Page 14 of Wish You Were Her

Jonah was surprised that when it came to hunting people in a game of Werewolf, he and Allegra worked rather well together.

They silently and curtly picked out their victims and maintained shocked but innocent expressions while fingers were pointed afterward.

Jonah was nominated by Kerrie but he talked his way out of it.

He surprised himself by cutting a few people off when they turned their suspicion toward Allegra.

He had no reason to keep her in the game, but he did it anyway.

As Werewolf neared its end, the older members of the party began to drift away. Arthur, Odette and Hera left to go to the only bar in town. Jonah’s mother gave him a quick kiss goodbye before disappearing to the upstairs den with Simon’s parents and a few other older townsfolk who had stopped by.

When only the teenagers remained in the game room, Skye snatched the Werewolf cards out of Simon’s hands. She had been voted out in an earlier round and was clearly sick of sitting against the wall with Star.

“I’m bored with this game. Let’s play something better,” she declared to the remaining members of the party.

“Well, who are werewolves out of those of you left?” Grace asked.

Jonah glanced over at Allegra. She smiled demurely as she revealed her werewolf card to the rest of the room.

“Knew it,” Skye muttered. She had accused Allegra plenty of times, but nobody had agreed with her.

Jonah slid his onto the carpeted floor. “What do you want to play instead?”

Skye’s eyes glinted as she scanned the room. Her gaze landed on Grace, who was talking to two of her friends from her dance class.

“Truth or dare.”

There were shrieks of delight throughout the room but Jonah felt his pulse quicken ever so slightly.

He knew, as the one who was ever sober, that this game always ended in tears.

He looked to Simon, hoping to send his friend a wordless plea that would encourage him to call an end to the idea, but Simon was grinning at Skye.

“All right. Spin the bottle style?” he said.

“Yes!” Star said, grabbing an empty wine bottle from Simon’s basement bar. “Whomever the bottle lands on has to tell the truth or do the dare set by the spinner.”

It was decidedly simple, compared to the role-play they had all been partaking in just moments before. Jonah loved games like Werewolf. Catan. Monopoly.

Truth or Dare and Spin the Bottle always operated with secret, hidden rules that he could never uncover. And the price for breaking an unspoken instruction was always high.

Everyone arranged themselves in a circle. Jonah looked over at Allegra, who was looking unsure and a little anxious. She quickly masked it and slid gracefully into a sitting position between Kerrie and Grace.

“In or out, Thorne?” Simon called over to him.

Jonah reluctantly sat, too, with a great and heavy feeling of dread.

“I’ll spin first,” Skye said jauntily. The bangles on her wrist clinked as she leaned across the carpet to touch the wine bottle. Everyone watched, but she refused to actually spin it, instead merely turning it so that its neck was pointing directly toward Allegra.

“Truth or dare?” Skye asked her.

“You have to actually spin and let the bottle decide,” Jonah heard himself say, but he was ignored by the group. Only Allegra’s eyes briefly flashed toward him. She raised her chin and smiled politely at Skye.

“Truth.”

“How much money do you have?”

Simon hollered at Skye’s question. Everyone else laughed also, albeit a little more nervously. Jonah was the only one glaring at the remark.

“I make enough,” Allegra said quietly.

“What was your last pay check?” Star asked, joining in with the interrogation.

Allegra smiled a barely-there smile. “My last one? Three seventy-five.”

“Thousand?” demanded Hillary, one of the other ballet girls. She looked awed at the prospect, eyeing the fellow eighteen-year-old with reverence.

“No. Just three hundred and seventy-five. My dad pays us weekly at the bookshop.”

Jonah found himself grinning at that, while Skye glowered in distaste.

“Is it my turn then?” Allegra asked, reaching for the bottle. She spun somewhat clumsily and it landed…

… on Jonah.

“Dare,” he said, before she could ask.

She regarded him for a moment. “I dare you to say something nice about every person in the group.”

There were audible reactions to this command, people hooting and hollering at the dare, while Jonah found himself wondering how he had so swiftly managed to convince this girl that he was an uncharitable person. The kind who never gave compliments.

“Fine,” he said, suddenly determined. He glanced around and his eyes locked onto Simon. “Simon is…”

Everyone waited.

