Veracity: The Veracity Diaries

by E. M. Bernal

  VERACITY

  Diary 11

  I wiped the tears from my face to act normal in front of Unity once I decided to go into the house. But, the thoughts were still there lingering…Why did my life seem to be taking a turn for the worse? First Drexy attacks me, Robert lies to me, and apparently I’m also going crazy on top of all of that! Maybe I’m hallucinating. Is Ren just in my head? A fictious person I can only see and hear? I couldn’t stop crying. I’m seriously starting to think I have schizophrenia AGAIN. Maybe my mind is damaged from when I tried to commit suicide. Maybe it is still affecting me somehow.

  I decided to see if I could bypass Unity when I walked in, but she was coming down the stairs, which is directly in front of the entrance. My face was so puffy there was no way she was not going to notice, but I might get lucky if she’s in a neglectful mood and leave me alone.

  “Hey Honey, you’re back early, everything okay?” She said, standing right in front of me by the bottom of the stairwell with a concerned look.

  “Um, I just want to go to my room, okay?”

  “Veracity, what happen???” She insisted.

  I ran pass her to go up the stairs and slammed my door. Not two minutes had passed when she knocked softly to make an attempt to help. I was drowned in tears on my bed. “Mom, go away…” I said barely breathing. I clenched my pillow and my blankets hoping that she would.

  “Veracity, please let me in. I know I’m not the greatest mother, but I do love you and I’m worried.” She finally admitted. I debated on whether I should open the door to let her in. It wasn’t locked, but she still hadn’t tried to open it.

  “Now you care…” I said under my breath not budging.

  “Veracity, please…”

  “You haven’t been drinking have you?” I had to ask.

  “No City. I have stop drinking. I’m handling things better, I promise. And, I haven’t seen your father at all.” She said hoping that would build some trust.

  “What is this about? Did he hurt you on your date?” Unity kept trying to question.

  “Sort of.” I said but didn’t know how to explain what happened.

  “Well, why don’t you talk to me about it. Maybe we can solve it together.”

  “There’s no solving it Mom.” I was still hopeful she would go away.

  “Well, if you would just give me a chance…and let me in…” Unity pleaded.

  I wiped my face down and let her in. She sat on the corner of my bed as I laid back down on my side, not facing her. She put her hand on my leg, but the tears just kept falling down my face.

  “City, we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but I wanted to at least make sure you were okay.”

  “I just don’t get it mom. I just don’t get it.”

  “Get what City? You’re really confusing me. You’re crying like someone just died. Please tell me what’s going on.” Unity continued to plead.

  “That is the thing, I know someone who is dead. Either that, or I have schizophrenia.” I said sarcastically with a stuffy nose.

  “WHAT? Veracity, you’re not making any sense.” Unity got worried.

  “I’m scared to tell you.”

  “Why?” Unity clinched her eyebrows together to question.

  I think for the first time in a long time I saw her genuinely worried about me. I felt so lost but at the same time I also felt loved. It was a weird feeling. Her neglect and having a dad who hated me was very painful. I could never depend on her to care about me because she was always trying to chase Luke down somewhere. If she wasn’t doing that, she was crying and drinking somewhere in a corner. This very moment is the first real change I’ve seen in her besides the conversations we were having once in a while that were full of laughter. And, sometimes, I wondered if they were fake or going to last.

  “Okay, this is going to sound crazy.” I started to explain.

  I sat straight up in my bed to look at her but curled my knees in my arms still afraid. She nodded for me to continue.

  “I think I’m in love with someone.”

  Unity’s face changed to less concern while a sigh of relief expressed itself.

  “Oh honey. I figured one day that was coming.”

  “No mom, you don’t understand. I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t want you to think I’m crazy.” I kept trying to dry my tears.

  “But, I’m in love with a ghost.” I said that as quickly as possible.

  Unity had a blank face and somewhat froze.

  “What? Say that again? Is that a metaphor for something?” She asked.

  “No, a real ghost. Like a specter.” I tried to clarify with a serious tone. “I don’t know how, and I don’t know why I can see him. His name is Ren. He looks so real, like me and you. I met him a while back and then he disappeared for over 2 months. But that is when I thought he was human. Well, he’s back. Now, he appears and disappears in my life and sometimes out of nowhere. At first I couldn’t explain why it was so weird, but today we met up and he proved to me he really is a ghost. I saw it with my own eyes. Either that mom, or I have schizophrenia.” I rambled as fast as I could.

  Unity just stared at me with a straight face. I was scared to ask her what she was thinking.

  “Honey, are you sure this wasn’t a dream?”

  “No Mom! I am trying to explain that something is happening to me and I don’t know what.” I answered with my head in-between my arms and knees, not wanting to face her.

  “Has he ever tried to hurt you?” She seriously asked.

