of everything when he’s around you.”

I frowned as I rubbed the itchy skin around my stitches. “It doesn’t seem that way.”

Kurt tipped his head slightly. “You’ve been dealt an unfair hand in life. I can see that. Everyone can see that.” He stepped forward, clasping his hands behind his back. “But so have Hayden, Gabe and the twins. And so have I. The only difference is that we’ve been able to see past all of that. You haven’t.”

I opened my mouth, but he cut me off.

“What Phoebe did was wrong, but can you blame her for wanting you to leave? What you feel must choke her. And your presence has affected Hayden since he first laid eyes on you. If you cared about anyone—your sister—you’d leave here. Leave your sister so she can have a real chance at life, and leave Hayden before he does something that all of us will regret.”

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