“What’s going on?” I asked Quinton, but he didn’t answer, just kept on smiling that little smile he’d had all morning.
We passed a group of freshmen and one of the girls looked at me and said, “I liked you!”
“Huh?” I questioned, but she was already halfway down the hall. We reached my locker and there was no huge floral arrangement, no helium balloons. Quinton kissed me good-bye and I grabbed my books, utterly confused. As I walked toward my first class, Georgia came up to me.
“You saw, right?” she said cryptically.
“No. What’s going on?” I had a swell of both anxiety and irritation.
“Quinton created a fan page for you on Facebook.”
“WHAT?” I shrieked.
“A fan page—like you’re a fan of Zac Efron or a fan of the Jonas Brothers. Your page is Be a Fan of My Awesome Girlfriend, Willow Grey.”
All the blood in my body rushed into my face. I pulled out my cell phone and logged onto Facebook. Georgia grabbed my sleeve and pulled me into the bathroom to shield me from having a public meltdown. Immediately my screen filled with an image of my face, zoomed in close and red-eye reduced. Willow Grey is my girlfriend, the description of the group read. And she is a goddess of love. A brick landed in my stomach. She is beautiful and special and sexy and alluring. Oh my God. Those were my words. The words I had planted in his head! There were several more pictures—pictures I never even realized he had taken of me with his phone.
“Look, you have 247 fans already!” Georgia said.
“He called me a goddess of love!” I shrieked. “On the Internet! Where everyone in the world can see! Oh my God, this is humiliating. How could he not think this would be humiliating?”
“Maybe he thought you’d like the attention?” Georgia suggested.
I thought about all those times I stood behind the curtains and wished I could be front and center like Mom. When I hypnotized Quinton, I thought being pampered and showered with overt gestures of love would make me feel special. And at first, they did. But everything was escalating so fast, now it just felt out of control.
“I really like Quinton. He’s so nice, and come on, he’s so hot, but I just think there’s a basic problem in our relationship.” I wanted to tell her the problem was that my love spell was spinning out of control, but I couldn’t. So instead I said, “He lays it on really thick, and publically, too. Like the announcement and the love songs at the party? And the constant handholding and all the gifts? And now this. I know some people might really like that, the public displays of affection, but for me, well, sometimes it’s a little suffocating.”
Georgia’s eyes widened. “Are you saying you’re going to break up with Quinton?”
“I don’t know,” I said truthfully. “I don’t know what to do.”
In third-period English class, Georgia and I discussed the Facebook situation again. Mia walked over and sat down. She pulled out her notebook then leaned over toward our conversation. “I heard about the fan page,” she said.
“Ugh,” I grumbled.
“What?” Mia asked.
“Yeah, she’s pretty pissed about it,” Georgia said.
“Pissed?” Mia look confused. “Really? Why? He’s just trying to be romantic.”
I was tempted to tell Mia that this romance was one big fabrication that was spinning so outside the realms of my intention that it scared me. But I didn’t, because Quinton walked into the classroom.
He smiled a cocky grin in my direction that told me he was clueless as to my reaction. He came over to my desk. “Hey, gorgeous,” he said in that same lilting voice he used every time he was quoting my love spell back at me.
“Quinton,” I grunted through gritted teeth, “please do not post things about me—about us—online.”
“You don’t like the fan page?” he asked, clearly mystified.
The whole class was listening. I wished he’d lower his voice.
“No,” I whispered. “It’s totally humiliating. Totally embarrassing. I feel . . . violated.”
“I. Am. So. Sorry,” he gasped. His eyes were wide with concern. “I had no idea you’d feel humiliated. Embarrassed. Violated.” He spouted my words back to me. He pushed his shaggy hair out of his eyes. “I only did it to show the world how great you are. Because you are. Great.” He leaned his hands on my desk and angled himself toward me. “Please forgive me.”
The entire English class was holding their breath. Even Mrs. Stabile seemed curious, her pen suspended in midair, waiting, like everyone was waiting, for my answer.
