CHAPTER 50

CARMEN

“You can’t eat the soup,” I said to Steve.

“I don’t understand,” Mom commented in confusion, dropping the soup spoon in the bowl as she looked at me for an explanation. “What’s gotten into everybody?”

I looked around at everyone sitting at the table, and they were looking at me with the same confusion that my mother had on her face.

“Are you going to explain?” Steve demanded, now looking annoyed. I understood perfectly why he seemed completely done with everyone and their behaviours without giving an explanation.

I couldn’t open my mouth and blurt out that he was possibly being poisoned by my mother. I had no idea how he would take it, or how anybody else would. I decided in my head that I had to confront my mother about it before anything, but Steve couldn’t eat that soup.

I grabbed the bowl of soup from him with a tight-lipped smile as I said, “It wasn’t made properly. When my mom left me in the kitchen with it, I thought it needed a little bit of sugar, and I added some suga