Excerpt: Playing With Fate

Refusing to leave the confinement of my room, I began searching the Internet for any medical cases with similar symptoms. Since I was unable to peg down a name for my bizarre condition, all I was able to discover were lists of remedies and products for clearer skin.
“I have to figure this out,” I kept murmuring to myself after each failed Google search. Opening one of the spiral notebooks on my desk, I flipped to a blank page and began scrawling down my symptoms.
Glowing skin, disappearing bruises (that may have appeared on mother), brighter teeth, possibly able to move objects (like rocks) with mind…
I crossed out the last one. That was ridiculous. Telekinesis wasn’t real. And even if it were, I had nowhere near the mental capacity to pull it off.
But I still couldn’t shake the feeling that there had been a rock on the sidewalk that day, and I had willed it away with my mind.
Tapping the pen on the notepad impatiently, a thought occurred to me. I sprung out of my seat and threw the notebook on the ground.
Could I make it move?
I concentrated with all my might on the pad of paper, thinking, move, move! But nothing happened. The notebook didn’t move an inch.
Scrunching up my entire face, I squeezed my eyes shut. Come on, you stupid notebook, MOVE! Prove to me I’m not crazy. Well, if I can move objects with my mind, that opens up a whole hallway of doors in the crazy department.
I opened my eyes slightly, peeking at the notebook, which remained stationary where I had placed it.
“Maybe it has to be a rock,” I said, thinking out loud. What a peculiar power that would be, the ability to move rocks.
Wait, power? Had I just called my bizarre condition a superpower? Those definitely didn’t exist.
I could barely believe myself as I bolted down the stairs and out the front door to search for a rock to move with my brain. Thanks to my father’s obsessive-compulsive tendencies, I had to go traipsing through the hedgerow to find a rock. I stepped into the brambles, praying I wasn’t invading any snakes’ homes.
“Ouch!” I cried as some dead tree branches tangled with my hair, pulling it. “Jesus, I just want a rock!”
“Hello?”
My head snapped up. Our elderly neighbor, Mr. Crowe, had paused in the middle of shoveling snow and was staring at me like I had escaped from a mental hospital. I figured I must look pretty strange rummaging around in the snow-covered hedges with my shoes half on and no coat.
“Hi, Mr. Crowe,” I called weakly. “How are you?”
I could see by the look on his face that the wrong person was asking that question. “Are you okay, Kaidence?”
I sighed. “Yes, Mr. Crowe.”
“Are you sure? Do you need help finding something?”
“No, Mr. Crowe. I’m fine.”
I glanced back down at the ground and snatched up the first stone my eyes fell on. Then I leapt out of the hedge, calling, “See you later, Mr. Crowe!” before he could doubt my sanity any further.
Back in my room, shivering from the cold, I kicked the spiral notebook aside and placed the large rock in its place. I sat in the chair across from it and let my eyelids fall shut.
Move. Please, rock, move. Twitch, fall over…anything.
But when I opened my eyes, nothing happened.
I was beginning to get frustrated, more with myself than the inert rock. Why was I being so stupid? Objects don’t just move because someone wills them to.
More to make the rock relocate than anything, I seized it off the ground and threw it away from me. What I didn’t count on was the rock sailing through the air and planting itself three inches into my wall.
I spent about fifteen seconds gaping at the sight in total shock. Then an “oh, shit!” escaped my mouth and panic mode set in.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” I cried as I wrenched the heavy stone from the wall, leaving behind a hole the size of a softball. There was no way to hide this; my parents were going to see it eventually, and “I was frustrated because I couldn’t telekinetically move the rock” wasn’t going to fly.
They are going to kill me. Dead. I’ll never see the light of day again. I’ll be locked in my room with bars and wooden boards and concrete over my windows and will only be allowed out to use the bathroom. Or maybe they’ll just put a pot in the corner and tell me to go to town.
I began to pace around the room, still holding the smoking gun, and tried to figure out what to do. I had no carpentry experience whatsoever, so fixing the wall myself was out. I supposed I could just hang a poster over it and tell my parents I was redecorating, but who puts a picture six inches from the floor?
I tried to use another method to calm myself down. “That didn’t just happen. It didn’t. There’s no way that could have happened because I’m not irresponsible. I would never throw a rock at my wall. It didn’t happen.”
And when I turned around to pace the other way, I realized I was right.