Family Magic (14 page)

I ignored her order and stood there, putting
all my sympathy in my face, my eyes, my stance. I even reached out
toward her.

“Did you want to talk about it?” I asked
her.

I thought her head would explode. I’ve never
seen anyone turn that red and white so quickly. It didn’t help most
of the room now laughed at her. Her face collapsed in on itself
and, before she fled, I saw the tears start to spill over her
cheeks.

It took me a minute to register the applause.
I ignored it and left the bathroom.

As I took my seat in first period I tried to
understand what I was feeling. I was supposed to be the winner,
here. At least that was the impression I had from the cheers and
air fives I accepted in a daze from my fellow classmates. I was
supposed to be happy, proud of my victory, right?

So how come I felt like I was the bully
now?

I avoided the attempts of my fellow students
to congratulate me and practically ran to my next class so I didn’t
have to talk to anyone. I hoped word hadn’t spread yet, but the
same friendly stares, the same thumbs up kept coming from everyone
I met.

Why had everything changed? Why did everyone
in the school now want to be my friend? Was I really the first
person to stand up to Alison Morgan and get away with it?

Wow, these kids needed to get a life.

I avoided or rebuffed every friendly advance
that came my way all morning, getting madder and madder about the
whole thing. How dare they think they could be my friends? Where
were they when I needed support? Forget them and the horse they
rode in on. The whole lone ranger Syd thing started to be pretty
appealing.

The worst was the speculative look from
Quaid. I stopped in the hall, facing him square on, the top of my
head barely reaching his chin. He stared back at me, flat and
unimpressed, but there was a softening in his face I hadn’t seen
there before. My demon purred her happiness and reached for him
while my anger slapped her back, refusing to give in so easily.

“Well?” I snapped at him.

“Impressive,” he said with a healthy dose of
sarcasm.

If the bell hadn’t rung, I would have hit
him.

Lunch was fun. Not. No, I did not want to sit
at the popular table. No, I wasn’t interested in talking about what
happened. No, you cannot buy me lunch. Thanks but no thanks!

I didn’t see Alison anywhere, and yes, I
looked. Not to be vindictive, seriously. I felt awful about tearing
her down in public like that. The bad guys acted that way, not the
good guys. I caught Brad’s eyes and wished I hadn’t. He seemed
pretty mad. But was he mad at me? I didn’t want to find out.

I sat in the corner of the cafeteria at a
busted table no one used because it was so wobbly. It took a bit of
balance to use it but I ate at it a few times before and had the
hang of it.

I toyed with my sandwich, trying to decide if
I could tolerate anything in my stomach right then when a pair of
beat-up sneakers came to a halt inside my peripheral vision. I
looked up at the smallest high school student I had ever seen.

And yes, as luck would have it, he was a
guy.

He held his industrial orange tray in his
slightly shaking hands. I noticed each and every fingernail was
bitten so close they all bled at one time or another. I watched
with appalled fascination as the top of his green Jell-O wobbled
with his trembling. His backpack, fully loaded, slipped slowly down
his shoulder, pulling his sci-fi T-shirt crooked. He blinked at me
through thick glasses, little feet shuffling in those scuffed
sneakers.

“Hi,” he said, snuffling a little, struggling
to keep his tray upright while the backpack that weighed more than
he did bent him to the right.

I reached out, not thinking, and took the
pack from him before he dropped his tray. I guess he took it as an
invitation.

He slipped onto the bench across from me,
making the table wobble dangerously. He flashed me a nervous smile
as everything settled again.

“Sorry,” he said. “Clumsy.”

“Syd, nice to meet you,” I answered. I don’t
know if I was really trying to be funny but he thought I was.

His laugh was way too high-pitched for
comfort as he wiggled his nose to adjust his glasses, rabbit
like.

“Sorry, not what I meant,” he offered me his
hand. Who did that? “I’m Simon. Nice to meet you too, Syd.”

Not that I had anything against Simon, but
this had gone far enough. I was the lone wolf, now, no friends, no
interest. Goodbye was on my lips when I was surrounded and my table
filled up.

