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

I’m ordinary. Just plain old Alexis. Nothing to see here.

As I inspect myself, I notice a dark spot on my knee. At first, I think it’s a shadow, but I look up and there’s nothing between me and the sun. When I look back down, my breath catches because it’s spreading. It’s deepening. It goes from brownish to blue-black, with a green corona around the outside of it. I watch the bruise grow with increasing horror—and then I realize that my hands are tingling.

“Gah!” I clench my fists and try to stop, even though I don’t know what it is that I’m doing. It works, although I’m not sure if it’s my startled reaction or my attempt at control that does the trick. What the hell just happened?

What did I just do?

I peer over the edge of the reservoir and spot Roya. She lifts a hand to me, then heads toward the ladder from there and starts climbing. I can’t see her goose bumps from where I am, but her shoulders are hunched and she’s shivering a little. I aim a small thread of magic at her. It’s tiny enough that anyone looking could mistake it for a sunbeam, or a butterfly maybe, or a leaf on the wind. It reaches her and she looks up at me. She’s only halfway up the ladder, but because of my magic, she’s warm and dry. I give her a thumbs-up.

“Thanks for that,” she says when she’s up the ladder and back to me.

“Least I can do,” I answer, and she shrugs. “Hey, can you look at something for me?”

She lifts an eyebrow. “What’s up?” I point at my knee, which is mottled with purple and green bruising that wraps almost all the way around my leg. “Oh shit,” Roya breathes. She crouches to look closer. “What did you do?”

“I’m, uh. I’m not sure,” I say. It’s hard to come up with words when I can feel her breath on the soft skin at the inside of my leg. “It kind of just happened?”

She lets out a low whistle, then rubs her hands together fast to heat them. “This thing’s so ugly it’s almost pretty,” she says. She presses her palms to my leg, and immediately, a deep, bright heat spreads through the joint. My breath catches in my throat as her fingertips graze the hem of my shorts.

“Does it hurt?” she asks.

“Not too much.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” I swallow hard.

“How’s that?”

When she lifts her hands away, the bruise is gone.

“Thank you. You’re amazing,” I say, grinning up at her.

“Aw, shucks,” she says in a goofy voice, bracing her hands on her thighs to push herself upright.

“No, seriously. Thank you. For everything.” I say. “It’s … it means a lot to me that you’re helping with this.” I gesture at the water so she knows that I don’t just mean her help with my crazy, sudden bruise.

“That’s what friends do for each other,” she says. Something inside my stomach drops. Right. Friends.

“You’re a good friend,” I say, looking out over the water.

Roya doesn’t answer. We’re quiet for a while, and then, without either of us having to say we’re ready to go, we grab our stuff. Roya slides her shorts back on, jams her shirt into her bag. She eases into the driver’s seat, and it’s cooled down enough outside that she doesn’t turn the air-conditioning on. She doesn’t even start the car right away. She twists in her seat to look at me.

“You okay?” she asks.

I don’t answer immediately. I don’t want to lie to her. “I don’t know,” I finally say. She grabs my hand and gives it a squeeze.

“I don’t just mean since prom. I mean … are you okay?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I say, even though I do.

“It’s just not like you,” she says. “To go with somebody to their room at a party. You’ve never done that before, not even people you were in relationships with. You don’t have to tell me about it, but …”

I can’t look at her. I can’t. “I’m okay,” I say, and I squeeze her hand back so she knows I’m sorry for lying.

“Okay,” she says. “If you want to talk about it—”

“I’m okay,” I repeat, a little harder this time. A little louder.

“… Okay. Sure.” Roya turns the car on, and when I look up at her, her face is closed off. A muscle in her jaw is clenching and unclenching, a sure sign that she’s hurt and angry. Her eyes are shining, so I know she’s furious. Roya pretty much only cries when she’s mad.

She’s right to be mad at me. I’m mad at me too, and I don’t have nearly as much right to be mad as she does. Even if she doesn’t know why.

We’re both quiet on the drive to my house. When she drops me off, she gives me a big, tight hug. It’s the kind of hug that means she’ll forgive me once she’s done being mad. I inhale the mint-and-reservoir-water smell of her and hold my breath until she’s gone. Then I exhale. I breathe a little cloud of Roya out into my front yard. It’s not the same as having the real thing here, but it’ll have to do until tomorrow. When I get to see her again. I breathe in and try to taste the hint of mint left on the air. Until tomorrow.

I go inside to check on the heart. It’s no warmer than it was when I left for school—it’s no softer, no closer to normal. But it’s still a little bit warm, and it throbs in my hands once every few seconds, a slow spasm that ripples irrepressibly across the glassy surface.

The idea that’s been slowly taking shape inside my head solidifies. Roya just got rid of a piece of Josh’s body, but the heart isn’t any different. Something was different this time.

Something didn’t work.

9.

ON TUESDAY MORNING, DAD INSISTS on dropping Nico and me off at school.

“But it’s