The car idles in front of my house. I wish the drive home were three times as long. “But you were on an academic scholarship? They wouldn’t take that away from you.”
He crosses his arms. “After my injury I got in a fight with a guy on my team. Collin, that kid who swung by Harpy’s over the summer.”
“Over what?”
He shakes his head. “What every guy gets in a fight over. A girl.”
The air in his truck is dense, and I can feel it all the way down to my bones. “The girl who was with him?”
“Amber. We dated for two years. But I was a shitty boyfriend to her anyway.”
I want to ask him how, but I don’t know if I want to know the answer yet.
“I broke Collin’s collarbone. He broke my nose. When we went to enroll for the next year, they said funds had dried up. The donor had to pull their donation. And now my little brother hates me.”
“He misses it?”
He smirks. “Yeah, that kid was a king there. He’d been dating the same girl since seventh grade. Who does that?” He shakes his head, still smiling. I can see what he doesn’t say: that he loves his little brother more than is healthy and would probably play on a busted-up knee to make him happy. “He’s a freshman now. He took the whole thing worse than I did. And then because he’s fifteen and everything’s shit when you’re fifteen, his girlfriend broke up with him. Said she couldn’t do long distance.”
“Long distance?”
“Yeah, the place is about a ten-minute walk from our house.”
“Wow.” My hand hovers over the door handle.
“Let me walk you to the front door,” he says.
“No, it’s fine.”
He persists. “Really.”
“We actually use the back door.”
“Why?”
“The front door’s jammed. It’s been like that for a long time.”
“So why don’t you fix it?” he asks.
“I don’t know. Just one of those things we never got around to. And now we’re so used to it that it doesn’t matter.”
His lips twitch like he’s got something to say, but he stays quiet.
I let myself out of the truck and hold the door open a second as a thought forms in my mind. “Why have you been sitting next to me these last two days? In class. You can talk to me at work.”
He does that thing again where he brushes his knuckles across his chin. “I guess I would rather talk to you everywhere.”
Behind the fence, in my backyard, I smile.
I dump the contents of my backpack on my bed, hoping to at least do some homework before I fall asleep. Splayed out between my textbooks, with a bent cover, is the how-to magic book that Mitch gave me. I pull it to my chest and slump down to the floor. I’d completely forgotten about my talent—or even the pageant—for a few days. Bo coming back into my world, if only in the tiniest of ways, turns my brain into a vacuum, where nothing else can exist, because I’m so consumed.
But I don’t want that. I can’t want that.
Thumbing through the pages, I find several different tricks, but none of them grab me. A note slips from the pages, and I unfold it.
Will—When I was a kid, I went through a magician phase where I wore capes and top hats everywhere. I thought maybe you could use some magic of your own.—Mitch
I slide the note back between the pages and sigh. It’s ridiculous. Me, performing silly magic tricks. But what else is there for me to do? I don’t have a self-defining talent like Bekah or even something I stuck with long enough to fall back on.
I lean back against my bed with the book in my lap, and begin to practice the motions of hidden coin illusion. This feels like settling. A missed opportunity. But I don’t think that makes it wrong.
I try to channel that spark of energy that made me enter the pageant in the first place. But that little bit of magic is nowhere to be found.
FORTY-FIVE
When I pick my mom up from work the next day, she’s got a dress bag draped over her arm. She holds her hand up as she gets into the car. “Before you say anything, hear me out.”