I sat there as the veritable crowd of
strangers took a seat and made themselves at home.

“Syd,” Simon pointed at the girl who sat
beside me, “this is Pain. That’s her boyfriend, Blood.”

Can you say Goth? Black hair, black nail
polish, black eyeliner and eye shadow so thick it touched the
cheekbones, black lipstick, black clothes, black, black and more
black. Yes, on both of them.

I couldn’t tell what either of them looked
like under all the gloom. For all I knew, they could have been
related.

Ick.

Pain bobbed her head slowly, once. Blood dug
into his food like it wasn’t dead yet.

Nice.

“This is Beth,” Simon went on, pointing at
the normal-appearing girl next to Pain.

“Hi,” Beth said, offering her hand. In a
daze, I shook it. “I like your hair.”

“Thanks,” I breathed. “I like yours too.”

She smoothed her fingers over her short brown
bob and dimpled. Her smile reached her green eyes. If I could
describe her in one word it would be neat. And tidy. Okay, that’s
two words.

“Thanks.”

“And this is Page,” Simon said, gesturing
with his little white plastic spoon, bits of unchewed Jell-O still
clinging to it. I glanced at the beautiful blonde, perfectly
dressed and made up, who kept her eyes down.

Why wasn’t she with the popular kids? She
looked like one of them.

The question must have been all over my face.
Simon leaned in and whispered, “Fallen Angel.”

Fallen Angel. Popular crowd discard. Wonder
what she did to piss Alison off?

Better question was, who were these people
and what did they want?

“We heard about what happened,” Simon said,
pushing his glasses back more firmly on his face. “Heard you ousted
Alison in a fair fight.”

“Did you mark her?” Pain peered up from under
her dyed black hair, chocolate brown eyes almost black too.

“No,” I said.

“How come? I would have marked her,” Pain
turned away, dreamy. She and Blood double fisted across the
table.

Weird.

“No offense,” I said to Simon who appeared to
be the impromptu leader of this little group, “but what exactly is
it you want?”

Simon set down his chocolate milk and
backhanded away the mustache.

“You beat Alison,” he said as if it explained
everything.

“So?” My annoyance grew. This day wasn’t
turning out the way I expected. I was suddenly very tired.

“You then proceeded to reject all of the
popular kids.” He shrugged.

They all stilled, even Page.

“Again,” I said, “so?”

“You don’t want to be one of them,” Simon
said. “That’s not why you did it.”

“Very good. So what does that have to do with
all of you?”

Beth spoke up.

“We thought...”

I looked at her and back to Simon when she
faltered.

“You’re not like them,” Pain said.

“I’ll definitely take that as a compliment,”
I rolled my eyes. “Still doesn’t answer my question.”

Simon glanced around at the little group
before looking back at me.

“We thought... if you didn’t want to be like
them...”

“Yes?” I wanted him to spit it out already.
Man, where was my patience?

“That maybe you wanted to be, you know, like
us.”

Page’s laughter drew all eyes to her. It was
subtle, painful laughter, heavy and wrenching, soft even, but from
the deepest part of her. She shook with it, clinging to the edge of
the table, one arm around her ribs as she laughed so hard she
cried. She lifted her head, her mascara running over her perfectly
made up face, the bitterness and cynicism clearly stamped on her,
the kind of emotion that would age her beyond her years if she let
it eat away at her much longer.

“No one wants to be like us,” she choked out,
still laughing.

I stood up abruptly, pushing away from the
table, trying not to get mad but wanting to make an impression.

“Listen,” I said to them, “I didn’t do what I
did for you,” I pointed directly at Simon, “or for them,” I
gestured into the rest of the cafeteria, “or for anyone. I did it
because I just wanted to be left alone. Do you get it?” I asked
him. “Do you?”

“You don’t want to make friends?”

He was so fragile, they all were. The
outcasts of a society that wouldn’t accept them. They only had each
other. And I wondered about that much. Page, I’m sure, would turn
on them like a rabid animal at the first chance to be welcomed back
into Alison’s good graces. And the Goth twins would likely
self-destruct on very little notice. I shook my head. The last
thing I needed at this point was a pack of misfits hanging off of
me, seeking protection I could barely offer myself.

