by Rose David
But the second his lips touched mine... Yeah, forget about decent judgment.
It was funny how a kiss could just switch your brain off. Bad kisses tended to have the opposite effect--as seen with Todd Griffin, when tactics for making his life miserable had sprouted in my mind like radioactive weeds.
I slumped onto my bed, wondering what to do next. Was there anything I could say to Natalie that would fix things? Any way you sliced it, this was bad. Even if Natalie knew about all the genie stuff, she had still found me blabbing one of her biggest secrets, and to the absolute worst person I could tell.
Why the hell had I said those things to Sean? I guessed I had been trying to prove some kind of point (that he was self-centered or oblivious or something) but I shouldn’t have said that. It was Natalie’s secret, not mine.
Was being the operative word, thanks to me.
I groaned and swept an arm over my eyes, blocking out the daylight. I was completely and thoroughly screwed. And yes, I deserved it.
There was nothing I could do now--no amount of begging or bargaining would ever convince Nat that I wasn’t the worst person in the world. Then a sly thought came to me: I wish...
“No,” I said aloud. “No, no, no.” Because of course I couldn’t wish to start the day over. That was ridiculous.
I didn’t even know if I could time-travel. And even if I managed to pull myself back to eight in the morning, what if I caused some kind of weird timeline disturbance during Today, Version 2.0? If the zombie apocalypse was coming, I’d rather not wonder if it was somehow my fault.
So no time-hopping, and that was final. But maybe I could try something smaller. I mean, I didn’t want to change history. I just needed Natalie to forget about what had happened. If I wished right, couldn’t I just record over that part of her memory and edit my betrayal away?
It seemed so simple. I just needed a pen and paper to jot down some conditions...
I sat up and reached for my backpack. On the way, I caught my guilty reflection in the bathroom mirror, and shook my head disdainfully. What kind of a person had I become? First, I had lied to my best friend and my parents about Sean, and now, I wanted to pull some sort of mind-scramble on Nat to cover my tracks.
Honestly, I wasn’t even sure I could pull that off. I had never erased memories. What if I made her forget something else, something important? This sounded like a delicate procedure, and I definitely didn’t want to practice on my best friend.
Maybe I can do a trial run on Fabry, I thought, smirking.
Ugh, and while we were on the subject... I pulled my cell phone out of my back pocket and found three missed phone calls since lunch, all from Sean. By now, I should have called him back, but I only snorted and tossed my cell phone away, watching as it bounced underneath the bed.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t avoid Sean forever. I still owed him one wish. Yesterday, knowing this had filled me with a grayish dread, but now? I rested a hand on my gut, wondering at the ambiguous tightness coiled inside.
Sighing, I crawled to my bathroom and started a bubble bath, making the water extra hot to sizzle away the indecision in my belly.
The smell of the bubbles tickled my nose as I watched the tub to fill, but instead of relaxing me, the scent had taken on a cloying flavor. Suddenly, it reminded me of the sick-sweet perfumes wafting off Diana Bukowski and her posse of clones.
Still, I couldn’t waste a perfectly good bath. I mixed in a little vanilla body spray, and the smell wasn’t half-bad.
I plunked a foot into the water, then cursed as the heat singed my skin. My toes came out looking like tiny little sausages. Of course not, I thought, sitting on the edge of the tub. Why would anything work out?
At the sounds of the front door opening and closing, I shut the bathroom door, adding another layer between me and the rest of the world.
Normally, I would have come downstairs to say hey to my parents, but I didn’t think I could handle it when they inevitably asked, “How was your day, Layla?” The only answer I could think of involved shouting various expletives.
A few minutes later, Mom’s voice strained through two sets of doors. “Layla, honey?”
“I’m taking a bath,” I yelled, hoping my reply would reach her.
A moment later, Mom’s voice boomed so loudly that I jumped. “What did you say?” she asked through the thin bathroom door.
“I said I’m taking a bath.”