“Oh, God,” Simon said, squinting at his friend. “Jonah’s got the memory of a computer. He has so much bad stuff on me.”

Jonah snorted, despite trying to look pensive. “Simon is a good friend. I’d do anything for him. He’s the one who made school bearable.”

There was a beat of silence. Simon gently bumped his friend on the bicep, with a small smile servicing as thanks.

“Next,” Jonah pushed ahead. “Grace Lancaster. Best dancer I’ve ever seen.”

Grace blushed and when Jonah stole a glance at Allegra, she was smiling almost smugly. She was also clearly triumphant at the forced generosity her dare had created.

“Skye.” Jonah could hear the strangled desperation in his voice as he tried to muster up something nice about one of the meanest girls in Lake Pristine.

“Skye is very… confident. Oh, and she’s also a really good baker.

I couldn’t have asked for a better partner during that cooking class they made us take in school. ”

Skye smiled, but Jonah’s difficulty in settling on a kind remark had been noted by some of Grace’s dancer friends, as they exchanged knowing looks.

Jonah fired off the last of his required compliments with diligent conviction.

“Kerrie is nice to everyone.”

“Hilary is… also a good dancer.”

“Eva has really great taste in books.”

“Lucien is the best football player in town, if you care about stuff like that.”

“It’s not a compliment if you add ‘stuff like that,’” Lucien said, but he was laughing.

Jonah smirked, then looked to Skye’s sister. “Star is… smart? You always won a lot of prizes in high school.”

Star shrugged one shoulder, unashamed of her academic prowess.

“Only Allegra left,” Simon prompted.

Jonah forced himself to look at Allegra. Her expression was unreadable but she gave him a small nod, almost as though she were giving him some kind of permission.

“It’s okay,” she said, her tone jovial. “I know you don’t have anything in the compliment bag for me, wizard. I’ll let you off with what you’ve given.”

“No,” Simon insisted, ignoring Jonah’s obvious discomfort. “Jonah, give Allegra one, too.”

Expectant faces looked between Jonah and Allegra, while they stared at each other in discomposure.

“You don’t have to,” Allegra finally said quietly, when the silence had stretched for far too long. “I know we haven’t exactly hit it off—”

“I think you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”

Allegra was good at analyzing different kinds of silence. It was a skill lots of performers possessed. There were awkward silences, silences of condemnation, sympathetic silences, silences of awe, silences of derision. Punishing silences, designed to make someone deeply uncomfortable and unwelcome.

And there were silences of complete shock, where everyone was suspended in time.

As Allegra stared at Jonah, she could see he was as astonished by his own words as everyone else, and she suddenly felt guilty for bringing this part of the game to life.

She felt other things too, but they were beautifully colored potions inside her that she couldn’t identify—and was perhaps too cowardly to drink.

It was a silly, unfashionable thought, but when she had been diagnosed, by doctors who had looked at her as though she was an alien they had watched fall from the sky, she had felt all of the heavy unwantedness of the world.

Girls like her were studied, not admired.

They were diagnosed, not loved. They were the subjects of academic papers, not great paintings or love stories.

They were spoken about, not spoken to. They were projected onto.

They were whispered about. They were sometimes shunned for being too different or ignored for being too good at camouflaging.

It didn’t matter how many jobs she secured, or how many awards she won, a part of her still felt that unwanted sting. That burden of being “other.”

So, when Jonah Thorne, someone who didn’t even like her, called her “beautiful”—not attractive, not hot, but beautiful—she felt the brushstrokes of being human on the canvas of her face for the first time.

She was, of course, unable to say any of this.

“Your turn to spin, Jonah,” Skye finally said.

Jonah readily pushed the bottle into motion and the game clunkily carried on.

Allegra’s attention dipped in and out as the evening progressed.

She felt her work phone vibrating in her pocket and each little trill sent a ripple of anxiety through her.

Her team had promised not to contact her over the summer.

She had made the case to her management and agency, telling them that it was essential for her to be a normal eighteen-year-old for a few months and Natalie had been her valiant second, supporting her all the way.

When the buzzing became noticeable to other people, Allegra excused herself.

As she stepped into the lower ground floor corridor, she glanced at a large clock on the wall in the shape of a pig.

It was getting to be quite late in the evening, and she was horrified at the thought of her team still working.

