noticed I was doing better.
In third period Physics, I was lost in daydreams about feeling that tingle of power in my blood when Wendy passed me a note asking if I’d been sick.
Day bug
, I wrote back.
Glad better. What hpnd w/Nick?
Oh, yeah. Nick had driven me home on Wednesday night. I scrawled my reply.
Drove home
.
Wendy: ?
Me:
Nothing
.
Wendy lifted both her eyebrows, and underlined her question mark twice. I just shrugged a little and looked back at the diagram Mr. Faulks was drawing on the blackboard. After a moment, Wendy got out her pink lip gloss and pretended to concentrate on reapplying, when what she was really doing was letting me ignore her.
Guilt pushed at my ribs. If I drove Wendy away, there’d be none of my old friends left. I wrote,
I like him
, and slid it to the side of my desk so that she could see.
Her eyes widened, and she smiled. She bobbed her head and the pink barrettes holding back her blond hair glittered inthe fluorescent lights. Then she wrote,
Good! I’m glad. B/c u won’t mind if I ask Eric out
.
WHAT?
Don’t want to step on yr toes
.
You HATE him
.
He’s so cute!
I boggled at her. I’d gone out with Eric for a few months two years ago because we’d been the only two freshmen cast in
Oklahoma!
, but since then he and Wendy had had this wicked rivalry going on. Now that he was president of the drama club in my place, she’d done nothing but jerk him around.
Wendy shrugged, then smiled a sinful little smile.
After class, she grasped my elbow and leaned in to whisper, “You have to come to the party tonight, to be my backup.”
“Party?”
She rolled her eyes dramatically. “Sil! The Anti-Football Party! At Eric’s place. Duh.”
Oh, that. It was a big thing for all the nonsports clubs at the school, held every fall by the drama club president. Always the night the football team played our chief rivals, the Glouster Panthers. I winced. Reese and I had agreed to try more magic tonight … but Wendy was smiling at me in that way that meant she was being more lighthearted than she wanted to be. She was pretending it was less of a deal than it was. I softened my expression. “You think Eric will really go for it?”
“Only one way to find out,” she said lightly. “And you need a party. You haven’t been out since.”
I chewed the side of my tongue.
“It’s important, Silla. And I need you.”
How could I say no to that? Reese could entertain himself. “Okay. I’ll be there.”
“Yay!” she squeed, her curls bouncing like Slinkys.
NICHOLAS
I stared at her in the cafeteria as she stood in line, putting a single cup of Jell-O on her tray. Her hair stuck in a half-dozen directions today, with only a thin blue headband holding any of it back from her face. She’d finally been in the cemetery again Wednesday night, but there’d been a guy with her—a guy with seriously broad shoulders who could probably have crushed my head between his hands if he felt like it. Her brother, I hoped. I’d started to watch them, but that was pretty stalker-boy even for my tastes.
Speaking of stalker-boy behavior, it hadn’t taken more than two minutes on Google to find out the bare bones of Silla’s issues. Over the summer, her dad had shot her mom, then killed himself. She’d been the one to find them inside the house. It had been a couple of hours before her brother arrived home and called the police.
No wonder she was hanging out in the graveyard. I mean, she had to be seriously messed in the head. I knew what it was like to see more of your mom’s blood than was healthy, and you didn’t get over it.
Silla hadn’t been in school yesterday, and it’s possible I spent the entire day grumpier than usual because of it. Sitting at rehearsal while Stokes read her lines was annoying enough that I’d promised myself if she wasn’t there again, I was cutting play practice. Of course, I wondered if she was sick from themagic. Mom used to spend hours in bed
In third period Physics, I was lost in daydreams about feeling that tingle of power in my blood when Wendy passed me a note asking if I’d been sick.
Day bug
, I wrote back.
Glad better. What hpnd w/Nick?
Oh, yeah. Nick had driven me home on Wednesday night. I scrawled my reply.
Drove home
.
Wendy: ?
Me:
Nothing
.
Wendy lifted both her eyebrows, and underlined her question mark twice. I just shrugged a little and looked back at the diagram Mr. Faulks was drawing on the blackboard. After a moment, Wendy got out her pink lip gloss and pretended to concentrate on reapplying, when what she was really doing was letting me ignore her.
Guilt pushed at my ribs. If I drove Wendy away, there’d be none of my old friends left. I wrote,
I like him
, and slid it to the side of my desk so that she could see.
Her eyes widened, and she smiled. She bobbed her head and the pink barrettes holding back her blond hair glittered inthe fluorescent lights. Then she wrote,
Good! I’m glad. B/c u won’t mind if I ask Eric out
.
WHAT?
Don’t want to step on yr toes
.
You HATE him
.
He’s so cute!
I boggled at her. I’d gone out with Eric for a few months two years ago because we’d been the only two freshmen cast in
Oklahoma!
, but since then he and Wendy had had this wicked rivalry going on. Now that he was president of the drama club in my place, she’d done nothing but jerk him around.
Wendy shrugged, then smiled a sinful little smile.
After class, she grasped my elbow and leaned in to whisper, “You have to come to the party tonight, to be my backup.”
“Party?”
She rolled her eyes dramatically. “Sil! The Anti-Football Party! At Eric’s place. Duh.”
Oh, that. It was a big thing for all the nonsports clubs at the school, held every fall by the drama club president. Always the night the football team played our chief rivals, the Glouster Panthers. I winced. Reese and I had agreed to try more magic tonight … but Wendy was smiling at me in that way that meant she was being more lighthearted than she wanted to be. She was pretending it was less of a deal than it was. I softened my expression. “You think Eric will really go for it?”
“Only one way to find out,” she said lightly. “And you need a party. You haven’t been out since.”
I chewed the side of my tongue.
“It’s important, Silla. And I need you.”
How could I say no to that? Reese could entertain himself. “Okay. I’ll be there.”
“Yay!” she squeed, her curls bouncing like Slinkys.
NICHOLAS
I stared at her in the cafeteria as she stood in line, putting a single cup of Jell-O on her tray. Her hair stuck in a half-dozen directions today, with only a thin blue headband holding any of it back from her face. She’d finally been in the cemetery again Wednesday night, but there’d been a guy with her—a guy with seriously broad shoulders who could probably have crushed my head between his hands if he felt like it. Her brother, I hoped. I’d started to watch them, but that was pretty stalker-boy even for my tastes.
Speaking of stalker-boy behavior, it hadn’t taken more than two minutes on Google to find out the bare bones of Silla’s issues. Over the summer, her dad had shot her mom, then killed himself. She’d been the one to find them inside the house. It had been a couple of hours before her brother arrived home and called the police.
No wonder she was hanging out in the graveyard. I mean, she had to be seriously messed in the head. I knew what it was like to see more of your mom’s blood than was healthy, and you didn’t get over it.
Silla hadn’t been in school yesterday, and it’s possible I spent the entire day grumpier than usual because of it. Sitting at rehearsal while Stokes read her lines was annoying enough that I’d promised myself if she wasn’t there again, I was cutting play practice. Of course, I wondered if she was sick from themagic. Mom used to spend hours in bed
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