Page 18 of The Underachiever’s Guide to Love and Saving the World

brYCE

After lunch, Amy led us back across the courtyard. I hoped magic training would be less violent than this morning’s lesson, but I doubted it. Very few things were pleasant in this hell not on Earth.

Because, yes, after the incredible pain inflicted on me during sword training by Cuthbert, aka the happiest man I’d ever met, I’d concluded I was not in a dream.

And yes, maybe I did shed a tear or two upon discovering reality, as I knew it, was a lie.

But who could blame me? I was stuck here with Courtney .

That would make anyone cry. Nothing was familiar here, except for her, as infamous as that notorious tickle you get in the back of your throat right before you come down with the common cold.

I didn’t understand how this happened. In all my googling, I’d never seen any warnings that coatracks in lighting departments could create accidental portals to dangerous new worlds.

(Oh god. Did I remember to lock my front door when I left the house yesterday?)

And the kidnapping. That wasn’t just a dream either.

A real man might be in the clutches of an Evil One, and we were supposed to fix it?

Courtney with her terrible interrogation techniques, and me with my…

with my what? Ability to make spreadsheets?

I was an accountant . If destiny had grand plans for my humble life, I would prefer to avoid them the way I dodged weekend outings: by telling everyone something had come up, when that “something” was just my reluctance to be social.

The fact none of this was a dream also meant last night was not the off-the-record indulgence I’d thought it was. I’d slid Real Courtney suggestive Notes app messages under a table and mentioned The Infamous Buzzing That Must Never Be Mentioned .

Worse, I’d had Real Courtney on her back. Under me. In bed.

Never. Again.

My skin grew clammy. Familiar panicky fingers clenched around my heart, trying to suffocate it quietly before it could be stabbed to death. No more slipups. No more touching.

Inching closer to Courtney, I tapped her arm. This touch was okay. It was a normal touch. A necessary one.

Courtney fell back as Amy continued ahead, still talking about who knew what.

“Do you think it’s strange how weird everyone acts?” I asked. “Like, the blacksmith’s sole purpose in life is hammering stuff. Amy’s whole existence revolves around a prophecy. The princess’s daily activities literally involve doing princess things .”

“Why is it strange?” Courtney asked.

“This isn’t a dream,” I said.

She gave me a look. “Obviously.”

She knew it wasn’t a dream. The whole time last night, she’d known.

My mind replayed the evening over and over. I could practically feel her thighs tightening around my hips. Drawing me closer. Not pushing me away. And then today. The way she criticized the whole world for its intolerance instead of criticizing me for my weakness.

I stopped touching her arm. She terrified me—a flashing red button I couldn’t keep my hands off of.

“You could always give up, find the portal we came through, and go home,” Courtney said, a challenge in her smile.

The thought was tempting, but though I’d had the best teacher, I’d never been good at leaving. “If you thought getting back home was that easy, you would have quit already.”

“Nope.” Courtney began walking again. “I have to make something of my life, don’t you remember?”

I let out a growl of frustration. I’d shown her an easy minimum-wage job I thought she’d love and suggested she stop wasting her time torturing me so she could find some real friends, and all she heard was change everything about yourself .

I hadn’t meant to imply I thought her life wasn’t good enough.

In truth, I didn’t give a shit about her life; I’d just wanted her out of mine.

I opened my mouth to tell her she’d misunderstood, that the whole reason I’d followed her to the store was to apologize, but then I shut it.

Maybe it was better she was angry. I needed to maintain whatever distance remained between us, especially after I’d already gone and told her I didn’t have a girlfriend, like I was offering myself on a silver platter. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

The situation was growing dire. I was a bug thrashing in a web, getting myself increasingly tangled up in Courtney . I had to escape before she sank her teeth into me.

My mind took the opportunity to present me with a detailed image of tangled sheets and Courtney beneath me, biting her teeth into my shoulder around a muffled whimper.

I pushed aside the image.

Pulled it back. Considered it. Just for science.

Pushed it away again.

Feelings weren’t constant. That’s why I liked numbers. One plus one always equaled two, whereas feelings came and went for no reason whatsoever. Best to avoid the variable and keep them out of my life. Zero feelings equaled zero risks, which equaled zero damages.

I carried a past, the weight of which wasn’t heavy but light.

