Spellbound - Cara Lynn Shultz [44]
“Thank you.” I bowed, giving a toothy grin. “But I had help.”
“I know,” he replied, giving me a suspicious smile. “What was that whole Brendan thing about? Is there something going on that you haven’t told me?”
“Cisco, until that moment, he hadn’t spoken to me in a week and a half,” I said, raising my right hand. “I swear.”
“I don’t know if I believe you,” he replied, continuing to walk up the stairs to class. “That boy flew across the yard. Flew! And knocked Anthony straight down. That’s not just chivalry.”
I shrugged, thankful that I had to leave and go into history. I waited in the hallway until about a second before the bell rang, racing to my seat behind Jenn. She turned around and mouthed to me, “Oh. My. God. We. Have. To. Talk.”
I just nodded and put my head down on my desk. I didn’t want to talk about the fight. I couldn’t even think about something so…inconsequential. What was all that about this morning? What did Brendan want me to say? What did I do wrong?
Jenn peppered me with a barrage of questions as we walked to English class.
“Were you scared?”
“No, I wasn’t thinking, I just reacted. I was angry.”
“Did you tell Brendan what you were going to do?”
“No, I just reacted, Jenn.”
“Anthony admitted he was lying! I can’t believe it. How did you know you could get him to admit it?”
“I didn’t know. I just reacted.” I sounded a little exasperated on that last one.
“Oh,” Jenn said, it finally sinking in that I didn’t have some master plan cooked up. “So, you and Brendan, huh?” She gave me a thumbs-up and raised her eyebrows up and down.
I sighed. I wished there was a “me and Brendan.” I even liked the sound of our names together. Brendan and Emma. Emma and Brendan. If we were a celebrity couple, we’d be Bremma. Or Emden. No, Bremma. That sounded better. Too bad it was impossible since I’d apparently offended him this morning.
“No, Jenn. There’s no me and Brendan.” I tried to hide my mopey tone.
Once at my seat in English, I dropped my backpack and rifled through it for my notebook, trying to keep my eyes from staying glued to the door for when Brendan walked in.
He sauntered in a few minutes later. My eyes followed him, and they weren’t alone. The entire class followed his movements, eager to see what our interaction would be. They hadn’t seen our little tête-à-tête in front of the school. My classmates needed hobbies. Jeez, learn to knit or bowl or something.
He walked to his desk and faced it, his eyes down. Brendan dropped his backpack and slid into his seat, sitting sideways. I could feel such a pull to him, and unconsciously, my hand slid up across my desk, closer to him, where I brushed the back of his chair with my fingertips.
Brendan turned to me, taking note of the attentive audience of juniors. Seriously, people, CityVille, even!
“Look, Emma,” he started, his voice full of the same soft tone he had used in front of the school.
“Class, class, let’s get started,” Mr. Emerson cut in, clapping his hands and walking in. I actually jumped a few inches in my seat, and then forced my eyes to stare at my textbook. At the end of class, Brendan bolted out of the room.
I desperately wished I had my iPod with me so I could muffle the voices of my gossipy classmates as I walked down the halls. Thankfully Angelique could care less about the fight—all she could talk about during lunch was that her mom had just returned from giving a lecture at Georgetown and promised to bring me some books on ancient medieval symbols that she was borrowing from a colleague. Angelique had talked to her mom, and Dr. Evelyn Tedt was positive that my necklace somehow factored into the whole supernatural shebang. Like I could even focus on exploding streetlights. How could I worry about spirits when I couldn’t even seem to manage to get along on this normal plane?
Wednesday morning arrived—and I was a tired mess. My eyes didn’t just have bags—they had five-piece luggage sets. I tossed and turned all night. I dreamed I was walking through New York, the way I had seen it in movies about the early 1900s. I