Spellbound (4 page)

“Eleven-eight,” Kristin said smugly. She had rolled her uniform skirt up until it was practically a belt and gave a lusty look to one side of the court. I followed her gaze and saw Anthony and Brendan there—and instantly wanted to hit her with my backpack. My mind immediately went to what Cisco said. Some people really are just rotten.

Brendan spun around, dribbling the ball with one hand and brushing his black hair back with his other. He was fast, that's for sure. He had changed out of his uniform into a white T-shirt and gym shorts. Every time he aimed for the basket, his shirt hiked up, and I have to admit, it was hard not to notice just how very nice what was hiding under his shirt was. His black hair hung low on his forehead again, as he contemplated his next move, deciding to throw the ball to Anthony. Guess they'd made up.

And then he turned his striking green eyes on me.

Ashley was the first to notice. For all her exuberance, she kept her cool pretty impressively. For a minute.

“Oh. My. God. Brendan. Is. Staring. At. You.” She tried her hardest not to move her lips, but failed miserably.
Wow, this girl has absolutely no future as a ventriloquist.

“I know,” I replied, trying to look cool as I met his eyes. He continued to stare at me, his gaze unbroken, with those bright emerald eyes peering at me from his messy black hair, until his teammate tossed him the ball. For someone not paying attention, he caught it easily, turning away to make the next basket. Brendan caught the ball as it swooshed through the
hoop, holding it under his arm and turning around. He gave me a sly smile, tilting his chin up in a small greeting. I smiled back, taking note of an unfamiliar feeling in my stomach.
Holy crap, this must be what butterflies feel like.

I broke his gaze, pretending to root around in my backpack for something.

“Ashley, let's go,” I whispered.

“No way! Seriously, you should stay and talk to him.” She grinned devilishly and wagged her eyebrows up and down.

I grabbed her arm. “No! Please!” I hissed, feeling panicky. “Let's go.” Within seconds, we were out of the quad, walking home.

“Look, Emma…I don't pretend to know what you've been though…” Ashley started on the walk home.
Oh, no. Please. Don't make me talk about this.

“Ashley, look,” I began, a little harsher than I intended, and I instantly felt terrible. The truth was, today would not have been as easy as it had been without her.

“What?” She looked at me with wounded eyes.

“I don't…feel comfortable. At all. A lot of the time,” I mumbled, picking at my dark nail polish and peeling the paint off nervously. “I don't think it's a good idea for me to start crushing on some guy who I have zero chances with. I don't even know how I'm going to do on the friend front. Kristin Thorn already hates me for some bananas reason. Don't you understand? It hasn't worked out all that well for me—being close to someone.”

Ashley looked at me with more wisdom than I'd ever given her credit for. Suddenly, I felt stupid for denying her the knowledge of her fourteen years.

“Emma,” she said, softly. “I get it. And it's okay if you want to feel a mess. But if you start to feel normal again, and if something makes you happy, it doesn't mean that you
don't miss your mom or Ethan. It doesn't mean the last few years didn't suck. But remember, this is your chance to just be Emma. Not Emma with the wicked stepfather, Emma with the terrible home life, Emma the whole school is talking about. You're just Emma. Your mom would want you to be happy. So would your brother.”

“I know, Ashley.” I sighed, wincing as I always did anytime I thought of my mom and brother, Ethan, lost within a year of each other.

“Why on earth my mom decided to marry Henry when she knew she was sick, I'll never know.” Henry had been asking my mom to marry her forever, and I never understood why a cancer diagnosis made her finally say yes.

“She wanted to make sure someone was around to take care of you,” Ashley said quietly. “I get it. She didn't want you to be alone.”

I am anyway.
I pursed my lips, willing myself to keep a strong front as I shuffled along the concrete sidewalk.

“Emma, I'm serious,” Ashley said, coming to a full stop. “Give yourself a break. If not for you, then for them.”

I sighed. “I know, Ash, in my head. I'll work on convincing myself, you know, here.” I pointed at my chest.

“In your boobs?” She hooted, giving me a devilish look, and I laughed, relishing the break in the somber mood. “Hey, you never showed me your ID. Lemme see,” she said, pulling at my backpack. Glad for the change of subject, I reached in my backpack and pulled out the small white card.