Empty, thanks to all the people who walked out.

I hadn’t exercised the muscles needed to hold someone in my life.

If I tried, it would break me. Even if I grew strong enough, she’d leave anyway, and the empty memories left behind would feel lighter—and more crushing—than ever.

Courtney said she’d wanted to be a Chosen One since she was little.

I’d never seen her care about anything. This might be my only opportunity to beat her at something she actually valued.

She was such a sore loser; she’d never speak to me again.

We’d go home, and she’d get out of my life. That would be that.

“Look.” Courtney pointed.

I followed her finger. A woman knelt by a fountain on the other side of the courtyard, comforting a little girl with skinned knees.

Over the sounds of steel clashing from training soldiers, the hum from servants’ conversations, the clip-clopping of hooves on stone, I could still catch a few words as the mother kissed her daughter’s tears away, murmuring comforting nonsense: “Are you all right?” “Brave girl,” and “Mommy’s here. ”

The little girl smiled. Love shined from both their eyes. Strange ribbons of light swirled around them, orchid purples and sunshine yellows.

“Is that magic?” I asked.

The colors reflected off Courtney’s dark eyes. “It must be. I wonder how it feels.”

I was silent a moment before saying quietly, “Me too.”

Amy called for us to catch up, drawing us out of our reverie, and we hurried after him. When we got to the stables, Amy climbed onto a donkey while grooms gave Courtney and me horses and no instructions on how to operate them. I looked up at the tall beasts and swallowed hard.

“Come on, Bryce,” Courtney said, already on her horse. “Horses are basically grass-powered motorcycles.”

Was that supposed to help me feel better?

“See?” Courtney was saying, making gear-shifting motions with her foot, which the horse ignored. “Motorcycles.”

I steeled myself before grabbing the saddle and hauling myself awkwardly onto the horse.

Before I could adjust to my tall, unstable perch, a groom gave my horse a firm slap on the haunch, and I had no choice but to hold on for dear life.

Meanwhile, Courtney did Absolutely Nothing—her signature move—simply letting her horse follow ours.

Amy took us out of the city, along the bluff overlooking the glittering ocean, and across a series of rolling picturesque hills, like he was a producer trying to show off his movie’s budget by creating a series of cool, wide-angled scenic clips.

Before long, we left the open air behind and plunged into the woods. Amy was droning on about a library or something, but I was too distracted by the landscape to pay much attention.

I’m touching grass.

That was what Courtney had said one day when I’d stepped outside to find her sitting, crisscross, in our front yard, her hands in the grass, her eyes closed.

It wasn’t until she’d said that, touch grass , like a real action and not a sarcastic response found on the Internet, that I realized how long it had been since I’d actually touched grass too.

Later, when she went back inside, I put aside my fear of dirt and germs, kicked off my shoes, and stepped onto the lawn. With the cool blades between my toes and the soft dirt staining my heels, everything felt less scary. Inconsequential. Small.

I tried to find that peace now. A breeze whispered through leaves, cool against my skin, made cooler by the canopy of branches overhead.

Massive trees, their trunks larger than any found in our world, towered around us.

Strange foliage nestled around their mossy roots.

Red and white mushrooms. Yellow flowers the size of basketballs.

Plants that grew orbs of luminescent purple fruit, glowing in the shadows.

The mulchy scent of the wet forest floor floated through the air.

Birds bickered overhead, and cicadas whined underfoot.

We rode until we came to a gurgling brook. A waterfall seeped through moss and stones, trickling into a larger pool at the bottom. Amy dismounted, saying, “Now we can talk.”

“I wonder if there’s a reason we had to traipse into the woods to learn magic,” Courtney said as she halted her horse beside me.

“Traveling all this way for the aesthetic seems wildly impractical.” She remained in her saddle, probably because she couldn’t be bothered to not sit for the two seconds it would take to climb off.

I peered over the edge of my horse. It was a long way down. My stomach flipped. I’d just have to live here now, on top of this horse, forever.

“Aren’t you going to dismount?” Courtney asked, tilting her head toward where Amy squatted, preparing some kind of medieval charcuterie board next to a fallen log. “Amy went all out to make this a special day for us, and now you’re not going to enjoy the nice picnic he prepared?”