I gave a small, quick smile. “Of course I’ll forgive you.” Because what other choice did I have? Everyone breathed a collective sigh.
Quinton smiled his gorgeous smile and retreated to his desk in the back of the room. As the class returned to normal, I held onto the sliver of hope that maybe this was all that was needed—a little upheaval. Maybe Quinton needed to hear me say what was too much to put a mental stop sign in front of the subconscious commands that drove his actions. And maybe it would bring us back to the way it was in the beginning, when things felt fizzy and full of potential.
On the drive home, Quinton apologized again and I told him it was fine, he didn’t need to rehash it. As long as he deleted the fan page we would never have to talk about it again. He was quiet, remorseful, for the remainder of the drive. And I thought maybe the subject was closed. But when we pulled up my driveway, a small smile crept across his face and I caught a glimpse of what looked like a purple velvet carpet on our front porch. I walked up the steps and saw purple petals artfully scattered across the porch spelling out SORRY.
“I had to call every florist in town,” Quinton said, “to get enough irises.”
I stared at the petal message. “When did you do this?” I reached up to pull the delicate chain away from my neck. The locket suddenly felt heavy, weighing down on my neck.
“I skipped calculus and physics.”
“You skipped calculus and physics?” He never skipped class. “What are you doing? You’re in the running for an academic scholarship. You’re already in hot water with football. You can’t throw away your academics, too, just to go pluck flower petals!”
“But they’re for you.” Just then, as if on cue, Quinton’s phone rang. He looked at the caller ID and saw it was Coach Hammond. He answered it and I could hear the yelling from the other end of the phone. “Yes, sir,” Quinton said. “I’ll be right there.” He clicked off his phone. He looked down at his watch. He shook his head and a look of concern crossed his face. “I’ve gotta go,” he said suddenly. “I’m late for practice.”
“Are you in trouble?”
“Maybe,” he said seriously. Then his face changed abruptly back to smitten. “But if I am, it’s totally worth it just to spend these few minutes with you. To repair whatever little problem we had today. Because I never want you to be mad at me. You’re so special to me. I can’t stop thinking about you.” He came over, took my face in his hands, and kissed me. It was perfect—just the right amount of passion and pressure. His hands were soft and strong. But here’s the problem: It didn’t feel amazing. Not this time. It didn’t even feel that good. It felt suffocating, like that damn necklace was pulling me down and his lips were blocking my air. Really, I just wanted him to leave.
Quinton finally pulled away and looked at me with deep, penetrating eyes. “It’s like someone carved out a section of my brain and planted you in there.” He laughed a little.
I forced a laugh, too, and waved my hand through the air, like, What a preposterous idea! Then that familiar lead brick landed smack in the pit of my gut once again.
23
By Wednesday afternoon, Max still hadn’t called me back. I saw him once on Tuesday afternoon. He was walking by himself down the hallway. I tried to smile at him and he didn’t frown or turn away; he just sort of looked sad and walked right past me.
I sat on the couch after school, trying to work on my English report, but coul
dn’t stop thinking about Quinton and the web I’d spun. I pushed my notebook aside and grabbed the laptop. I stared at the Google homepage, not sure exactly what even to search for. When hypnosis goes wrong . . . How to undo hypnosis . . . Finally, a link popped up that looked promising: How to remove a posthypnotic suggestion. I clicked on it. I skimmed through the text, getting fearful when it said that hypnotic suggestions could be lifelong if not undone. A flutter of panic swept through me, but then I read something else: Simply re-induct and de-suggest. In other words, if I could get Quinton back under hypnosis, I could influence his mind back to normal.
I put the laptop on the coffee table and picked up the phone.
He answered right away with a lift in his voice. “Hey special girlfriend.”
“Hi,” I said, staring at the instructions on the computer. “I was just thinking, it’s been over a month since I did the hypnosis for your sleepwalking and I think maybe it’s time for another session. A tuneup ! Really make sure you kick the habit.”