“No, Simon, I’m sorry. I don’t. Okay?”

I knew it took a lot for him to approach me,
to step up. He took the risk for his little posse, opened the door.
I felt bad I slammed it shut on him, on them. But I was tired of
people all together.

They were better off without me.

That was when I noticed everyone had fallen
deathly silent, not only our table. Everyone.

Everyone that is, except Page. She continued
to laugh as I gathered up my things. I fled the stares and
judgments poisoning the air of the cafeteria.

***

I made it through the rest of the day without
having to turn down any more offers of best friendship, so I felt a
little more emotionally stable by the time the last bell rang. I
was free to escape. I could only guess Alison went home for the
rest of the day because she wasn’t in any of my usual classes nor
at any of her typical haunts during breaks.

Guess she was sick or something.

I knew how she felt.

I tried to talk to Brad after school but
missed him. I know he saw me, but he drove off with his buddies
before I had a chance to say anything to him. It felt important I
know one way or another if he was angry with me.

Part of me was mad at him anyway. He brought
this on, after all. And how dare he be angry with me for standing
up for myself? Brad could go piss off, if that was the case.

The other part of me, the part that wished
things could be different, wanted to know Brad did everything he
could to help but his friends wouldn’t let him.

Yeah, right. Even I wasn’t that clueless.

I dragged my gaze from the retreating SUV and
turned to leave, catching Quaid staring at me. That was about to
stop and never happen again. I squared my newfound aggressive
tendencies and marched up to him.

He smiled at me, really smiled. His chocolate
brown eyes smiled too.

It took me by surprise. And knocked the anger
out of me.

Still, I had to try.

“Something funny?” I demanded.

Quaid grinned, showing perfect white teeth.
His black hair glowed in the sunlight, tall, lean body totally at
ease. Wow, he was hot.

“Not sure what you were going for,” he said
in that velvety deep voice of his, “but at least they’re all afraid
of you now.”

“I wasn’t going for that,” I said.

“Really?” His lips twisted to the side, eyes
still sparkling. I was having trouble concentrating for some
reason. Oh right. My stupid demon side was panting over him. That
made it very hard to concentrate on despising him. And if I found
out he was using magic on me, I had plans to kill him.

No such luck. Just hormones and a randy
demon, damn it.

“Really,” I said. “In case you hadn’t noticed
in your little friendship with Alison, I’m not exactly the most
popular person around here.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I got that. And she’s not
my friend.”

“You seemed pretty chummy yesterday,” I tried
to keep the bitterness out of my voice.

He laughed, a deep, warm sound wrapping me in
something that had nothing to do with magic.

“We’re different that way, Syd,” he said.
“You try to fit in. I don’t.”

“Then why the whole Alison thing?”

“I wondered what she had to offer,” he said.
“Not much.”

Wow. That was cold. Still, I agreed with him,
sadly enough.

“Least you could have done was stay out of
the way,” I complained. “You didn’t have to help her along.”

“Sorry if I gave you that impression,” he
said.

“So you were using her, is that it?” I’m not
normally so skeptical, but the last few days taught me some
things.

“You could say that.”

“Yeah, right,” I challenged him.

“Really.” He let the full weight of the truth
hang between us. I had to admit he at least believed what he said,
even if he was deluding himself.

“At least I’m honest about my motives,” he
added. “Unlike some.”

I didn’t take long for me to look away.

“I don’t have motives, except being left
alone.”

“Hm-hm. No revenge, no desire to have them
run from you?”

There was the rabbit image. But this whole
day was so much easier than any other day I ever experienced since
I started high school. Part of me knew he was right. Their fear was
my freedom, whether I liked it or not.

“Fine,” I said, “if they’re scared of me,
better than being pushed around.” I meant it.

“Don’t you sometimes wish we could...” he
drifted off, mischief on his face, still smiling. But there was a
darkness to him that worried me.