All Chapters of The Gift that Killed Me: Chapter 1 - Chapter 7

I stared numbly at the birthday spread: ginger-glazed pork loin, ginger-roasted duck, ginger scalloped potatoes... even the dessert was ginger panna cotta.Except for the potatoes, where the ginger lay in visible strips, everything had been minced so fine there was no way to pick it out.I suddenly remembered my mother asking gently what I wanted for my eighteenth birthday.I'd thought it was a rare moment of warmth after my parents' divorce.I'd repeated the same request more than once. "Anything's fine, as long as there's no ginger. I'm allergic to it."It never occurred to me that this was another obedience test.Looking at the meal she'd prepared so carefully, I couldn't summon a trace of appetite.The smell of ginger flooded my nose. Nausea surged up my throat, and I bolted for the bathroom and threw up.My mother stormed in after me, grabbed a fistful of my hair, and hauled me upright."Who gave you permission to throw up? I paid for every bite of that and spent hours co

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. A mother was ordering her own child onto the floor to apologize to the boy who tormented him.But I had nothing left for anger. The reaction was accelerating.The pain in my gut sharpened, the welts burned and itched, and I couldn't pull in a full breath.I was gasping when I begged her."Give me the injector. I feel so bad..."She still didn't believe the allergy was real. She waved the auto-injector in front of my face and smiled, cold."Still acting? Let's see how long you can keep this up."On your knees. A real man owns what he's done. Get down there and apologize to Tyler and I'll give you the medicine."I knew what this was. Making me apologize to my bully was about breaking something inside me.I was too weak to fight it. She bore down on my shoulders, and I was seconds from kneeling in front of my entire class.Then a gentle voice cut in."Mrs. Merrick, what you're doing is wrong."I turned and saw Jenna Holloway, our class pr

My mother opened the door and rolled her eyes."You've got the wrong address. Nobody here called 911, and nobody's having an allergic reaction."The paramedic, a broad-shouldered man whose name tape read Okonkwo, checked his dispatch screen and frowned."Isn't there a Lucas at this address? He called it in himself. Severe ginger allergy."Her face changed."People really are allergic to ginger? My son ate it and he's fine."He's got a cold, that's all. He's on the floor sleeping it off right now."The paramedic stepped inside, caught the concentration of ginger in the air, and his frown deepened."What in God's name. How much of it did you expose him to? At this concentration you could kill somebody with a serious allergy."My mother glanced toward my body and raised her voice to cover herself."I only bought half a ton. I made a little spray out of it. How was I supposed to know it was real?"Floating behind her, I saw a lost look on her face for the first time in my life.

I was so thrilled I spent the next few minutes drifting through walls just because I could.By the time I settled down, the classmates had recorded their apologies and gone, and my mother had made every one of them delete the pictures off their phones.That night she sat down at the computer with a strange smile on her face."Sweetheart, I'm not letting them off that easy. Everyone who hurt you is going to pay for it."The longer I stayed a ghost, the more my human feelings and knowledge drained away.I'd been dead five hours and I already couldn't quite follow what she was doing.Over the next few days she came apart.She kept saying my name into empty rooms. At first I wondered if she could see me, and then I understood that her mind was breaking.She wouldn't let anyone bury me. Every day she washed me, dressed me, and read me bedtime stories like I was still here.On the third day, out of nowhere, she cooked a whole table of my favorite food.She seemed to have forgotten