Page 21

*NOPE*

Jackson

I look exactly the same.

I stared at my phone as I lay in bed, desperate to believe that didn’t mean what it probably meant.

Because if the magic transfer didn’t work, what now? Was I stuck in this place where my mom was overworked and lonely and it was only me, Noah, and my mom, like, indefinitely?

Something about the fact that my actual father lived happily ever after without my mom, and also without my brother and me, made the need for us to have the same seem of the utmost importance.

Like it was urgent that we get ours soon.

Like a timer was ticking.

And then there was Jackson. What if his parents split up now because of my wish?

Nana Marie had spent so much of her life filling me with the information I needed to be a grantee, sharing it with a passion that made it obvious it was so important to her, yet I’d failed to deliver.

I felt tears welling up. By losing this connection, this string that tied the living Nana to my life now, it felt like I was losing her in a bigger way.

I texted back: Maybe it takes a little longer.

Jackson

Doubtful.

I wanted to yell at him, because if he hadn’t thrown that rock, none of this would’ve happened, but how could I when his family might fall apart because of that throw?

He didn’t text anything else, which made my anxious stomach hurt even more.

I sent: Are you okay?

Still no answer.

I spent the morning being grumpy and quiet, lying like a lump on the couch in front of the TV, but in the afternoon, when Allie and Kennedy asked me if I wanted to go to the mall with them, I finally got up and showered.

At least getting out and hanging with my friends would make me feel a little less depressed, right?

But when we got to the mall, everything was almost worse.

For starters, I realized that I couldn’t tell them about what Jackson and I had done because I knew they’d be mad. Anyone messing with the magic had the potential to ruin it, and I knew my friends would never forgive me if I ruined what they’d been given.

So I couldn’t talk to my best friends about the biggest thing in my life.

Not only were they hanging with people I didn’t know and doing things that didn’t include me, but I couldn’t tell them anything about the hugely major thing that I was dealing with.

I’d never needed them more, and they’d never been more… not there for me to talk to.

“Allie!” yelled a tall blonde with bright pink lip gloss all over her mouth. She was sitting in the food court with two other girls, both in equally bright lip colors, and they ran over like they were thrilled to see her. “Come sit with us!”

Allie squealed and headed for their table with Kennedy following behind her like a happy puppy. I didn’t have a choice, apparently, so I followed behind them like a grumpy old hound dog.

As soon as I sat down, I was forgotten. Allie and Kennedy were talking a mile a minute to these girls I’d seen around school but had never spoken to, and they all seemed to be in the know about everything I knew nothing about. While I’d been focusing on the magic, they’d apparently been immersing themselves in a social realm I was clueless about.

So, not only was I stressed about the whole magic mess, but now I felt left out and didn’t really know how to hang with my friends anymore. The girls stayed with us while we walked around the mall, and I started counting the minutes until it was time to leave.

It wasn’t until Allie’s sister, Nicole, picked us up and we were on the way home that they finally noticed I hadn’t been participating in any conversation.

“What’s wrong, Em?” Allie asked from the front seat. “You haven’t spoken in, like, hours.”

“Yeah, you have been quiet today,” Kennedy said.

If they’d noticed my muteness when their shiny new friends were around, they hadn’t cared enough to ask then. Now, in the stupid minivan when there were no cool people to distract them, they suddenly were aware.

“Nothing, I’m fine.”

“If something’s wrong, you can tell us,” Kennedy said, looking at her phone.

“I’m fine ,” I snapped, immediately cringing at my snotty tone. I didn’t want to be a jerk, even though they kind of deserved my jerkiness.

“Come on, we’re the AT3 and we share everything,” she said, putting her phone away. “Spill it.”

I looked at Kennedy’s face and realized she was right. They were my best friends—I should have been able to tell them.

Everything.

“I’m just really bummed that I’m obviously not a grantee,” I said. “I don’t know who—”

“No!” Kennedy interrupted, giving me big eyes and slapping her hand over my mouth. Her voice was a little crazed as she said, “Let’s be careful of the words we are saying. I think what you mean is that you’re bummed things aren’t going the way you’d hoped for this year, right?”