“Jeez, Emma.” Ashley let out a low whistle. “Seriously, this sucks.”

“That bad?” I grabbed it back. “Let me see.”

Oh, great.

I looked like the “before” picture on one of those makeover shows. I hadn't been paying attention to the gray lady, so she
caught me looking up, startled, my mouth kind of open and slack-jawed. The too-bright flash had given my skin a tone that could only be described as yellow-gray.
Zombie girl, at your service.
Still, it was a nice picture of my necklace. It caught the light nicely—you could really see the crest on it.

“Sorry about the bad ID, Emma,” Ashley said.

“
You're
a bad ID!” I said, laughing.

“Oh, you're still doing that?” she asked, rolling her eyes at my stupid little joke. Anytime I couldn't think of something clever to say, I just told the person they were whatever we were talking about. Ethan and I used to spend hours annoying our mom with it.

“It's dinnertime, kids,” she would call from the kitchen. “Turn off the TV.”

“
You're
a TV!” we'd call back in unison. Mom would just chuckle and shake her head, chalking it up to one of our random twin idiosyncrasies.

“Eh, it still makes me laugh.” I shrugged, smiling at the memory.

“Yeah, you'll be fine,” Ashley said dryly as we reached the front door of my aunt's building. “See you tomorrow!”

One day down. 168 to go.

The next two and a half weeks kind of plodded on—although crossing them off in the back of my notebook as if I were serving a prison sentence sure didn't help the time fly. Jenn, I assumed, was afraid of losing favor with Kristin, since some days she was warm and friendly—and others, she just kept her head down and ignored me. Cisco and I were becoming fast friends, and at least, I always had someone who talked to me at lunch. (Well, Austin did, but he was just trying to get me on the winter dance committee.) Angelique, my chemistry partner, refused to eat in the cafeteria, so on sunny days we'd just grab something to go and walk around the neighborhood.

I could tell that my friendship with her was not going over well with some of my classmates, who were put off by her quirky ways. (Once, she blamed her missing homework on the moon.) Angelique was also on scholarship, so of course the snobs at the school treated her like she lived in a mental hospital, not in an apartment building on Tenth Avenue. I, personally, thought she was a trip. Besides, these were people who had yet to even say three words to me, and Angelique—one of the best students in the class—had generously offered me all her notes to copy. Finally, Angelique admitted to me
one day that she did play up her beliefs to get a rise out of everyone.

“They don't understand anything that doesn't conform to what they believe, or what they think, so of course I do whatever I can to make them uncomfortable,” she confessed to me over knishes on a bench in Central Park. “I, truly,
am
a witch. My mom's a witch, too.

“It's not like you see in the movies. Sure, there are some bad witches, those with evil intentions—my mom's met a few,” Angelique whispered conspiratorially, flipping her jet-black hair back. “But not all are bad. And truly, I do see auras, and I really can see and sense people's energy. But I'd be lying if I said it wasn't the best feeling to make these look-alike sheep so uncomfortable. I make stuff up sometimes just to annoy them.”

That afternoon, she expertly completed an experiment in acid/base properties, and loudly announced that the chemicals spoke to her, winking at me out of the corner of her eye.

Thanks to Angelique, I caught up on schoolwork pretty quickly. But things weren't necessarily hard at this new school…just competitive. Still, I threw myself into my studies, telling myself that I was trying to get on the Principal's List, to make my aunt happy. I hated to admit the truth: I was trying to distract myself from a growing, nagging interest in Brendan. (A regular name on the honor roll? Brendan Alexander Salinger.
So much for being a dumb jock.
)

He strode into English class on my second day, and all I could think was, “Damn.” He put the hot in “hot mess.” And the mess. His black hair was sticking out like it had exploded, his shirt was untucked and his tie barely knotted. But the disheveled look worked on him, like he had just rolled out of bed and onto the set of a jeans commercial.

