Page 12 of Lifebound

“Liar, liar, liar,”I spit, no idea at who, my fingers on the raised tissue of my scar.

Ireallyneeded to calm down now because I recognized what was about to happen if I didn’t.

I closed my eyes again, but my head was killing me. Maybe because of the beer, or maybe because I’d only gotten a couple of hours of sleep, or maybe becausemy fucking mind is my worst enemy and I don’t even trust myself!

Fuck, my hands were shaking so badly, and now the fear had reached its peak because that feeling, thatwarmthwas there again—for real—and it wasn’t going away. It was pressing harder against my center instead and pushing out toward my limbs at the same time, and I had no clue how to make it stop now any more than I did the first time it came.

The warmth was slowly becoming more intense. I was losing control because there were two parts of me battling for dominance inside my head, and the one that said that day at the meadow had never happened was winning.

My God, I’d told everyone, had insisted that it had been real, that I’d seen a boy with pointy ears and golden eyes, and he’d healed me with magic. I’d told everyone and they hadn’t believed me, but what if they were right? What if I’d only made it up?

It was then that everyone started to think I was crazy, but it wasn’t until later, when I toldanother truth,that things went really south for me.

Fuck, my hands were so, so warm, and the heat wasn’t slowing down. I tried to hide them, put them behind my back, but it wasn’t working.

“Oh, God,”I whispered to the room when I opened my eyes to find exactly what I feared I’d find.

Every single item that had been on the floor or on my desk or on the chair that served as my universal hanger was floating in the air, almost touching the ceiling.

Thiswas the other truth I’d told people.

“I can make things fly!”

God, I’d been just a kid. When Mom died and I woke up the next morning and I realized I was never going to see her again, everything in my room had suddenly started to float on air. I’d been shocked, and I’d gone outside to the guests who had come to give condolences and had told them all about it. I’d told the kids, too, who’d been made by their parents to come play with me because they pitied me.

And the kids did believe me. Theyfinallybelieved me, and I thought they would finally be my friends now, and when they asked me to show them, I tried.

I tried hard.

I triedagain.

And again and again—and I failed. I couldn’t raise shit on air, not in front of them. Not in front of anyone. Only when I was alone. Only when I was about to fucking burst open by this warmth that came to me for the seventh time now since that day and threatened to set my skin on fire. The seventh time right after I woke up in the morning, or in the middle of the night, after that same nightmare.

In my mind, I screamed.

In reality, I wrapped my arms around my head and squeezed my eyes shut and lay down on the bed again.

I held my breath tightlyand I began to count.

When I got to seventy-nine, my survival instincts finally kicked in and I sucked in a deep breath like I’d been about to die for real.

At the same second, every item that had been hovering near the ceiling in my room crashed onto the floor.

Tears in my eyes but I blinked them away as I sat up. No need to cry—it was already over. Nothing was floating in the air anymore—over.

Now, I could get to work cleaning up the mess and continue to fight with myself until I convinced myself that this never even happened.

* * *

“What’s this?”

“Whoa, Fi, what are you?—”

I stopped talking when I realized what she was showing me—the screen of my laptop that was slightly cracked to the side from the fall this morning. It had been in the air together with the rest of my stuff, but it was still working—I checked. Nothing was broken, and my clothes were all on the chair again, and I’d gone to take a shower to clear my head before I had to face the day.

Fiona must have snuck into my room while I did and saw it. But it wasn’t a big deal—I was older now. Much wiser. You could kill me, and I’d never utter a single word about what had happened this morning to anyone—everagain for any reason. I didn’t even tell Betty anymore.

So, I said, “I pushed it off the desk accidentally earlier. It’s fine, it didn’t even shut down.” I closed the door of my bedroom with my foot while I took the towel off my hair. “Why don’t you go get dressed? I’ll be?—”

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