“Dude,” I snapped, pushing her fingers from my face. “Don’t put your hand over my mouth.”

“You guys,” Nicole said. “Don’t fight.”

“I mean, Em,” Allie said, ignoring her sister entirely. “We knew going into this that we might not all benefit from the situation. It’s certainly understandable you feel that way, but you have to recognize the odds were against it.”

“Of course I do,” I said through gritted teeth, still smelling the faint hint of french fry oil that was on Kennedy’s fingers.

“We get that you’re bummed,” Kennedy said, “but it feels like you’re mad at us right now, and that’s not fair.”

“I’m not mad at you,” I said, sounding totally mad.

And it was fair, not that I felt like arguing that point with them at the moment.

“It sure feels that way,” Allie said in a sugary-sweet, patiently parental way, like she was explaining to me why you couldn’t eat cotton candy for dinner. “And if the situation were reversed, we would totally be happy for you.”

“If the situation were reversed,” I said, “I wouldn’t be ignoring you for all my cool new friends.”

“We weren’t ignoring you, you were choosing not to talk!” Kennedy said defensively.

“Because I don’t know those people. What would I say to them? Hello, girls in makeup who don’t seem aware that I exist? ”

“You shouldn’t judge them for wearing makeup, Em,” Allie said, scrunching up her Disney nose like I was offending her. “They’re really cool. Maybe you should try a little harder to get to know them. Or, like, any new people at all.”

“Oh, I get it, you think I’m the problem for not running around with a million new friends like you guys,” I said, rolling my eyes and turning my body to look out the window. “How ridiculous of me to expect my best friends to act like my best friends.”

“That’s not fair,” Kennedy said. “We—”

“Why are you saying we when I was talking to Allie?” I snapped, so annoyed that it felt like the two of them against me. “What are you guys, a team now?”

“Em—”

“Whatever,” I interrupted.

“No, listen. I’ve been thinking, and I’m not even sure these random things have to do with, um, the thing you told us about, to be honest,” Kennedy said. I noticed she was wearing black nail polish—I thought she hated black nail polish—as she lowered her voice and said, “I mean, getting my braces off isn’t anything magical, and neither is hitting my gaming stride. It’s entirely possible that this—and Allie growing up over the summer—is just life, Em.”

I felt my mouth drop wide open into a gaping O as I stared at my friend.

How could she think their amazing lives weren’t related to the magic?

“I mean, it’s possible, right?” Allie said, looking at me like she wasn’t entirely sure.

“Whatever,” I repeated, shrugging and looking out the window.

But the truth was, I was so mad at them for suggesting that their good fortune was somehow natural and not at all lore-related that I wanted to not talk to them. How dare they deny Nana at least a little credit?

Allie’s sister started talking about the newest Marvel movie—thank God—so I was able to tune them all out and focus on pouting. When we got to Allie’s driveway, I muttered as I got out of the car, “Thanks for the ride.”

I started walking toward my house, feeling weighed down by the heaviness of my frustration, but then I saw Jackson shooting hoops in his driveway.

And I felt a little lighter.

Because Jackson was a friend who kind of got me.

That kept tripping me up, that he was my actual friend.

Because he was a guy.

And I hadn’t even known him until recently.

But he was my friend, wasn’t he? And at the moment, he was sort of my best friend.

I was halfway across the street, walking toward him, when he yelled, “I’m sorry I still have my hair and pecs.”

“So am I,” I shouted back, smiling a bit for the first time all day.

“Are you okay?” His eyes moved over my face like he was legitimately worried about me, and something about the concern in his gaze made it feel like I was holding my breath.

Like those blue eyes were really seeing me.

He said, “I know you were really counting on this working.”

“I suppose I’ll have to get over it,” I said, swallowing hard as the reality of my failure settled over me. But worse than that was the reality of his . “Are you okay, though? I feel so awful about the fourth wish. I wonder if there’s something we can do to keep your mom from—”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, rubbing his neck and shrugging.

He looked like he didn’t want to talk about it, so I said, “Are you going to be okay keeping your majestic golden hair?”

“I’ll survive,” he said, reaching up a hand to touch his hat. “I’m starting to get used to hatting up every day. So, where’d you go?”