Brendan turned his vibrant green eyes on my light brown
ones, and I took that as my cue to say, “Hi.” He gave me a curt nod, then flopped down in his desk without so much as a polite “Hey” in response. I felt like I had been slapped. After that, when he came into class (always late, and always going un-scolded by the teacher), I would, invariably, look up at the wrong moment and catch his eye briefly. My eyes would dart back down to my Shakespeare text, reading the same line over and over again, toying with my necklace—a nervous habit that had gotten a lot worse. It was like a whole new level of Hell, one that Dante had forgotten about.

I didn't know why I was so drawn to him. But fortunately, apart from English class, it was easy to avoid Brendan. I begged off watching the pickup games in the quad after school, telling Ashley that I was thinking about joining the track team after all and needed to get my stamina up by jogging in the park.

“It's not a team. They don't compete,” she drawled. “It's a
club
. The Running Club. Seriously. They just go to the park and, like, run around.”

“Are you kidding me?” I asked, incredulous. I pictured the glossy girls at the school, teetering about the park in heels.
Okay girls, there's a Louis Vuitton bag in here somewhere. Go find it!
And they'd scatter, fluffy Pomeranians clutched in their arms, as their little club scurried around.

So I was a running club of one, leaving the school through the gym exit so I could avoid Brendan and his friends in the quad. Well, I was avoiding Brendan and Anthony, for different reasons. I was afraid I'd lose control: I'd throw myself on Brendan—or throw up on Anthony.

After two and a half weeks of “Lookin' good, newbie,” and “When are you gonna give me your number?” Anthony finally cornered me in the doorway of English class.

“What's a hot piece like you doing hanging out with a freak like Angela?” Anthony's frosty blue eyes looked me up and
down, and he rested his hand on the polished wooden frame of the doorway, blocking me in the hallway.

“Angelique,” I corrected, recoiling at being called a “piece.” “And she's not a freak.”

“I know who your aunt is, Emily. You need to associate with people on your level,” he purred. “She
is
on my level,” I snapped. “At least she knows my name.”

“Come on, you're really not going to pass up a chance at all this, are you?” he asked, running his hand down his muscular chest before brushing my bangs out of my face. I smacked his meaty hand away.

Anthony's smile quickly turned into a sneer. “You better keep your hands to yourself if you know what's good for you. Just remember—
I'm
not the one whose parents dumped me at my aunt's house so they could go out of town. You should consider yourself lucky that I'm even talking to you.”

Then—to my absolute shock and horror—Anthony winked at me. “Let me know when you've come to your senses.”

Before I could even respond, he strode away and flopped into his seat—even his walk was arrogant.

I heard Mr. Emerson coming up the stairs behind me, so I ducked into the English classroom—catching Cisco's eye and trying to avoid Brendan's.
Great. The one time he actually shows up to class on time, he sees you get into a confrontation with his buddy.

“What was that about?” Cisco asked. I leaned over to tell him, but Mr. Emerson shuffled in, coughing with the tenacious remains of a nasty cold. He attempted to read a few lines of Shakespeare before launching into a fit of hacking and wheezing. I felt bad for Mr. Emerson, but truthfully, it was kind of gross. Finally, he gave up, forcing the class to read aloud instead.

“You.” He pointed at Austin before blowing his nose. “Read. Page seventy-three.” (Although with his cold, it sounded like “Debendy-dwee.”)

Austin beamed—anything for school spirit—and turned the pages to Shakespeare's Sonnet 2, taking his task seriously.

“When forty winters besiege thy brow…” he began, and I darted my eyes around. I locked eyes with Anthony—who licked his lips at me.
Oh, puke
. I quickly broke eye contact.

“Gross,” I whispered to myself, staring down at my text book.
Stare out the window, Emma. Yep, that's a safe place.
I twisted my head away from Anthony to face the eastern window, at the sun that was beaming in, and considered skipping my afternoon classes—I had to get out of that school. Besides, it was great running weather.

I sighed, losing myself in an extensive examination of my split ends. I was so overdue for a trim. My ends looked like tree branches. Why Anthony had any interest in me—I was hardly as polished as my classmates—I had no idea.

When Austin was done, Mr. Emerson asked for a volunteer to read the next sonnet, and Kristin raised her hand.
Shocker!
Eager to show off, her hand was raised so high that she only had one butt cheek left on her seat. Mr. Emerson flapped his hand in her direction, and she smiled primly.

