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

“It was worth it,” Roya says. “I’m never going to have another prom night, Mom. I wanted to be with my friends. I would do it again.”

There’s a long silence, and I turn the volume on my phone all the way up, thinking that maybe Roya’s covered the mouthpiece of the phone by accident. It turns out to just be a pause in the conversation. Her mom’s answer comes through at top volume, and we don’t miss a single word.

“Do you know what happened to Josh Harper?”

We all wait, holding our collective breath. Marcelina snaps the hair tie around her wrist in a quick, steady rhythm.

“No,” Roya answers simply, and we can hear her mom’s sigh.

“Okay,” Chief Cassas says. “Okay. We’ll talk about the rest of it tonight, then.”

“Fine,” Roya says. “Am I grounded, though? I was going to go to the reservoir with Alexis this afternoon and …” Her voice has gone vague, uncomfortable. There’s a sudden cacophony of rustling, like she’s shoved both hands into her pocket and is fumbling with the phone. We don’t hear the rest of her question or her mom’s answer, and then the line goes dead, and the bell rings.

None of us move. All around us, people stand up, clearing their tables and dropping trash into the row of huge gray garbage cans in the middle of the cafeteria.

“Okay,” I say. “Well. See you guys later?”

“Yeah,” Paulie says. She’s the first to go. She plants a kiss on top of my head, then walks away without saying goodbye.

“Don’t worry,” Marcelina says, running both hands through her hair before starting to put it up in a messy bun. “Roya and Iris are solid. They’ll be fine.”

I stay at the table as they all leave, knowing that I’ll be late for study hall but not caring. I stare at the ten black hearts on the backs of my nails and imagine all of my friends, one by one, lying about whether or not they know what happened to Josh.

If Marcelina’s wrong, and they’re not fine, it will be because of those lies. It will be because they lied to protect me. If they’re not fine, it’ll be all my fault. But I’m too scared to do the right thing and turn myself in, or at least tell them they don’t have to lie.

My friends love me more than I deserve. That’s never been a question. The question is, how long will it take them to realize that?

8.

WHEN I GET TO THE parking lot at the end of the day, Roya isn’t there yet, so I walk up and down the rows of parking spaces looking for her car. My phone is buzzing in my pocket, but I don’t pull it out, because I know what the notifications will be.

Did you hear about Josh?

Do you know what happened?

Did they call you in for questioning?

I heard he ran away from home.

I heard he got kidnapped.

I heard he died.

It’s all anyone can talk about. Josh is missing, and the cops are asking students about it, and nobody seems to know what happened. That gray-haired cop let Iris go after a few questions about the party, but that wasn’t the last time I saw the cop—she’s been pulling kids out of classes all day. Everyone is trying to figure out who was at the party, who saw Josh leave, who he was with. Everyone is trying to figure out if they should be sad or scared, or if they should admit that they didn’t really know him that well, or if it even matters that they didn’t know him. Because if one of your classmates vanishes, even if you never talked to him before, it still hits you. We all know that we can disappear, even if we don’t really feel it in our bones yet. We’ve spent our whole lives being reminded that we can disappear, from don’t-talk-to-strangers to don’t-drive-drunk. But it’s hitting a lot of people now for the first time that other people can disappear. That people they care about can disappear.

That they might be the ones left behind with their grief and uncertainty and no idea where to start looking for the person they lost.

I find Roya’s car and lean against the hood. Roya drives a mint-green Subaru that she named Nathan after the guy who owned it before it was impounded and sold at police auction. It’s a good car for driving around in late at night with the windows down, listening to the wind and the crickets.

Last summer, right after she got the car, we all crammed our stuff in there and went on a camping trip a few hours away. I forgot my sleeping bag, so I slept in the backseat with the moonroof open. I woke up covered in dew, only to find Roya curled up in the passenger seat. She opened her eyes and looked right at me and smiled. When I asked what she was doing in the car, she said she hadn’t wanted me to be alone all night. She reached out a finger and tapped my nose, and my entire body felt warm, and then the dew was gone and she winked at me and left to wake up everyone else. I sat there in the backseat feeling the afterglow of the warmth she gave me. I watched her cross the campground, banging a spoon against a pot, and I felt like no one in the entire world had ever felt as happy as I did right then.

It’s a good car.

I nearly jump out of my skin when the car alarm starts going off. I leap away from the hood, looking around frantically as the horn honks an irregular STOP-THIEF rhythm. There’s a beep, and the honking stops, and I turn to see Roya doubled over with laughter. She’s got her hands braced on her thighs, and her hair falls in a thick black curtain around her face. When she