She called Natalie, who answered after the first ring.

“Everything all right?” Allegra asked.

She could hear that Natalie sounded tired.

“Hi, darling. Sorry to call you, I know you’re out of the office for the summer, but this couldn’t wait.”

Allegra sat down on the carpeted floor and listened while Natalie told her about a director who wanted to meet with her.

“Glory will be in the city when you’re up for the premiere.”

A premiere for a huge, big-budget movie Allegra had wrapped the year before.

Her part was small, the ensemble cast had been enormous.

The producers had stuffed the three-hour picture with as many famous names as possible.

Allegra’s part had practically been a walk-on, which was why she had done it.

No expense had been spared in production.

Except when it came to the writing.

Allegra was not particularly proud of the film but she was still obligated to appear on the carpet.

She was eventually able to persuade Natalie to put everything into an email to her personal account, which she promised she would read.

“Can I give Glory your number?”

“Sure,” Allegra sighed.

“Amazing. Thank you, sweets. Go back to your holiday, have a great time.”

As Allegra hung up the phone, she listened for the sounds of the group next door. She could hear Simon animatedly shouting about something, while Lucien argued back jokingly. The others seemed to be all laughing and joining in.

Somehow, life with her peers had always felt like this to Allegra. She was the one sitting out in the corridor, or in a bathroom stall, while the fun carried on happily without her. She had never enjoyed walking into rooms. She always felt a little unwelcome.

Becoming famous had done nothing to change that. Her world had, ironically, shrunk. The bigger your name becomes, the more strangers will start to use it. Then one day you realize you haven’t heard a loved one say it in forever. They’ve given up trying to be heard over the din of the crowd.

The dramatic switch from being the girl teachers and other teenagers treated like a burden to international superstar had been enough to break her neck.

She heard Simon bellow something that sounded uncharitable at Grace’s friends and it made her wince. He was so different in the emails. Opening up the latest one made her smile again.

Wish you were here.

Perhaps he regretted his abrasiveness. He had said as much, in one of his emails. She certainly said and did things in social situations that had her lying awake late at night, wishing she could negotiate with the weirder parts of her brain.

“Answer the question!”

As Allegra re-entered the room, she frowned at the scene that greeted her. Grace Lancaster was squirming under Star’s fierce gaze.

“Can I do the dare instead?” Grace asked, her voice becoming very small.

“Fine, I dare you to answer the question,” Star said fiercely.

“What question, what have I missed?” Allegra asked, sitting down next to Grace in the circle.

“Not much, I think this game has definitely run its course,” Jonah said. He sounded matter-of-fact but when Allegra looked at him, he looked nervous. Perhaps even a little distressed.

“I don’t really want to answer,” Grace said, to the question Allegra was yet to hear.

“Well, that’s not the game,” Skye said coldly, backing her sister.

“She wants to know if I’ve ever—”

“I don’t need to hear,” Allegra told the other girl when she began to explain. “If you don’t want to answer, you don’t have to answer.”

“Yeah, this is getting boring,” Kerrie said brightly, getting to her feet. “I’m heading back into town if anyone wants to walk.”

“I do,” said Allegra. “Grace, you too?”

“Yes,” said Grace quietly. Her two friends from the ballet also stood up.

“Grace, you don’t have to be so serious all of the time,” Skye said with a disingenuous smile. “This is all very unserious; you don’t need to get worked up.”

Allegra watched Grace experience a tumult of emotions before she finally levelled Skye with a withering stare. When Grace spoke, it was with calm conviction. “You’re rude and mean to people because you know in your heart of hearts, you’re boring. And you’ll be stuck here forever.”

The remark landed like a glove being thrown down. Skye’s face suddenly looked years younger, as she stared up at Grace Lancaster. She seemed unable to formulate a response.

Allegra whistled. “I don’t know, you guys. Lake Pristine could give any audition room a run for its money, this place is lethal.”

She made for the door, offering Grace her arm. The latter gladly took it.

“I’ll walk you home, Allegra,” Simon volunteered, jumping to his feet. “If you want some proper company.”

She gave him a small smile, still trying to remember his endearing email persona. “I’m good with the girls, thanks. See you at work.”

She left his house, hoping that she would start to see more of the Simon she was getting to know from their emails.

She liked that version so much more.