When We Were Magic by Sarah Gailey (novels to read txt) 📗

closer to the voices, rather than farther from them. I duck behind a shower curtain and whip it closed just as the sound of shower shoes slapping wetly on the floor reaches me.

“She won’t tell me,” the first voice answers, and I realize who it is I’m hearing.

Roya.

The footsteps stop just outside of my shower stall, and a locker swings open. The voice that answers Roya is unmistakable, now that it’s close enough not to echo off the metal lockers. It’s Iris. “Well, maybe if you didn’t—”

Oh, thank god, I think, and I open the shower curtain again. Iris and Roya are right there, and they freeze at the sight of me. “You guys scared the shit out of me,” I say.

They don’t answer. They’re staring at me. Iris is clutching the top of her towel, and Roya has frozen halfway through drying her mass of hair.

“What the hell,” Iris breathes, and I realize what I must look like—hair in a half-fallen-out topknot, dirt caked into my every pore, shirtless, my bra hanging halfway off. I’m not sure if I look better or worse than I did on prom night. At least I’m not covered in blood this time.

“Um,” I say.

“Holy shit, Alexis,” Roya says, and then she starts cackling at me, a desperate kind of “oh thank god I can still find things funny” laugh. “It’s only been like … an hour and a half. What happened to you?” Roya gasps.

“Lots,” I snap. “Lots of stuff happened to me.” I pull the shower curtain closed and strip, throwing my filthy clothes out past the vinyl. Every item I toss elicits a new round of laughter from Roya—I can hear Iris joining in, less enthusiastically, but she’s laughing all the same. “It’s been a long morning,” I say, turning on the water and tipping my head back to shake the dirt out of my hair.

I do not think of the fact that I am in here, naked, and Roya is out there, wearing only a towel. I do not think about it, okay? Not at all. Not even a little.

“Do you need soap?” Roya asks. Before I can answer, her hand thrusts through a gap in the shower curtain, holding a bottle of the mint body wash she loves. Her wrist brushes my stomach as she waves the bottle back and forth. I can’t breathe.

“Yes, thanks,” I say, grabbing the bottle in a wet hand. Our fingers tangle for a moment before she lets go of the bottle.

I shove my face into the spray. She’s my best friend. I don’t think about it.

“What are you guys doing here so early?” I call. “I thought you’d go back to bed.”

“Practice,” Iris answers, and that’s all she needs to say. They must have come straight here from Marcelina’s house. There’s a big meet coming up, but “practice” would have been the answer even if there hadn’t been a single meet on the calendar. With his two best swimmers about to leave, the swim coach has been driving the team hard all year. If I breathe deep enough, I can smell the chlorine still clinging to Roya’s hair and skin.

And Iris. It’s also clinging to Iris. Not just Roya. Not just Roya’s skin.

I lather, rinse, and inspect. Still dirty, although the first round got most of the loose dirt off.

“Hey, do you want me to do your hair?” Roya calls. I start soaping up again, trying to get some of the more stubborn dirt off my hands and arms.

“Why?” I ask as I rinse.

“So you don’t have to wash it,” she says. “I should be able to get the dirt out without getting it wet.”

“Too late,” I reply, turning off the water and wringing out my hair, and I hear her mutter an I told you so to Iris. “Um, speaking of which,” I add, but before I can finish, Roya’s arm thrusts back into the shower, this time clutching an only-slightly-damp towel. “Thanks,” I say sheepishly. After I take the towel, her arm hesitates for a moment.

I stare at the soft inside of her wrist. It’s a lighter shade than the deep brown-gold of the rest of her, but still dark enough that my fingertips look ghostly against the backdrop of her skin. A bangle, gold with dark green stones, hangs just above the jut of bone at the base of her hand. It’s the bangle I gave her for her birthday last year.

Her fingers flex. I don’t know what she’s waiting for. Slowly, slowly, I reach out and brush my fingers across her palm.

A soap bubble drifts by. I snatch my hand back, my cheeks and throat and chest all burning. What was I thinking? The soap. Of course she’s waiting for the soap. I grab it and fumble it into her hand, then towel myself off roughly. My breath comes fast and shallow, and I want to smack my head into the wall until the embarrassment fades.

Maybe she didn’t notice. Maybe she thought it was the towel or my hair or something, anything but my fingertips.

“See you at lunch?” Iris calls, and I can hear them zipping up backpacks. “There’s some stuff I wanna run by you.”

“Yeah, sure, perfect!” I call, my voice too bright and brassy.

“Bye,” Roya says, and I know it’s just in my head, but there’s a softness to her voice. A waiting-ness. I know it’s all in my imagination, but it feels like she’s saying something more than just “bye.” It feels like years of longing are contained in those three letters.

I shove my face into the towel and hold back a scream of frustration. Years of longing in three letters? God, I’m pathetic. She was just saying “bye.” Normal people say “bye” to each other all the time.

I don’t come out of the shower until long after their footfalls fade from my hearing. I throw my filthy clothes into the trash on my way out the door, because I can’t bear the thought of carrying