Sealed with a Wish (14 page)

“She called while you were in the bath,” Mom said. “I couldn’t find your cell phone, otherwise I would have brought it in.”

I scoffed. “I probably would have just yelled at you again.”

“Maybe. Well,
probably
.”

“Definitely.” I sighed. “I didn’t mean to bite your head off earlier. Sorry about that.”

“Apology accepted.” She nodded to my phone. “Something going on today?”

“Something.” I smirked and eased onto my back, grabbing a pillow to smother against my face. My voice was muffled as I said, “Are you sure we can’t move?”

Mom rested a hand on my arm. “So, you’re having a fight with Natalie. Is this about a boy?”

I was so surprised that I let the pillow drop from my face. “How’d you know?”

“Natalie’s not the only part-psychic around here, you know.”

“Funny, Mom. It’s Sean. He and I are--” I frowned, sitting up. “Actually, I don’t think he and I are anything at this point.”

“I see. When did that change?”

“Oh, about six hours ago.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” asked Mom.

Sure, I did; I just
couldn’t
. My chest tightened, and I let out a shuddery breath. “No, thanks. I should call Natalie back.”

“Well, let me know if you change your mind, all right?” She planted a soft kiss on my head, then left the room, pulling the door shut behind her.

Instead of squashing another pillow over my face and snuffling myself (my preference), I stared at the ceiling and followed the fans blades, trying to make myself dizzy.

When I had finally gathered enough courage to pick up the phone, it felt like a rock in my hands. I dialed Natalie’s number and held my breath as ring after ring buzzed in my ear. I had just resigned myself to leaving a pathetic voicemail when the line clicked awake.

“Hello?” Nat said, her voice smaller than usual.

“Hey, it’s me. I mean, it’s Layla.” When no reply came, I filled the silence with, “You probably knew that from the caller ID.”

“Hi,” she replied.

I bit my lip. “I’m, umm, calling you back?” Which was such a stupid thing to say that I groaned inwardly.

Natalie just sighed and asked, “What happened at lunch? I really don’t want to be mad about this, Layla, but what I saw was totally not cool.”

The scene flickered through my head again. “Okay, how much
did
you see?”

Natalie let out an indignant bark. “You mean besides how you’re sneaking around with Sean Fabry and lying to me like I’m some kind of idiot? Ugh, and the way you just told him about-- Gawd, why would you do that?”

“I was just--I mean--” I shook my head. “I wasn’t trying to embarrass you. I just wanted to show him how stuck up he is.”

“Really? By telling him I’m in love with him?
That’s
how you tried to prove your point?”

“I wasn’t thinking straight, Nat. We kissed on Friday, and then we spent the weekend together, but I started worrying that maybe--”

“Wait a second, on
Friday
?”

The sharpness in Natalie’s voice made me desperate to back-pedal. Screw it--I needed a wish, something fast and clean and guaranteed to wipe away whatever mistake I had just made. “I wish... I wish...”

“You lied to me and Rajesh!” she cried.

“What? No, I didn’t.”

“Think harder, Layla.”

A second’s pause was enough to make me remember my lie about babysitting on Friday. “Umm...” was all I could say.

“That’s great. What else have you been lying about? Are you even working on a project together?” Nat asked.

I didn’t have the guts to say
no
, so I sidestepped the question. “Oh, come on, Nat, it’s not like I wanted to sneak around.”

“If you didn’t want to sneak around, then you wouldn’t have done it. You would have figured out some other way and we both know that. You just didn’t bother to try,” she said. “I mean, do you think I’m some kind of pathetic stalker-girl or something?”

“What? No, of course not! It’s just... well, you’ve just liked him for so long that I thought you’d freak out.”

“I can’t believe this!” she cried. “Why would you say something like that to me?”

I gave her the best answer I could come up with: “B-because it’s true?”

Nat screamed at me--not words, not even
half
of words, just a yowl that sounded like something between a groan and a growl. If we had been in the same room, I probably would have ducked under a chair for protection.

When she hung up, the silence echoed in my ear.

“Wrong answer,” I said to my empty bedroom.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

After Nat’s angry wolverine sounds, I half-expected her to punch me in the face the second I walked into school the next day.