I set down my bag and gestured for him to give me the ball. “To the mall with Allie and Ken. I thought it was going to be fun, but we just ended up arguing.”

“About what?” he asked, passing me the basketball. “It’s hard to imagine you three fighting.”

“We usually don’t.” I dribbled and took a shot, sending up an airball as I wondered what it meant that Jackson had noticed us. For a second I thought about telling him everything that’d happened with the AT3, since he knew about the wishes, but I realized I still couldn’t. Even after everything, I couldn’t risk ruining it for them.

“But suddenly they’ve got all this new stuff—cheerleading and gaming mastery and all of the things—and I’m happy for them,” I said. “Truly. But their other friends were at the mall and I was, like, invisible. As in, no one spoke to me for hours . So I guess I miss them, like, caring enough to notice.”

I assumed he thought I was a girl being all emo, but he grabbed the ball and said, “I totally get it. Since we moved here, I don’t really have any best friends, and I kind of miss people who know me well enough to care if I’m happy or not.”

“Well, I’m your friend,” I said, realizing that I wanted him to know it was true. “So I care.”

“You do?” he asked, dribbling, and I felt like my answer mattered to him.

I nodded. “I definitely think I do.”

“So we really are friends. Wow—I’m not sure if this is allowed,” he said, grinning.

“It’s allowed, but people are going to assume there’s more to it. You know they will.”

“Well, then they’re dumb,” he said, and I nodded.

“The dumbest,” I agreed.

“So, do you want to be done trying, then?” he asked, going around me to throw up a shot. “With the wishes?”

There was something about the way he was asking what I wanted to do when he had as much at stake—more, actually—that made me feel a little… soft toward him.

Because he was really a nice guy.

“Yeah. I’m not sure what else we can try,” I said, clearing my throat in an attempt to clear away the melancholy.

“Yeah,” he agreed, and the way he looked at me made me feel like he was trying to read my mind.

My phone buzzed in my pocket; my mom was texting me to come inside. I was bummed to leave Jackson, because not only did it seem like he was the only one who “got” me anymore, but I felt like he needed me.

But I said goodbye and went home.

Only the second I walked in, the silence of the house was as loud as a scream. Noah was somewhere, Nana was gone forever, and my mom was sitting at the table, wearing pajama pants and staring into space.

“How was the mall?” she asked when I walked into the kitchen. “Fun?”

“Yeah,” I lied, because her eyeliner was smeared and there was a stack of bills on the counter. I sat down on the stool beside her and reached for a slice of leftover pizza, trying to reel in my suffocating disappointment, because I didn’t want it to be contagious.

“By the way, I’m working a double tomorrow,” she said, running a hand through her hair.

“You are?” I asked, pulling off a piece of pepperoni. I wanted to cry at the thought of her being gone more than she already was, but that definitely wouldn’t help anything.

“Yeah, but Noah will be here,” she said, and I must’ve sounded bummed because she added, “So, no worries.”

“Cool,” I said, pinning on a smile so she wouldn’t think I was unhappy. “So, how was work today?”

“It was good,” she said. It was what she always said, that everything was good, but I’d seen my mom happy before Nana Marie died, so I remembered what happy looked like.

And I hadn’t seen her look like that in a long time.

It felt like she was so worried about work and me and the house that she didn’t have time to be happy.

Of course, the second I thought that, the disappointment returned, because now that I knew I wasn’t a grantee and never would be, I knew she wasn’t going to be getting her happily ever after.

At least not through magical means.

“ The Hunger Games is on tonight,” I said. “Want to watch it with me?”

I’d seen that movie three million times, half of them with her, but I knew she loved it. I also knew that if I didn’t suggest it as something mother-daughtery that we could do together, she’d probably do something super adult with her evening, like scrub toilets or meal plan for the week.

At least this way, she’d give herself a break.

“I was going to clean the bathrooms tonight,” she said, shrugging her shoulders, “but I suppose I can do that tomorrow night instead.”

“The toilets will definitely still exist tomorrow,” I agreed, grabbing another piece of pizza. “So it’s Peeta and Katniss tonight.”