I didn’t grow potatoes or bean sprouts. I liked to grow flowers, vines, and the occasional deadly bush of hemlock. The words to tell her were on the tip of my tongue. I could lay it all out and maybe—just maybe—she would finally understand.
Gabby laughed. “If you can tear yourself away from your weeds—”
No. Nothing had changed. That’s exactly why we didn’t talk the way we used to.
“Have you talked to Marlon lately?” I asked.
“Yesterday,” said Gabby. “You?”
“It’s been a minute.”
Marlon moved to Staten Island with their grandma over spring break and we talked less and less. But with Gabby, our friendship had hit a rough patch that didn’t have anything to do with distance. It felt like the whole school year had been a countdown to the end of something. Like we were about to get off a roller coaster we’d been on since fifth grade when we’d met and become best friends. We damn sure weren’t best friends anymore and we were slowly becoming something that looked less like friendship and more like people who didn’t even halfway like each other.
I lay back on my pillow, watching the baby’s breath in the corner of the room expand and contract. For a minute, I tried to forget about my thumb and the water hemlock. I tried to pretend that what I could do hadn’t pushed its way into every corner of my life like an invasive weed. I wanted to get ahold of whatever this thing was, help my parents in the shop, and maybe have friends who understood me better. It didn’t feel like too much to ask.
“We could find something to get into,” I said, trying desperately to hold back a wave of sadness. “The library or the museum? Someplace quiet.”
“And without any plants,” Gabby added.
I sighed into the phone. That was a dig and she knew it.
“Yeah,” I said, feeling defeated. I moved on to something else. “Did I tell you our building got sold? Rent is going up for the shop and the apartment, again.”
“Damn. What are you gonna do?”
“I don’t know.” There were a lot of things up in the air and I was worried about what would happen if we couldn’t bring in some more money. Everything was a mess.
A voice came screeching through the phone. “Gabby! You didn’t take the chicken out the freezer?”
“Shit,” Gabby said. I knew that ring of terror in her voice. Her mom, Miss Lindy, didn’t play when it came to food. If she told Gabby to take out the chicken and she didn’t, it was gonna be a problem.
“You better get the hair dryer or something.”
“Mommy, I’m sorry! I’m taking it out right now!”
“I’ve been at work all day, and you couldn’t take out the chicken?” Miss Lindy said in the background.
“Gotta go, Briseis,” Gabby said, and hung up.
I lay across my bed, feeling the beat of my heart and listening to myself breathe. Maybe the poison hadn’t gotten into my cut; maybe it was such a small amount that I wasn’t affected. I looked at my thumb. The gash was oozing through the Band-Aid.
I thought back to when I met Gabby and Marlon. Our gym teacher, Mr. Cates, put us in the same group for relay races around the blacktop. We all pretended to be injured after the first lap and spent the rest of class sitting on a bench in the cool fall air, talking about our favorite movies and roasting Mr. Cates because he wore gym shorts that were way too small and his knees and elbows were forever ashy. The trees that crowded the gated outdoor area were leafless, preparing for the winter—all except the one we were closest to. It bloomed as we laughed together. Gabby was the first one to notice. She clapped her hand down on Marlon’s shoulder and pointed to the trees. Their eyes were wide and fearful. If they were scared of the trees, they’d be scared of me too. I knew right then I’d have to hide what I could do.
I hated it. I should have let it all go and made the trees green or made the grass grow and owned it. Maybe that would’ve been better than pretending. I wanted to know what it would be like to be myself, fully, right from the jump. No secrets, no hiding.
But it was too late for that. My friends were pulling away from me, my parents were worried about me, school was a mess,