  “No. Not at all. I didn’t know he was a ghost at first but then he kept reappearing and disappearing. That was hard to explain. But, he asked me out and said he would explain what he was doing and why. I seriously thought he was going to tell me he was a magician. Or something like that. I don’t know! It’s just all fuzzy!”

  “OKAY…calm down.” Unity demanded as she got up from the bed. She started pacing, walking around the room. I bet she thinks I’m crazy for sure, but I didn’t know how to explain this to her without explaining it to her.

  “Honey, where did you meet this ghost?”

  “Mom, this is not a joke.”

  This conversation was insane, but I had was perfectly serious.

  “Honey, you don’t have schizophrenia, I promise.” Unity tried to assure me. “In fact, I have something to tell you. I should have told you a long time ago.” Unity said, looking away from me. I immediately wiped down my tears and kept listening.

  “Okay, what?” I asked.

  Unity stayed silent for another 5 seconds.

  “Well!” I asked impatiently.

  “You and I and everybody in our family from one of our blood lines through your grandmother has a gift. And one of those gifts is to be able to see and talk to the dead…And… we can also read minds and travel outside of our bodies.” Unity blurted all that out as quickly as possible, making her sound just as looney as me in one moment.

  “What the hell are you talking about? This is not a joke mom!”

  “Veracity…Listen” She scolded me for giving her attitude, so I took a deep breath and shut up.

  “Just listen.” She wanted to explain more.

  “Grandma Amelia and I didn’t know if you were going to get the gifts, so we wanted to wait before we said anything. And, we are still two years away. This isn’t normal. No one in our family has the gift until they turn 21, sometimes it takes even longer than that depending on their spiritual growth.”

  “NORMAL? How is any of this normal? Are you listening to yourself?”

  “Well, Mrs. Sarcastic, explain how you can see this ghost then?” She recanted.

  I stared to the left, staying silent. OMG, she was right. That shut me up. I got up from the bed because instead of me sounding crazy, I’m wondering if she was the one that’s crazy. Wait, maybe we were both crazy???

  “Are you saying I have physic powers?”
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  She kept pacing around the room using her arms trying to explain more to calm me down, but it all sounded too weird. I put the palms of my hands against my forehead as I sat back down, taking short breaths, leaning my elbow against my knee.

  “You can’t be serious???”

  “Well, we need to go to your grandma’s first thing in the morning. She can explain this better than I can.”

  “But, it’s a school night…”

  “I know but we need to figure what this ghost wants from you.”

  “His name is Ren mom.”

  Unity didn’t look happy that I was referring to him as a person.

  “Did he try to hurt you?”

  “No, mom, he just wants to date me.” I said with a notion of crazy.

  “What do you feel Veracity?”

  “I hate to say this, but the same. I feel connected to him for some reason.”

  Unity’s face went blank, as if she was worried about something she didn’t want to reveal. I felt so confused when I answered her question, but I definitely knew I had more feelings for Ren than I did for Robert. The only difference was Robert was human, and such a good guy too, why is this ghost winning? He’s not even real. And, I couldn’t imagine why my grandma had to get involved but I guess we can just keep adding on to crazy tonight because nothing else makes sense.

  Unity told me to get some rest, but my mind was racing worse than it was before. I laid down to look up at the ceiling. My mom closed my door and left.

  The moon came to greet me again, sending me some light. My tears finally stopped, and I could breathe again. I prayed not to have any dreams. I’m started to realize that if this is all true, why didn’t they want me to know? Curiosity became my worst enemy because I knew it wouldn’t let me sleep.

  What are these powers I have? How do I use them? Why do I have them? Many thoughts rambled on in my mind, but now I wanted schizophrenia to make more sense than anything else. I took a deep breath and finally drifted off into a deep sleep, after tossing and turning, but it felt good to black-out.

  ******

  It was almost a two-hour drive and I know that I’m in for another dramatic day. I’ve already been through a lot, but how can anyone really handle having magical powers? Humans normally don’t have to go through this, so how the hell am I supposed to?

  We finally arrived at Grandma Amelia’s house in the quite countryside. She was waiting on the porch. She looked good. Like Unity, and me. She was fit and looked young for her age. She has a very kind face with my eye color and perfect white flowing hair. Sometimes I thought I looked more like her than Luke or Unity.

  When she met us at the door, I smiled with happiness. It was really good to see her regardless of what was going on with me.

  “Hey grandma!”

  “How’s my little City?” Grandma Amelia said to greet me with open arms. It felt so good to hear her call my name.

  “Come give your grandmother a hug.”

  I walked in and I put down my red peacoat after our long embrace. I went straight to the kitchen so I could grab something to drink. My mom followed me in. My grandma and Unity gave each other a glance that they thought I couldn’t see.

  “Hey City, why don’t you have a seat in the kitchen. I’ll make some tea.” My grandma commanded with a smile.

  I was sitting at the table silently, waiting on them to tell me the truth about my mental condition.

