When We Were Magic

by Sarah Gailey

  I shake my head. “It’ll make her feel ganged-up-on. When she asks for space, she really needs it, you know?”

  “I know,” he says, nodding. “I’ll just poke my head in to make sure she’s in one piece and then I’ll leave her be. I promise.”

  He walks back toward the house with his hands deep in his pockets. He’s a good guy. He’s trying to do the right thing. I wish I could convince him not to check on Marcelina, but at the same time, I’m really happy that he’s going to check on her. Because maybe she needs checking on. Maybe she needs someone making sure she’s in one piece. I think I’d notice if she was feeling bad enough to need checking on, but then, there are lots of things I don’t notice.

  I’m glad Trev is here for her, is all. I’m glad that Marcelina isn’t going to be alone-alone. I look around me at the green grass and feel a pang of something like emptiness, and even though I know I’m not alone-alone, I feel lonely. I pull out my phone and text Roya.

  Hey.

  She texts back so quickly that I wonder if we hit send at the same time. Wyd?

  Getting slobbered on by Handsome and Fritz.

  She responds with her favorite picture of Fritz, from his birthday party a year and a half ago. We’d filled a cupcake wrapper with peanut butter, and his snout was covered in it. Roya caught a photo of him in the exact moment that he was trying to lick his own eyebrow. It’s a picture with a lot of tongue. She captions it Tell him I said he’s a good boy.

  So I do. I poke at the embers in the fire pit with a stick, and I tell Fritz he’s a good boy, and I wait for Marcelina to come outside into the gray world.

  19.

  WHEN I WAKE UP ON Monday morning, there’s a text from Roya waiting for me. My heart stutters, then rights itself when I see that it’s just a message on the group text. I squint blearily at the screen. When I see what she’s written, my stomach drops.

  Senior wing girls’ room 1st period 911

  It’s the “911” that does it. That’s a summons that means exactly what it implies: Emergency. Come right away. No questions, no arguments: I need you.

  There’s a long line of thumbs-up emojis from everyone else on the chat. It’s the only acceptable response. I send one too, then put my phone down and stay in bed, listening to the sounds of the house and trying hard not to worry. Water is running in the bathroom—Nico’s morning shower, which will last for about thirty minutes or until Dad pounds on the door to tell him to leave some hot water for the rest of us. Dad and Pop are murmuring to each other in the kitchen. I strain to hear what they’re saying, a habit from when I was little and would try to overhear them talking about me. I wonder if they’re talking about me now. About what they know, and what might need to be done about me.

  I wonder if I was wrong to show them.

  My alarm goes off again. I turn it off and stay under the covers. It feels like maybe if I lie still enough, everything will freeze around me and I won’t have to face the day. I won’t have to find out what the 911 is about, what today’s disaster is going to be. I won’t have to watch that gray-haired cop pulling people out of classrooms. I won’t have to eat, won’t have to have conversations, won’t have to breathe.

  But then I hear Dad’s footsteps down the hall, his knuckles on the door to the bathroom. A few seconds later, they’re tapping on the wall outside of my room.

  “Hey, bug, time to wake up,” he says to the door.

  “I’m awake,” I say, and the spell is broken. I can’t stay in bed, and I know it. I become aware of the bad taste in my mouth and the way the covers are a little too warm.

  Something bad is happening. I can feel it. I wonder if someone else lost something big, if something else is broken beyond repair, if something else is going horribly, horribly wrong.

  The day is waiting. The 911 is waiting. The gray-haired cop is waiting. The worry is waiting.

  And I have to face it all.

  * * *

  Maryam and I are the last ones to arrive at the restroom during first period. It’s not that we have trouble getting hall passes—it’s just that it’s nearly impossible to make Mr. Wyatt look up from the earnest “Are you interested in dating a high-strung calculus teacher with a penchant for lavender ties?” profile he’s in the middle of composing. He doesn’t seem to notice that we’re standing next to him until there’s a knock on the door of the classroom. It’s a freshman from the administrative office with a note for Mr. Wyatt—a summons for Angela Trinh.