But she didn’t.

Natalie didn’t do anything. When I sat beside her in English Lit, she barely turned to acknowledge me, as if we were suddenly strangers. While I spent the rest of the hour sweating, she looked as calm as ever.

I got so desperate that I actually considered asking for a pencil as a way to start a conversation. How pathetic was that? After ten years of friendship, an icebreaker about school supplies was the best I could come up with.

As the bell signaled the end of class, I peered at Natalie from the corner of my eye, trying not to look too desperate. All I saw was a blur of magenta passing me by.

I let out a long sigh and gathered my books. On my way out the door, I thought I caught Mr. Lopez frowning in my direction. Normally, I would have wondered if he was dreaming up some diabolical pop quiz, but today, who cared?

The rest of the morning was just as dismal. Although I didn’t have my best friend nearby to ignore me completely, soon there was something else making my chest go tight: who would I eat with at lunch? With everything else happening, I knew it was silly to worry about something so trivial, but that didn’t stop me from doing it, anyway.

#

I spent the hours before lunch wondering whether the risk of looking like a deluded stalker was worth the chance to see Natalie and Raj.

In the end, I decided that being a deluded stalker would be my plan, so I waited at our usual meeting spot at the edge of the parking lot. I didn’t know how these things worked-- my lunch plans with them were probably cancelled, but maybe not. I was still friends with Raj, right? Maybe he (if not Natalie) would want to hang out with me over a little fried food and sugary soda.

A few minutes later, when Nat and Rajesh stepped out of the building, I felt a flutter of hope.

Nat’s eyes widened as she saw me, and for just a second, it seemed like she was going to say hello. But soon enough, she and Rajesh had walked by me by without a word.

My heart sank. I knew I should have expected that, but the rejection still smarted.

Before disappearing into the throng of cars and kids, Raj turned and gave me a small wave. I raised my hand back, watching as the two of them weaved through the lot, toward the line of fast food places down the street.

Of course Natalie would get custody of Raj--why hadn’t I realized that before? As I shuffled back into the quiet of the building, I told myself that it was probably better this way. These days, I didn’t really trust myself around people with secret crushes.

I imagined myself accidentally spilling the beans about Raj’s crush on Natalie, maybe over a plate of Wong’s famous peanut chicken. The image made me cringe, but it also called up a grumble of protest from my empty belly.

Oh, crap. Did Natalie have custody of Wong’s, too? My head swam with visions of a life without peanut chicken.

And then my head swam with something else--a feeling as uncanny as it was familiar. My feet lifted off the ground, and I managed to get half a curse word out before I felt myself get sucked into the vortex. A second later, I bounced off some overstuffed cushions, and then smacked hard into Sean’s lap. This time I finished a curse word, and I’m pretty sure he did, too.

I struggled up, grunting as I tried to clear the fog from my brain. “Dude,” I said, “what part of texting don’t you understand?”

Sean stood and brushed himself off, leaving me in an awkward heap on the couch. “Yeah, that hasn’t been working so well lately, if you haven’t noticed.”

I didn’t bother to make an excuse about a broken cell phone or running out of minutes. What did it matter? “Fine, whatever, but someone could have seen me, you know. Did you think about that?”

“That’s why I waited until lunch. I gotta talk to you, Layla.”

I groaned. If I wasn’t dealing with a drought of conversation with Natalie, I was drowning in it with Sean. “Fine. What do you want to talk about, Fabry? Baseball scores?”

He frowned. “Actually, never mind. I’m sorry I zapped you here.” He made a move to walk away, ready to just leave me alone in his living room without even saying goodbye.

“Hey, at least feed me or something,” I said, standing.

Sean stared at me for a moment, utterly clueless. “Huh?”

“You can’t just zap me here at lunch and expect me to walk back to school on an empty stomach.”

His face pinched with surprise, as if the rudeness of this had never even occurred to him. “You thought I was gonna--?” He shook his head. “Forget it. Come on.”

I followed Sean into the kitchen, where I took a seat at the table while he stood at the counter and made two peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches.

When he was done, Sean sat across from me, sighing as he handed over my plate. “So, umm, how’s Natalie?”