“Oh, okay. How was your day?”
Ugh, there it was. I steeled myself against the tide of bad words that immediately jumped to my throat. “Fine,” I managed, wishing I could just dunk my head underneath the scalding water and get it over with. “Can you just get out of here, please?”
“What? Why?”
A fresh tide of annoyance rolled through me. “Just leave me alone, okay?!”
If Mom answered, I didn’t hear. In the heavy quiet that followed, my sigh echoed against the bathroom tiles. I tried to cling to my last shreds of anger, but all I could do was feel tired.
“Great,” I mumbled into the water. Not only was I a terrible best friend, I was also the kind of person who spat venom at her mother just for asking an innocent question.
I sank into the tub like an anchor, heavy with guilt.
#
I stayed in the bathtub just long enough for the water to burn my skin into a soft pink that would have looked great on my cheeks, but looked more like a contagious rash when it covered the rest of me. Clouds of steam curled around me as I emerged into my bedroom.
Mom sat on the bed, her arms crossed over her chest. I did a double take when I noticed that her eyes were gentle, instead of stern. “Really,” she said, “how was your day?”
Shrugging, I sat next to her. “Do you think we could move across the country?”
She smiled. “That bad, huh?”
“Kind of, yeah.” I reached under my bed and groped in the darkness for my cell phone. When I found it, I flipped it open and found two missed calls and two messages, one from Sean and the other from--
“Natalie,” I whispered, surprise shaking my voice.
“She called while you were in the bath,” Mom said. “I couldn’t find your cell phone, otherwise I would have brought it in.”
I scoffed. “I probably would have just yelled at you again.”
“Maybe. Well, probably.”
“Definitely.” I sighed. “I didn’t mean to bite your head off earlier. Sorry about that.”
“Apology accepted.” She nodded to my phone. “Something going on today?”
“Something.” I smirked and eased onto my back, grabbing a pillow to smother against my face. My voice was muffled as I said, “Are you sure we can’t move?”
Mom rested a hand on my arm. “So, you’re having a fight with Natalie. Is this about a boy?”
I was so surprised that I let the pillow drop from my face. “How’d you know?”
“Natalie’s not the only part-psychic around here, you know.”
“Funny, Mom. It’s Sean. He and I are--” I frowned, sitting up. “Actually, I don’t think he and I are anything at this point.”
“I see. When did that change?”
“Oh, about six hours ago.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” asked Mom.
Sure, I did; I just couldn’t. My chest tightened, and I let out a shuddery breath. “No, thanks. I should call Natalie back.”
“Well, let me know if you change your mind, all right?” She planted a soft kiss on my head, then left the room, pulling the door shut behind her.
Instead of squashing another pillow over my face and snuffling myself (my preference), I stared at the ceiling and followed the fans blades, trying to make myself dizzy.
When I had finally gathered enough courage to pick up the phone, it felt like a rock in my hands. I dialed Natalie’s number and held my breath as ring after ring buzzed in my ear. I had just resigned myself to leaving a pathetic voicemail when the line clicked awake.
“Hello?” Nat said, her voice smaller than usual.
“Hey, it’s me. I mean, it’s Layla.” When no reply came, I filled the silence with, “You probably knew that from the caller ID.”
“Hi,” she replied.
I bit my lip. “I’m, umm, calling you back?” Which was such a stupid thing to say that I groaned inwardly.
Natalie just sighed and asked, “What happened at lunch? I really don’t want to be mad about this, Layla, but what I saw was totally not cool.”
The scene flickered through my head again. “Okay, how much did you see?”
Natalie let out an indignant bark. “You mean besides how you’re sneaking around with Sean Fabry and lying to me like I’m some kind of idiot? Ugh, and the way you just told him about-- Gawd, why would you do that?”
“I was just--I mean--” I shook my head. “I wasn’t trying to embarrass you. I just wanted to show him how stuck up he is.”
“Really? By telling him I’m in love with him? That’s how you tried to prove your point?”