“Not necessary,” he chirped. “You did such a great job the first time around I haven’t had a problem since. I’m cured for life!”
Damn!
“And thanks,” he continued, “because I absolutely hated the idea of walking around doing absurd things I never would do otherwise.”
Guilt, guilt, guilt. “Okay.” I tried not to sound so deflated. “Well, I better get back to my homework.”
“Hey, I can come over and we can work together.”
“No! Um, no, thanks.” I softened my voice. I yanked the gold chain away from my neck. “Actually, um, Mia is coming over later,” I lied. “But I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Okay. Have fun with Mia. Miss you, my goddess.” He hung up.
I reached behind my neck and unclasped the gold chain and put it on the end table beside me. The words on the laptop screamed, Simply re-induct and de-suggest! Simple—not so much. I was about to start a new search when my cell phone buzzed that I had a text from Mia. Hey, can I come over? My stomach felt queasy, like maybe this mind control had gotten so out of control that all I had to do was mention something and it influenced the behavior of someone I’d hypnotized.
I texted Mia back. Sure.
Fifteen minutes later, Mia pulled up the driveway and came inside. “Are you working on your oral report?” she asked, seeing the computer in my lap. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“No, it’s a welcome interruption. Sit down.” I placed the laptop on the coffee table and clicked off my Google search about hypnosis gone wrong.
Mia sat down. “So the UGA coach contacted Coach Graham.”
“Did you get a scholarship?” I asked excitedly.
“Not yet.” Mia slumped onto the couch next to me. “She requested some video clips of me. I guess to show the athletic director and some other people.”
“Well, it’ll happen, I’m sure of it.”
“Coach Graham suggested that I really knock it out of the park next week at districts.”
“What do you mean?”
“She wants me to have a ‘Mia move’—my own signature move.” Mia inhaled sharply. “We decided I should do a triple flip backward in a tucked position.” She twirled her index finger in three loops in the air. Her eyes widened. “It’s the most difficult move in artistic tumbling. Here, let me show you.” She reached for my laptop and clicked through a few links and pulled up a video clip of a girl flipping through the air at a national cheerleading competition.
I thought about my hypnotic suggestions to Quinton—my simple intention to make him like me had spiraled into a borderline obsession. What if my hypnosis to erase Mia’s fears had turned her into a reckless daredevil? I shook my head. “No, sorry, I don’t think we should do any more hypnosis. Look at that Mia. That looks really dangerous. I bet that girl practiced for a really long time. You can’t just expect hypnosis to replace good training.”
“But I know I can do it!” she insisted, tucking her feet under her legs on the couch. “I’m just afraid, that’s all. I’ve been doing tumbling and gymnastics and cheerleading since I was four, and I know the mechanics of the move—I just need help with the . . . psychology of it. Please.” Her light green eyes pleaded. “Everyone is expecting something big from me. My coach, the college recruiters, the squad, my parents. Especially my parents. You don’t understand how disappointed my mom will be if I don’t get into her alma mater. And my dad? These last three competitions have been the most I’ve seen him in a year. I don’t want to go back to when he’s working all the time.” She looked so desperate, hanging on to that pointy apex of the pyramid with only her tiny, muscular arms. I never realized perfection came at such a price.
I looked back and forth from the computer to Mia. “Okay,” I relented. “But this is it. No more. I don’t want you to come over next week and beg me to help you do seven flips off the roof of your house or something.”
She bounced up off the couch and clamped her arms around me, surprising me with her strength. “You’re the best! The best!”
“Well, come on,” I said. “Let’s just go do it now.”
“Yay!” She got up and skipped toward my room. I followed her, but this time I wasn’t filled with the pleasure of being needed. Instead that heavy brick settled in my stomach with the fear that maybe I wasn’t being helpful at all.
But Mia was all smiles, planted on the beige carpet and leaning up against my bed. So I walked through the motions, putting her under quickly, influencing her mind not to be scared. Thirty minutes later, when we were through, we walked back into the family room and Mom was sitting on the couch, legs crossed, a very serious look on her face.