Kristin stood up—Austin had stayed in his desk—and flipped her hair, overacting and putting a ridiculous amount of emotion behind every word. I sat there, bored, my head propped up by my hand, my eyes rolling so far back in my head I could practically see my own brain.

“
Shall
I compare
thee
to
a
summer's day?” She was emphasizing the wrong words. I smirked to myself, listening to her emote. Cisco pretended to shoot himself in the head and I
stifled a giggle fit. Then I went back to my split ends. Wow, I really needed a haircut.

“Emma.”

My head snapped to attention. Mr. Emerson was looking at me, and I'd been caught staring at my hair.

“Huh? I mean, what did you say, sir?”

“Please read Sonnet 29. And—” he broke into another coughing fit “—stand up.”

I flipped to the sonnet—oh, great. No matter what it meant to Shakespeare, it was going to take on a whole new meaning for me.
Just try not to let your voice crack on the word
outcast,
Emma.

I took a deep breath and stood, holding my textbook in front of me. I put my fist to my mouth and exaggeratedly cleared my throat, an icebreaker which elicited a few laughs from the room. I started reading, in a clear, strong voice:

I paused, looking up at Mr. Emerson, and saw Brendan shifting in his seat. He turned sideways, folding his arms on the back of his chair and resting his cheek on his crossed arms. He looked up through those long black lashes. I bet if I touched them, they'd be velvet-soft. As his eyes found mine, I glanced back down at the words in my hands, holding the textbook in front of me like armor. I could still feel his eyes on me, but all I allowed myself to see was the black-on-white text I was gripping in my palms as I continued to read.
Bravery—or stupidity, I couldn't tell which—prompted me to meet Brendan's eyes for the last two lines:

I smoothed my plaid skirt underneath me as I sat down, and Brendan was still turned around, looking at me. I kept my eyes on the sonnet, daring myself to meet his gaze and say, “What? What the hell do you want?”

Instead, wordlessly, I raised my eyes and, as if they were some kind of heat-seeking missiles, they locked with his. He slowly blinked—really, it was more like he'd closed his eyes for a full three seconds—then opened them again, still keeping my gaze. His face—frozen for the past two and a half weeks in still, unfeeling concrete whenever our eyes met—softened a bit, and I could have sworn I saw the corner of his mouth turn up in a smile.

Mr. Emerson finished his hacking cough, then called on another student. I broke the stare. Brendan turned away.

 

That afternoon in Central Park, Blink-182's “Carousel” was at the top of my playlist as I ran faster, letting the crisp fall air fill my lungs with the familiar scent of grass and dirt and the newly familiar scents of hot dogs and pretzels warming on the carts that lined the pathways in the park.

I sang along, racing faster and listening to the track on repeat. “Go to your happy place,” I told myself, thinking of Cisco and Angelique—legitimate new friends, I considered them. And Jenn was cool enough to me, even though some days, she just didn't talk to anyone. I daydreamed about Kristin
getting an allergic reaction to a tanning session. Maybe she'd actually turn into an orange.

I closed my eyes, thinking of English class, how I'd identified with that sonnet. Feeling like an outcast, a loser but comforted by a great love. I longed to know what it felt like to have one person eclipse everything bad in your life—be a place of pure joy.

I stopped short, pausing for breath, and surveyed my surroundings. I was all the way over by the Bethesda Fountain. It was one of my favorite areas of the park—gorgeous, palatial. And still, all I could see was his face, and those eyes—which didn't look like they hated me in spite of how he acted.

“Why can't I get you out of my head?” I whispered, stopping in my tracks. “Brendan, I wish I just knew what your deal was.”

I leaned against a lamppost, trying to steady my breath and my thoughts. The light above me flickered, catching my attention. My back leaning against the post, I looked straight up into the light. It burned very brightly for a moment—as if it were on a dimmer switch that was suddenly put on full blast. I heard a crackling noise, and nervously stepped away from the lamppost—just as the light inside burst, shards of glass clinking against the frosted case. The smell of something bitter hit my nose, and I winced. It was suddenly very dark all around me—reminding me that it was getting too late—and I should go back home.