“I wasn’t thinking straight, Nat. We kissed on Friday, and then we spent the weekend together, but I started worrying that maybe--”
“Wait a second, on Friday?”
The sharpness in Natalie’s voice made me desperate to back-pedal. Screw it--I needed a wish, something fast and clean and guaranteed to wipe away whatever mistake I had just made. “I wish... I wish...”
“You lied to me and Rajesh!” she cried.
“What? No, I didn’t.”
“Think harder, Layla.”
A second’s pause was enough to make me remember my lie about babysitting on Friday. “Umm...” was all I could say.
“That’s great. What else have you been lying about? Are you even working on a project together?” Nat asked.
I didn’t have the guts to say no, so I sidestepped the question. “Oh, come on, Nat, it’s not like I wanted to sneak around.”
“If you didn’t want to sneak around, then you wouldn’t have done it. You would have figured out some other way and we both know that. You just didn’t bother to try,” she said. “I mean, do you think I’m some kind of pathetic stalker-girl or something?”
“What? No, of course not! It’s just... well, you’ve just liked him for so long that I thought you’d freak out.”
“I can’t believe this!” she cried. “Why would you say something like that to me?”
I gave her the best answer I could come up with: “B-because it’s true?”
Nat screamed at me--not words, not even half of words, just a yowl that sounded like something between a groan and a growl. If we had been in the same room, I probably would have ducked under a chair for protection.
When she hung up, the silence echoed in my ear.
“Wrong answer,” I said to my empty bedroom.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
After Nat’s angry wolverine sounds, I half-expected her to punch me in the face the second I walked into school the next day.
But she didn’t.
Natalie didn’t do anything. When I sat beside her in English Lit, she barely turned to acknowledge me, as if we were suddenly strangers. While I spent the rest of the hour sweating, she looked as calm as ever.
I got so desperate that I actually considered asking for a pencil as a way to start a conversation. How pathetic was that? After ten years of friendship, an icebreaker about school supplies was the best I could come up with.
As the bell signaled the end of class, I peered at Natalie from the corner of my eye, trying not to look too desperate. All I saw was a blur of magenta passing me by.
I let out a long sigh and gathered my books. On my way out the door, I thought I caught Mr. Lopez frowning in my direction. Normally, I would have wondered if he was dreaming up some diabolical pop quiz, but today, who cared?
The rest of the morning was just as dismal. Although I didn’t have my best friend nearby to ignore me completely, soon there was something else making my chest go tight: who would I eat with at lunch? With everything else happening, I knew it was silly to worry about something so trivial, but that didn’t stop me from doing it, anyway.
#
I spent the hours before lunch wondering whether the risk of looking like a deluded stalker was worth the chance to see Natalie and Raj.
In the end, I decided that being a deluded stalker would be my plan, so I waited at our usual meeting spot at the edge of the parking lot. I didn’t know how these things worked-- my lunch plans with them were probably cancelled, but maybe not. I was still friends with Raj, right? Maybe he (if not Natalie) would want to hang out with me over a little fried food and sugary soda.
A few minutes later, when Nat and Rajesh stepped out of the building, I felt a flutter of hope.
Nat’s eyes widened as she saw me, and for just a second, it seemed like she was going to say hello. But soon enough, she and Rajesh had walked by me by without a word.
My heart sank. I knew I should have expected that, but the rejection still smarted.
Before disappearing into the throng of cars and kids, Raj turned and gave me a small wave. I raised my hand back, watching as the two of them weaved through the lot, toward the line of fast food places down the street.
Of course Natalie would get custody of Raj--why hadn’t I realized that before? As I shuffled back into the quiet of the building, I told myself that it was probably better this way. These days, I didn’t really trust myself around people with secret crushes.
I imagined myself accidentally spilling the beans about Raj’s crush on Natalie, maybe over a plate of Wong’s famous peanut chicken. The image made me cringe, but it also called up a grumble of protest from my empty belly.
