Deadly Little Lies by Laurie Faria Stolarz Read Free Book Online Page B

beneath the streetlight, he pauses a moment to study me—my hair as the wind whips through it, the tearing of my eyes from the cold, and how I can’t stop nibbling my lips. At least I think that’s what he’s looking at.
    “So, what did you want to talk about?” he asks, walking again.
    “Touching.” I look over at his face to check for his reaction.
    “You know I can’t touch you.”
    “I know you don’t want to touch me,” I correct him, “but that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”
    “So, what then?”
    “I was just kind of wondering”—I take a deep breath—“if the power of psychometry can be transferred from person to person.”
    He stops again, his face scrunching up like he’s genuinely confused. “What are you talking about?”
    “Is that a no?”
    “It’s not a virus,” he continues. “Psychics don’t just sneeze and pass their power along to the person standing next to them.”
    My face turns hotter, fully aware of how crazy the whole theory sounds. Ben stares at me, waiting for some explanation. Meanwhile, my palms are clammy and my ears begin to sting from the chill.
    “What’s going on?” he insists.
    “It’s hard to explain,” I venture, “but all this weird stuff has started happening to me.”
    “Like what?”
    And so I tell him about the key and the bottle sculpture, how I sculpted his arm, and then about his eyes through the door glass.
    “That’s it?” He smiles as if relieved. “A bottle? A door key? They’re pretty common objects, don’t you think?”
    “Not really,” I say. “Not when one of those objects had a very specific pomegranate label.”
    “Maybe you saw the label in a store. Maybe for some reason you subconsciously retained it. It could be the same thing with the key. Maybe part of you knew you’d left it at home.”
    “But then how do you explain all that other stuff—the stuff I sculpted about you?”
    He swallows hard; I watch the motion in his neck. “I don’t know,” he says, trying to cram his hands deeper into his pockets, even though they’ve reached the bottom seam. “Maybe you just sculpted that stuff because you’re missing the way things used to be.”
    “I do miss it.” I wait for him to return the sentiment, but instead he stays silent.
    I look away, trying not to show my emotion, even though I can feel it in my eyes, a deep and penetrating sting.
    “Are you okay?” he asks.
    I nod.
    He must sense how upset I am, because we end up moving forward again, taking a turn onto Columbus Street.
    The street where Debbie Marcus was hit.
    “Maybe we should call it a night,” I say, feeling a chill snake down my spine.
    “Are you sure?”
    I nod and turn back, my pace quickening, eager to get home, to get away—when only minutes before I couldn’t wait to be with him.
    We walk for several blocks in silence—just the sound of our steps and the panting of breath as Ben hurries to keep up. It doesn’t take long before we’re back in front of my house. I mumble a faint good-bye and head back toward my window. Meanwhile, a storm of tears rages behind my eyes.
    “Camelia, wait,” Ben calls.
    I reluctantly stop and turn to face him. Our motion across the driveway has triggered the spotlight.
    “Don’t be like this,” he says.
    “Like what? Don’t feel anything? Be more like you?”
    Ben takes a couple steps toward me, as if he wants to give me a hug, but instead he stops. His lips move, as if to form words, but no sound comes out, like maybe he doesn’t know what to say either.
    Or maybe what he has to say is too painful for me to hear.
    “If I can’t be with you, then I can’t be with you,” I say finally, wiping my eyes on my sleeve. “I can’t pretend like what we had didn’t exist.”
    Ben looks away. His eyes are as red as mine now. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.
    “I’m sorry too.” A crumbling sensation fills my chest. I turn back around, half hoping he’ll stop me again.
    But instead I hear