“Oh, um, hi Mom,” I stammered. “When did you get home?”
“A few minutes ago,” she said, eerily sitting there not doing anything. The TV was not turned on. She wasn’t snacking or holding her phone or even thumbing through a textbook. She was just sitting. And staring, listening to the tick tick tick of the second hand on the clock across the room. “Hi Mia,” she said.
“Hi Mrs. Grey!”
“Vicki,” Mom corrected.
“Right, Vicki. Good to see you, but I’ve got to get home, and Willow needs to get back to her English report.” Mia gave me a huge grin. “Thanks,” she said, and I saw Mom scrutinize our exchange.
I closed the door behind her quickly, before she said anything that would reveal our secret to Mom. I breezed through the family room, picking up my laptop in a flash, and scurried into my bedroom. Two minutes later, Mom peeked her head in. She still wasn’t smiling.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “What were you two doing?” It wasn’t a casual question. She was using a tone of voice I had only ever heard her use directed at old boyfriends.
“Nothing,” I said, my heart pumping faster. “Mia and I were just hanging out, talking about Quinton and her boyfriend, Jake. She thinks Jake’s not romantic enough, not like Quinton, who’s so mushy.” I clamped my mouth shut. Too many unnecessary details. I remembered reading that people who lie or are guilty of something often over-explain with too many details.
Mom narrowed her eyes at me, like maybe she’d read that too. “And why is Quinton so romantic?” she asked, and for a fraction of a second I thought maybe she was thinking about sex again. But then she squinted at me, leaned forward. “Did you hypnotize him to be that way?”
Oh crap.
“Are you using hypnosis to get a boyfriend? To get him to treat you the way you want to be treated? Because I overheard a few things from your room and I swore I heard the word hypnosis . . .”
My whole body felt hot, panicked. Caught. I forced shock. I bristled up. “What? Do you think that’s the only way I could get a guy to actually like me? By forcing it? Like I’m so undesirable that no guy would ever . . . just . . . like . . . me?” Without planning to, I suddenly was heaving with tears, gulping in air. “Just because I’m not as pretty as you . . .”
“Sshh! No, I’m so sorr
y.” Mom came over and tried to hug me, but I pushed her away. “Please,” Mom said, and she took my hand. “Of course you can get a boyfriend. I’m sorry to even suggest otherwise. I”—she bit her lip a little—“I don’t know . . . I feel this void with you lately. Like you’re hiding something from me,” she said, sounding a little desperate.
“What about you?” I turned it around. “Don’t blame the void on me. You’re all . . . serious and sneaky, like you’re the one hiding something. It’s different between us because you never have fun anymore.”
“I’m trying to be your mother and not just your friend, okay? I want to set a good example, Willow. I don’t want to be the irresponsible parent that can’t pay the bills and keeps you out late at night because we’re ‘having fun.’” She sat down on my desk chair and lowered her voice. “When Grandma called us in Vegas four months ago and told me that Grandpa had a stroke, she said she was afraid Grandpa was going to die and never see me make a decent life for myself. And for you.” She blinked her eyes, then smiled weakly. “So that’s what I’m trying to do, okay?”
“Okay,” I said softly.
“And I’m sorry.” She reached out and took my hand. “For accusing you of hypnotizing people.” She laughed a little. “I guess it’s just the more I learn about using hypnosis for long-term medical reasons, the more I get scared. It’s pretty intricate and amazing—the ability to influence someone’s mind and bend their will. I guess I’m just afraid I’m going to screw someone up!” She laughed and my heart plunged. “I didn’t mean to put that on you. It has nothing to do with you. It was all me and my fears.”
I gulped. Screw someone up?
“It’s okay,” I said, forgiving her for her accusation when in fact she was correct all along. She knew me so well.
“Want to go out and get some dinner?” Mom asked, sounding more like herself.
“Sure,” I said. “Sounds great.” But there was no way I could eat with the ten-ton brick of apprehension filling up my belly.
Crush Control Page 19