Spellbound - Cara Lynn Shultz [11]
“Ashley, look,” I began, a little harsher than I intended, and I instantly felt terrible. The truth was, today would not have been as easy as it had been without her.
“What?” She looked at me with wounded eyes.
“I don’t…feel comfortable. At all. A lot of the time,” I mumbled, picking at my dark nail polish and peeling the paint off nervously. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to start crushing on some guy who I have zero chances with. I don’t even know how I’m going to do on the friend front. Kristin Thorn already hates me for some bananas reason. Don’t you understand? It hasn’t worked out all that well for me—being close to someone.”
Ashley looked at me with more wisdom than I’d ever given her credit for. Suddenly, I felt stupid for denying her the knowledge of her fourteen years.
“Emma,” she said, softly. “I get it. And it’s okay if you want to feel a mess. But if you start to feel normal again, and if something makes you happy, it doesn’t mean that you don’t miss your mom or Ethan. It doesn’t mean the last few years didn’t suck. But remember, this is your chance to just be Emma. Not Emma with the wicked stepfather, Emma with the terrible home life, Emma the whole school is talking about. You’re just Emma. Your mom would want you to be happy. So would your brother.”
“I know, Ashley.” I sighed, wincing as I always did anytime I thought of my mom and brother, Ethan, lost within a year of each other.
“Why on earth my mom decided to marry Henry when she knew she was sick, I’ll never know.” Henry had been asking my mom to marry her forever, and I never understood why a cancer diagnosis made her finally say yes.
“She wanted to make sure someone was around to take care of you,” Ashley said quietly. “I get it. She didn’t want you to be alone.”
I am anyway. I pursed my lips, willing myself to keep a strong front as I shuffled along the concrete sidewalk.
“Emma, I’m serious,” Ashley said, coming to a full stop. “Give yourself a break. If not for you, then for them.”
I sighed. “I know, Ash, in my head. I’ll work on convincing myself, you know, here.” I pointed at my chest.
“In your boobs?” She hooted, giving me a devilish look, and I laughed, relishing the break in the somber mood. “Hey, you never showed me your ID. Lemme see,” she said, pulling at my backpack. Glad for the change of subject, I reached in my backpack and pulled out the small white card.
“Jeez, Emma.” Ashley let out a low whistle. “Seriously, this sucks.”
“That bad?” I grabbed it back. “Let me see.”
Oh, great.
I looked like the “before” picture on one of those makeover shows. I hadn’t been paying attention to the gray lady, so she caught me looking up, startled, my mouth kind of open and slack-jawed. The too-bright flash had given my skin a tone that could only be described as yellow-gray. Zombie girl, at your service. Still, it was a nice picture of my necklace. It caught the light nicely—you could really see the crest on it.
“Sorry about the bad ID, Emma,” Ashley said.
“You’re a bad ID!” I said, laughing.
“Oh, you’re still doing that?” she asked, rolling her eyes at my stupid little joke. Anytime I couldn’t think of something clever to say, I just told the person they were whatever we were talking about. Ethan and I used to spend hours annoying our mom with it.
“It’s dinnertime, kids,” she would call from the kitchen. “Turn off the TV.”
“You’re a TV!” we’d call back in unison. Mom would just chuckle and shake her head, chalking it up to one of our random twin idiosyncrasies.
“Eh, it still makes me laugh.” I shrugged, smiling at the memory.
“Yeah, you’ll be fine,” Ashley said dryly as we reached the front door of my aunt’s building. “See you tomorrow!”
One day down. 168 to go.
Chapter 3
The next two and a half weeks kind of plodded on—although crossing them off in the back of my notebook as if I were serving a prison sentence sure didn’t help the time fly. Jenn, I assumed, was afraid of losing favor with Kristin, since some days she was warm and friendly—and others, she just