  Here is what I know about Angela: Her twin brother is on the lacrosse team. She does badly on quizzes but never seems stressed about her grades. She wants to be a singer. That’s about it. Sometimes I wonder how it’s possible, in a town as small as mine, that I don’t know more about all of my classmates—but then, I’ve never really needed to learn more about them. I’ve always had my friends, and they’ve always been all I need. And by the time I started to really feel bad for not making more of an effort to get to know everyone, it was already senior year, and it felt like a waste.

  Angela leaves slowly. Her eyes fill with tears as she picks up her bag. She could have been called to the principal’s office for anything, but everyone in the classroom is thinking the same thing as she hesitates with her hand on the doorknob: she is going to be questioned about Josh.

  Josh, who has been missing for over a week now. Josh, who still hasn’t been found.

  We trail Angela and the office messenger down the hall, walking a little slower with every step until we’re far enough behind them to duck out of sight. We scoot behind some lockers and wait until we can’t hear their footfalls. Until we can’t hear Angela sniffling anymore. Maryam’s face is calm, but she twists the hem of her shirt between her fingers.

  “You okay?” I whisper.

  “Yeah,” she says. “Just worried about Roya. And everything.”

  “You don’t have to come to this. It’s probably about the thing, and the less you know, the less involved you are.”

  Maryam looks at me like I’ve slapped her hard across the cheek. “Of course I’m coming. It’s a 911, Alexis. I’m not ignoring that.”

  “Okay, okay,” I say. “Sorry.”

  She shakes her head. “I’m still here, you know,” she murmurs. “Just because I couldn’t—”

  “I know,” I interrupt desperately. “I know, I’m sorry, I know. I didn’t mean it that way.”

  She lifts her chin. “Stop apologizing,” she says. “Let’s go.”

  When we walk into the restroom, Roya steps past me and locks the door. I raise my eyebrows as Marcelina checks all the stalls for occupants. “What’s the big emergency?” I ask.

  Roya leans against the sink with her arms crossed. She’s wearing a flannel over ripped-up shorts today, and I have to work hard not to stare at the lines of muscle in her thighs. She’s not looking at Paulie, and I can’t figure out if she’s just not looking at Paulie or if she’s specifically not looking at Paulie. There’s a major vibe. I try to catch Paulie’s eye, but she’s busy adjusting something in the back of her high-waisted skirt. Paulie is all business today: chignon, pressed blouse, a pen on a necklace. I try to parse what message today’s fashion is sending, because there’s always a message with Paulie. But my head is swimming, and I just can’t. I can’t decode my friends today.

  “We have a problem,” Roya says. Her voice is low, strained. She takes out her phone and pulls up a photoset. “Look.”

  She passes the phone around, and I watch as one by one, my friends see whatever it is that made Roya lock that door. Marcelina makes a noise low in her throat. Iris sways on her feet. I peer over Maryam’s shoulder when the phone gets to her. Wordlessly, she hands it to me, and I am the last to see.

  At first, I’m not sure what I’m looking at. They’re pictures of photos. Photos of dry grass, little yellow plastic triangles, grid markers and rulers. A plastic bag with … something in it. Something that my brain can’t resolve into a thing. It looks like a ham covered in jelly, or maybe the br
oken end of a baseball bat with paint on it. Or … no, none of that is right. I squint, and then, finally, the red pulp in the picture resolves itself into a recognizable shape.

  It’s an arm.

  It’s a half-eaten arm.

  I drop the phone. It clatters across the tile and comes to a rest against the base of the already-full trash can. Roya stoops to pick it up and checks it for cracks before tucking it back into her pocket. “So,” she says.

  “What the fuck, what the fuck? What the fuck?” My hands are shaking. My whole body is shaking. Maryam wraps an arm around me and takes a few deep breaths, trying to make me match her rhythm so I’ll calm down. Another trick Iris has taught us over the years. I struggle to breathe with her. My throat feels too narrow to admit all that air.

  “They found it last night,” Roya says. I look up at her and realize that she has the wide-eyed stare of someone who hasn’t slept. Her hair is in a tangled bun, and the outline of yesterday’s headband is still creased across the top of her head. I was so busy staring at her legs that I didn’t even notice how exhausted she is.