I picked up my sandwich, almost smiling when I noticed he had cut off the crusts. “I don’t know. She’s just really upset about everything and--” As I realized what I was saying, I stiffened and clamped my mouth shut. Sean didn’t need to learn anything else about Natalie, especially not from me. “--And it’s none of your business,” I finished. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you this.”

Sean teeth snapped into his sandwich. Through a full mouth, he replied, “Maybe because I asked you about it?”

The sharpness of his tone left a sting, but I forced myself to smirk. “It’s not like you care what happens to Natalie, anyway. You’ve been ignoring her for your entire life, why change your mind now?”

Fabry only shook his head, mumbling things as he chewed.

I took a big bite of my sandwich, chewing as slowly as possible to avoid the burden of conversation. In the lull, my ears filled with the sounds of my gnashing teeth.

After a long string of quiet, Sean said, “I didn’t know about Natalie, okay? I wasn’t ignoring her on purpose.” The gravity in his voice made me look up and lock eyes with him. I wanted to look away, but I didn’t. Couldn’t. “Don’t you believe me?” he asked.

Like a reflex, I nodded.

“So what’s the problem, Layla?”

I shook my head, pulling my gaze away. “You know
now
.”

And
I
knew all along,
I thought.

Neither of us spoke for the rest of lunch. I told myself this was fine by me, even as my chest grew tighter and my eyes kept darting to Sean’s face.

We drove back to school without a word, the sounds of the engine and the rushing air whooshing around my ears. In class with Natalie, I’d had Mr. Lopez’s lecture to focus on, but here in the car with Sean, silence had never sounded so loud.

I tried to think of something clever to say that might smooth things over between us, but came up empty. Not that I even
wanted
things to be smooth (that would only lead to more kissing, which was the last thing I needed) but it was better than enduring the awkwardness of a silent car trip, even a short one like this.

It was a relief when we finally pulled into a parking space at school. As I stepped outside, the sounds of traffic and scattered conversation seeped into my grateful, sound-starved ears.

I had just started to relax a little when I felt Sean’s hand on my waist. I froze, too shocked to pull away.

“Look, I know you think I’m a useless jerk,” he said.

I opened my mouth to protest, but nothing came out. Meanwhile, through the thin cotton of my shirt, Sean’s fingers felt like electrodes on my skin.

He sighed. “But I don’t feel bad about finding your ring. I don’t care if I went to jail, or if my parents aren’t getting back together. It was wor--”

“Wait, what?” Confusion broke through my surprise, and I took a step back to re-order my thoughts. “Your parents aren’t back together?”

Sean shook his head.

“But wait. I fainted last Friday. You saw it. That means the wish worked. They kissed.”

“Yeah. On the cheek,” he said. “On Sunday night, I thought they were going to tell me Dad was moving back in, but that wasn’t it. Not even close.”

My stomach twisted. We had been so careful about specificity, but Sean’s wish had still fallen flat. Without thinking, I felt myself bob closer to him, almost bridging the gap between us. “What happened?”

“They’re not getting remarried or anything. Dad gets to come over once a week, and he and I are going to hang out more.”

“Sean...” I cupped my hand over his shoulder, straining on my tiptoes to look at him eye-to-eye. “I’m really, really sorry.”

A trace of a smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “It’s cool. Maybe it’ll be like you said: ‘different, but better.’”

Up close, Sean smelled like peanut butter and soapy aftershave. If someone made a bubble bath out of that, I’d never leave the tub.
Why the hell don’t I want things to be smooth?
I wondered. Suddenly, I couldn’t remember...

Abruptly, a blur of magenta sliced through my foggy thoughts like a hot razor.

I flinched away like I had been jolted by electricity, and turned just in time to watch Natalie rush past, her eyes steadfastly on the ground. A breeze curled around us, lifting Natalie’s hair around her face like an angry cloud.

I watched until she had disappeared into the building. My voice was flat as I told Sean, “Call me when you’ve got your third wish. I’ll answer, next time.”

Without waiting for a reply, I walked away. I could feel the heaviness of Sean’s gaze on my back, and, despite the sunshine falling over my shoulders, I shivered.