Read Online The Gifting by Katie Ganshert - Free Book Online Page A

Mom is absolutely beaming and offers to give her the grand tour of our massive home. Cue more embarrassment. I’m already self-conscious about the size of our house, especially given Leela’s reaction to living in Forest Grove. Parading her through the hallways, up the stairs, and into each room makes my self-consciousness explode into a full-out complex. But Mom feeds off my friend’s enthusiasm, going into more and more detail with each of Leela’s ooh’s and ahh’s .
    After the torture ends, we head to my bedroom and paint our toes with the nail polish Leela pulls from her backpack—bubble gum pink for her, lime green for me. She darts glances out into the hall, where angry music blasts from Pete’s closed door. I keep the conversation on him, because if I don’t, I will ask about Luka and I really don’t need a reason to feed my growing obsession. Or call Leela’s attention to it.
    She joins us for dinner—Mom’s homemade meatball sandwiches—and asks my dad all sorts of questions about his job. I can tell he’s flattered. I keep waiting for her to mention that she’s Irish Catholic, curious as to how he will respond, but she never brings it up.
    Mom attempts to draw Pete into the conversation, but he is unusually broody, so she gives up and smiles at me with this look of tearful happiness in her eyes. I know exactly what she’s thinking. Her daughter has a friend. A real live friend. I’m desperate to get Leela out of my house before Mom verbalizes her thoughts.
    Once the meal is over and Leela has had another cookie, I drop her off at home, which is decidedly more modest than our own and not in a gated community.
    As soon as I step back inside my house, Mom is there, raving about what a sweet girl Leela is and asking when she can come over again. I almost suggest that Mom invite her over. Maybe the two can have a slumber party. I bite my tongue and go up into my room and do my homework and for the first time in a long time, I have an uneventful night of sleep.
    It becomes the first of many.
    September melts into October and I discover that fall in Northern California is gorgeous, with mild, windy days and chilly evenings, perfect for bundling up and strolling along the beach. It is so much nicer than the unrelenting heat and humidity I endured in Florida over the past two years.
    The more time passes, the more my fear over the word psychosis recedes. Sure, I’m still sensitive to temperature fluctuations that nobody else can feel and there’s a sense of heaviness in our house that seems ever-present, like it attracts more gravity than anywhere else, and I will occasionally spot a flicker of unexplained light or darkness in the periphery of my vision, but I attribute these to auras—a very scientific, logical explanation that comes with migraines. I know because I look it up. I have no hallucinations and I have no delusions, unless you count my growing suspicion that Luka Williams is keeping tabs on me.
    He doesn’t wait for me after class anymore, but when I go to the library during study hall, somehow, he’s there too. When I’m out in the hallway in the middle of class—whether to get a drink or use the restroom—so is he. One time I went to the nurse to lie down because my headache was particularly bad, and I heard his voice in the office, speaking with Mrs. Finch. It seems too much to be a coincidence, but too preposterous to be true, so I keep any and all speculations to myself.
    Besides the befuddlement that is Luka, I find it incredibly easy to slip into a routine. Mom and I find a local dojo and I advance to a bona fide black belt. We go to class on Saturday mornings and afterward, on the days I don’t join my father at work, I sit out on our deck with the pretense of reading, but really I watch Luka surf, admiring the effortless way he navigates the waves. Sometimes I explore the cliffs and the woods. Sometimes I take long strolls along the beach, examining shells and rocks along the