  I feel like an asshole. What kind of friend am I, to miss that kind of thing?

  “I overheard my mom talking to my dad about it after she got home,” Roya continues. Now that I’ve noticed how tired she is, I can hear the fatigue in her voice, too. “They got a call from someone who thought they’d found a body, but it turned out that it was just the arm. I guess it was chewed up by something. They matched a birthmark to a picture of Josh. I don’t know about, you know. DNA or whatever. But there’s going to be a search party. They’re canceling classes tomorrow. You’ll hear about it in fourth period.”

  The rest of the girls immediately start talking over one another, talking about the search party. About where it will be and what the searchers might find, and whether we should go. While they argue, I try to remember a birthmark. I didn’t notice it. I was going to sleep with that boy, and I didn’t even know about his birthmark. I fed his arm to a coyote, and not once did I look closely enough at it to see the damned birthmark. I swear, every time I think I couldn’t possibly have screwed this up worse, I discover some new way that I’m a disaster.

  “It’s my fault,” Paulie whispers. “I’m sorry.”

  “It doesn’t matter whose fault it is,” Roya snaps, making Paulie flinch. “We just need to fix it. What are we going to do?”

  Someone tries to pull open the door to the restroom, then pounds on the metal when they realize that it’s locked. Maryam shoots out a hand and, faster than gasping, the light of her soft, suffuse magic etches mascara trails down Marcelina’s cheeks. Paulie and Roya wrap their arms around Marcelina, and Roya hisses “Cry!” as Iris unlocks the door.

  “I just—can’t—believe—he—said—” Marcelina is choking and sobbing, and the twin streams of mascara on her cheeks cover for the fact that her eyes are dry.

  “Do you mind?” Roya snaps at the sophomore standing in the doorway.

  “Oh god, I’m sorry,” the girl says. “Is she okay?” Marcelina wails, and the girl holds up both hands like she can ward off the tears. “Never mind,” she says. “I’ll leave you guys alone. Um, I hope things get better soon?”

  “And—then—he—said—” Marcelina puts a high wobble into her voice, and the girl closes the door fast. As soon as Iris has slid the lock home, Roya and Paulie straighten. Roya pats Marcelina’s cheeks with her fingers, and the mascara trails vanish.

  “You’re amazing,” Maryam says.

  Marcelina grins. “I know.”

  Roya snaps her fingers. “Hey, you’re both amazing. But we gotta figure out this arm thing, like, now.” She’s being Iris-levels of bossy, but nobody so much as glares at her, because if Roya being abrupt is ever warranted, now’s the time.

  “Can you get rid of it? Like, just grab the bag and throw it away?” Paulie asks, then shakes her head hard. “Never mind, that’s stupid.”

  “Yeah, that’s a terrible idea,” Roya says. “If it goes missing, they’ll know for sure that someone is trying to cover something up. I don’t think that they are saying he was—” She stops short and looks at me with an apologetic grimace. “I don’t think they’re calling it murder yet. I’m pretty sure they’re trying to figure out what happened before they make an announcement. But they definitely know that it’s Josh’s arm.” Her mouth flattens into a grim line.

  “We’ll have to wait and see,” Marcelina says. “Maybe it’ll be okay.”

  “Maybe it’ll be okay,” I repeat. My lips feel numb.

  “That search party,” Iris whispers. “We have to go. We have to.”

  Marcelina whips around to stare at her with stark incredulity. “We can’t do that, are you crazy? It’ll look so suspicious.”

  Roya shakes her head. “No. They’re canceling classes so that everyone can join. Everyone will be there. We have to go.”

  “We can’t go,” Paulie says, her face white. “Are you kidding?”

  Maryam clears her throat. “You have to go.” She looks around at everyone. “I mean, I’ll be there too, but you guys really have to go.”

  It’s Iris and Roya and Maryam versus Paulie and Marcelina. Normally, Iris and Roya on the same side of an issue means that the whole group goes with whatever they say. They’re individually strong-willed enough that the two of them together feels indomitable. But this time, everyone looks at me. They’re waiting for me.