Oh, crap. Did Natalie have custody of Wong’s, too? My head swam with visions of a life without peanut chicken.
And then my head swam with something else--a feeling as uncanny as it was familiar. My feet lifted off the ground, and I managed to get half a curse word out before I felt myself get sucked into the vortex. A second later, I bounced off some overstuffed cushions, and then smacked hard into Sean’s lap. This time I finished a curse word, and I’m pretty sure he did, too.
I struggled up, grunting as I tried to clear the fog from my brain. “Dude,” I said, “what part of texting don’t you understand?”
Sean stood and brushed himself off, leaving me in an awkward heap on the couch. “Yeah, that hasn’t been working so well lately, if you haven’t noticed.”
I didn’t bother to make an excuse about a broken cell phone or running out of minutes. What did it matter? “Fine, whatever, but someone could have seen me, you know. Did you think about that?”
“That’s why I waited until lunch. I gotta talk to you, Layla.”
I groaned. If I wasn’t dealing with a drought of conversation with Natalie, I was drowning in it with Sean. “Fine. What do you want to talk about, Fabry? Baseball scores?”
He frowned. “Actually, never mind. I’m sorry I zapped you here.” He made a move to walk away, ready to just leave me alone in his living room without even saying goodbye.
“Hey, at least feed me or something,” I said, standing.
Sean stared at me for a moment, utterly clueless. “Huh?”
“You can’t just zap me here at lunch and expect me to walk back to school on an empty stomach.”
His face pinched with surprise, as if the rudeness of this had never even occurred to him. “You thought I was gonna--?” He shook his head. “Forget it. Come on.”
I followed Sean into the kitchen, where I took a seat at the table while he stood at the counter and made two peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches.
When he was done, Sean sat across from me, sighing as he handed over my plate. “So, umm, how’s Natalie?”
I picked up my sandwich, almost smiling when I noticed he had cut off the crusts. “I don’t know. She’s just really upset about everything and--” As I realized what I was saying, I stiffened and clamped my mouth shut.
Sean didn’t need to learn anything else about Natalie, especially not from me. “--And it’s none of your business,” I finished. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you this.”
Sean teeth snapped into his sandwich. Through a full mouth, he replied, “Maybe because I asked you about it?”
The sharpness of his tone left a sting, but I forced myself to smirk. “It’s not like you care what happens to Natalie, anyway. You’ve been ignoring her for your entire life, why change your mind now?”
Fabry only shook his head, mumbling things as he chewed.
I took a big bite of my sandwich, chewing as slowly as possible to avoid the burden of conversation. In the lull, my ears filled with the sounds of my gnashing teeth.
After a long string of quiet, Sean said, “I didn’t know about Natalie, okay? I wasn’t ignoring her on purpose.” The gravity in his voice made me look up and lock eyes with him. I wanted to look away, but I didn’t. Couldn’t. “Don’t you believe me?” he asked.
Like a reflex, I nodded.
“So what’s the problem, Layla?”
I shook my head, pulling my gaze away. “You know now.”
And I knew all along, I thought.
Neither of us spoke for the rest of lunch. I told myself this was fine by me, even as my chest grew tighter and my eyes kept darting to Sean’s face.
We drove back to school without a word, the sounds of the engine and the rushing air whooshing around my ears. In class with Natalie, I’d had Mr. Lopez’s lecture to focus on, but here in the car with Sean, silence had never sounded so loud.
I tried to think of something clever to say that might smooth things over between us, but came up empty. Not that I even wanted things to be smooth (that would only lead to more kissing, which was the last thing I needed) but it was better than enduring the awkwardness of a silent car trip, even a short one like this.
It was a relief when we finally pulled into a parking space at school. As I stepped outside, the sounds of traffic and scattered conversation seeped into my grateful, sound-starved ears.
I had just started to relax a little when I felt Sean’s hand on my waist. I froze, too shocked to pull away.
