The Psychic Next Door

Chapter 20: Trust

Polly yelped as I burst out of Luc's room, and we spun to face each other. For a moment, all we could do was stare at each other like a pair of startled deer.

Her expression was tense and mirrored my own... Guilt, like a child who was caught doing something they knew was wrong. Then I noticed that Polly was hunched over an open kitchen drawer, her hands frozen in their busy work.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Nothing!" But Polly averted her eyes and moved her hands behind her back. "What are you doing? I thought you were going to talk with Luc."

"I..." The movement of his lips flashed through my mind, but he wasn't forming words. "I-I did."

"Well, that didn't take long," Polly muttered, and her brow began to knot up as she inspected my face.

Can she tell? whispered a paranoid voice in my head. Again, the memory of only a moment ago flashed up... The heat of his arms wrapped around me, my hands tangled in his hair... Even though I knew she was just trying to distract from what she had been caught doing, it worked anyway. My cheeks burned, and my brain seemed to short out. "I , uh... I... I wanted to come... and tell... tell you right away," I lied pathetically.

Polly began to approach me slowly, eyeing me with suspicion. "You okay? You seem... worked up. He didn't try anything, did he? If he hurt you, I swear—"

Still unable to form the necessary words, I just shook my head.

Polly didn't look convinced. "Then what is wrong?"

"He... Luc... L-Luc told me why the Beast..." As I thought of it, I could hear the sound of its claws clicking on the floor as it followed me on the other side of the wall. "He told me why it's after me."

"Really?" The lines in Polly's forehead suddenly eased away as she quickly crossed the distance between us. "Holy shit! What'd he say?"

"He t-told me that it's actually his curse that got passed onto me."

A flame lit behind Polly's eyes, and her face turned so red that it made her hair look pale. I knew immediately I hadn't worded that right.

"No, wait—"

"He admitted it?" she hissed. "That he cursed you?"

"No! I meant, it's his curse, but he passed it on to me... B-But! But he didn't mean to! It wasn't... It wasn't something he could control."

Polly narrowed her eyes. "What does that change?"

"You're not listening! It was his curse, not him."

"No, you're not listening to the words coming out of your own damn mouth! It's his curse. Even if he didn't 'mean' it, it's still his fault."

My words hitched in my throat, and I was forced to pause. When it was phrased like that it sounded damning, but I knew that wasn't true. It couldn't be.

"No... no, you're wrong. He tried to stop it." There was an achy pang in my chest as the truth set in. Luc had lied to try to change my future, lead the Beast away... "He tried to protect me."

She looked at me for a long moment. "You've got to be kidding."

"He did."

"Right," Polly said, rolling her eyes. "And just why did this curse befall you? Did he have some slick explanation for that?"

I felt my own brow fold in as I nodded. "When he read my fortune the day I moved in... it wasn't true. He was lying. He told me that I was destined to be alone because he didn't want to tell me the truth... that... t-that..." It was a struggle to find a way to phrase the awkward truth. I didn't want to say the words—well, just that one word, really—aloud. Even thinking about it made the heat in my face intensify.