  This is my mess. I have to choose.

  I nod. “Yeah,” I whisper. “We gotta be there.” I don’t say that the reason we have to be there isn’t because of suspicion, isn’t because of who might be watching, isn’t to try to prevent more bits of Josh from turning up. It’s just because I can’t imagine sitting at home, alone, waiting for more bad news.

  If this is going to go wrong, it might as well go wrong right away.

  Roya bites her thumbnail and looks at me. “It’s settled. We’ll go.”

  “Shit,” Marcelina hisses. “Okay. I’ll be there.” She turns to Maryam to coordinate a carpool, and the conversation shifts to logistics.

  Roya is still watching me. She lets her voice drop to a lower, more intimate tone. What she says next is just for me. “Don’t do anything stupid, okay?”

  “Like what?” I ask. She rolls her eyes.

  “Like turning yourself in. Anything could happen from here. We have to stick together.”

  I close my eyes for a count of four. “I won’t turn myself in,” I say. Even though that’s exactly what I was thinking of doing. When I open my eyes, Roya is looking at me like she can see right through to the knot in my stomach.

  The rest of the girls start filing out of the bathroom past us, but Roya still hasn’t moved. “Today, right?”

  “Today?” I ask, trying not to stare at the curve of her collarbone.

  “Yeah,” she says. “Today. Me and you. Arm-in-arm?” She smiles at me, a small pleased-with-her-own-cleverness smile. “Yes, no … ?”

  I had almost forgotten. “Yeah, today,” I say, my heart pounding. Roya steps closer to me and her eyes flick to my mouth.

  “It’s a date,” she says softly. Then she steps past me, and my heart is pounding, and she’s gone.

  * * *

  All day I’m waiting for someone to bring up the arm. Waiting to hear a whisper in the halls, or to see a cop in the cafeteria. But other than an announcement in fourth period about the search party, no one is talking about it. Lunch is awkward and stilted, and we spend half of it in silence, staring at each other’s untouched food. I pass by Josh’s decorated locker and see that someone has ripped off the duct-taped teddy bear, leaving behind a swath of adhesive gunk. A sticky note that says “we miss u john” has been stuck to the middle of the gray stripe where the duct tape used to be. I rip it down and crumple it in my fist and drop it into my locker. When I clear my locker out for the summer, I’m sure I’ll find it there, but right now I don’t care. I just don’t want to look at it.

  When I get out
of sixth period, I have a message from Roya waiting for me. Parking lot fourth row in. Gotta boogie.

  I get into her car without letting the heat out properly. I start sweating immediately. Drastically, aggressively sweating. Torrential sweating. Roya’s got the windows down and she starts the AC blasting the second the car is turned on, but it’s still dire. She looks at me with an expression that says I’m melting, and I would laugh if I could breathe through the heat.

  “Drive,” I finally manage to croak. She nods and peels out of the parking lot at Paulie-speed. Her hair whips back from her face in the breeze, and the shimmer of sweat along the curve of her throat makes me lose the ability to breathe for about a minute. I stare out the window until I can get all of my thoughts into a line. “Where are we going?” I ask as she turns onto the highway.

  “I want to show you something,” she says. “Trust me?”

  “Of course,” I answer. She turns up the radio. At first I think that she’s trying to show me something about the music, but then I realize that she just doesn’t want me asking any more questions. So we sing along with the songs we know, and I stick an arm out the window and let the air rushing past the car lift my hand, and Roya drives.

  She drives for an hour before I try to ask again. “Roya? Where are we—”

  “Please,” she says, her eyes still on the road. “We’re almost there.”

  She parks by a stretch of road that looks exactly like the twenty miles that came before it and, I suspect, exactly like the twenty miles that come after it. Birch trees line either side of the asphalt, a long stretch of white that keeps going as far as I can see.

  “Marcelina would love this,” I say, resting my hand against the patchy white bark of the nearest tree. I don’t feel anything but the scratch of wood under my palm, but I know that Marcelina would be immersed in the stories of the forest.