  I never ever questioned my grandma, because unlike my mom, she was always emotionally stable. My grandpa died some years back but and they had a good relationship. They loved me dearly. She knew everything about me even though I didn’t say much. It was nice to know someone cared.

  Unity stayed standing against the counter crossing her arms as I faced my grandma across from the table.

  “So, your mother’s been telling me that you think you’re seeing ghost.” Grandma Amelia opened up the questioning. I made a big sigh, looked at the ceiling and closed my eyes because I really didn’t know how to explain how real this was for me.

  “NO, I know I am.” I answered.

  “I’m losing my mind grandma.”

  “You’re not losing your mind.” Grandma Amelia grabbed my hand and pulled it closer to her.

  “We have something to tell you. When you turn 21 you might develop powers.”

  “What do you mean powers?” I asked.

  “We have a gift honey. All of us do. All on my side of the family have psychic abilities. We can read minds, talk to the dead, and have out of body experiences.”

  “Can we touch ghost?” I asked. My grandma was confused by the question at first but answered me anyway.

  “Yes, but not for very long through the two dimensions. You can only touch long term if you travel outside of your body to cross worlds.”

  All of it sounded like one big joke, but I had to listen. I couldn’t explain how I could see Ren. I still looked at them as if they were both crazy. I couldn’t help it.

  “OK, what’s going on? Is this a joke?” I said wanting to cry again.

  My grandma Amelia looked at me as if I needed to take things seriously, but it was very hard to hear and understand.

  “You will be able to see and hear dead people. And…” Grandma tried to finish explaining but I interrupted. I got up from the chair and pulled back a little bit.

  “What the hell is everybody talking about? Is everybody going crazy here?”

  “Why do you think you can see this boy?” Grandma Amelia continued to probe.

  “I’m not 21 yet, so this doesn’t even make any sense.”

  “Yes, me and your grandmother are surprised about that. We don’t understand what’s going on. We might have to go to a higher source. There are people we know who might have some answers for us.” Unity stated to try to support the conversation.

  “Okay, Mom, is this what you call the Twilight Zone???” I said, crossing my arms, leaning against the kitchen wall.

  “Veracity, listen to us, this is not a joke.”

  “We hadn’t told you because we didn’t know if you were going to actually develop the powers or not. It does skip a generation sometimes.” Unity kept talking.

  “But your grandma got it, I got it, and now you have it.”

  “You can read minds?” I asked Grandma Amelia.

  “Yes. There are rules we all have to play by though.”

  “Okay, then read mine.” I demanded.

  “Well, there is a catch, we can’t read anyone under 21. We can’t use powers against each other either. Well, we can, but we are not supposed to. The spiritual world has physical laws. But, since yours is out of the ordinary, I may be able to.” Grandma Amelia explained.

  “Does Luke know about this?” I asked Unity sarcastically.

  “Yes, it’s one of the reasons we divorced.” Unity replied.

  “Tell her.” Grandma Amelia interrupted.

  “Tell me what??? What are you saying? That dad and you divorced because he didn’t like that you had psychic powers? Did he have psychic powers?” I was trying to break my confusion. Even though I didn’t believe anything that they were saying, I still was really curious about where this whole story was going.

  “Luke is an average human.” Unity answered.

  Average human? I repeated it four three in my head when she said that and mustered up a sarcastic look on my face.

  Grandma Amelia made a throat clearing sound.

  “You might as well tell her now. Now that she’s developed them early and it’s better that she hears it form you.” My grandma demanded to Unity in a soft tone.

  “What?” I asked lost.

  “Luke is not your real father Veracity.” Unity said.

  What THE…???

  “VERACITY!”

  I stopped before I cursed.

  “I’m sorry my love. My grandma intervened. I wanted to tell you, but it wasn’t my place.” Grandma Amelia got up from her chair to hug me, but I didn’t want to be touched.

>   They both knew this whole time.

  “Why did you keep that a secret!” I stepped away from both of them, waiting on that answer angrily. But, right then, I realized how upset I was and decided to sit back down. Deep down inside I was nowhere near OKAY.

  “I’m sorry. I was messed up and I didn’t want you to know your father died and Luke convinced me to tell you, you were his.” Unity tried to justify the lie.

  “Somehow I don’t believe you’re sorry. You do whatever Luke wants. You always have.” I was so mad. I couldn’t yell… but the anger kept coming.

  “How did my dad die?” The shock of all this was killing me inside but I wanted to know.

  “In a car accident when I was pregnant with you.” Unity answered.

  “Some dad you picked to make up for that. Luke hates me mom. And, now I know why.” I spoke but didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

  “Veracity, listen, you may have developed something that we’re not familiar with. And, I need to know how to handle this.” My grandma tried to change to subject.

  “What do you and this ghost talk about Veracity?” Grandma Amelia started to probe.