Spellbound - Cara Lynn Shultz [86]
“He wasn’t really harassing me at first,” I admitted glumly, picking at the hem of my blue top. “I kind of picked the fight. He was spreading some pretty vicious things about Ashley.”
Christine’s eyes widened until they seemed twice the size of her bifocals, and she didn’t speak for a minute. When she did, her voice was cold. “What did he say?”
I squirmed, embarrassed. “Don’t bring it up to Uncle Dan and Aunt Jess, please! She’d be so humiliated!”
“Emma…” Christine’s tone warned me to spill it.
“Anthony was really mean to Ash. And then he said that he—well, you know—with her.”
Christine just looked at me confused. “Use your words, Emma,” she chastised.
“Fine. He said he slept with her. And it was a lie. So I confronted him. That’s what was caught on tape—me trying to get him to admit the truth.”
“And how did the two boys end up fighting?”
“Well, Anthony started getting pretty, um, aggressive with me—as you saw on the video—so Brendan stepped in.”
Christine drummed her hands deliberately on the table. “Well, Emma, as I said, I was really hoping you would come and talk to me. I know you felt like you had no support system back home. I’d like you to realize that I’m here for you.” Christine’s voice wavered just once—but it was enough to let me know that she was hurt that I hadn’t come to her.
“I’m really sorry,” I whispered. “I know you had to pull some strings to get me into the school and this looks kind of bad—”
“Oh, please, Emma, I don’t care about appearances that much,” Christine scoffed. “Your boyfriend’s mother, well, that’s quite a different story, dear.”
“I noticed,” I mumbled, dreading all future interactions with frosty Laura Salinger.
“But I am really sorry. And I promise you, I won’t keep secrets like that again.” I got up from the table to hug Aunt Christine, but as I did, I was ashamed. Wasn’t I already keeping a big secret?
After dinner—and a marathon phone call with Ashley—I climbed into bed with my laptop, alternating between watching Family Guy on Hulu and trying to move things around the apartment with my newfound witch powers. The most I succeeded in doing was accidentally knocking the power cord out of my laptop and having to restart it. I was mostly killing time, waiting for Brendan to call. But around nine-thirty, the last three days caught up with me—and I didn’t even realize that I had fallen asleep until I opened my eyes and my alarm clock blinked that it was after 4:00 a.m. I shut off my laptop and noticed my phone’s status light was blinking.
I grabbed it and saw a text message from Brendan at around 10:00 p.m.
Can u talk?
I furiously typed back that I had fallen asleep and I would see him in the morning, then guiltily added, I hope you’re not in a lot of trouble!
I took a deep breath, thinking about Laura Salinger. She was so cold, she probably farted ice cubes. That was a situation that didn’t seem like it was going to be an easy one to deal with. Focus on the supernatural problems first, Emma. Then you can worry about how to win over your boyfriend’s mother. Even though I longed for my biggest problem to be that my boyfriend’s mother hated me.
As I curled up back underneath my comforter, a rough plan started to form in my head. I would check the local news station, NY1, every day—and stay away from any areas of high crime. I’d avoid the park at night. If there was going to be bad weather, I’d fake the flu. Take whatever precautions I could to make sure I stayed safe. Curses, schmurses.
I drifted off to sleep, proud of my plan.
Chapter 17
Even though I’d told her everything on the phone the night before, Ashley had a few remaining questions for me on the walk to school. Well, it was really just the one question, asked over and over again.
“So he’s really an amazing kisser?” Ash giggled, beaming up at me with bright eyes. And every time she asked me, I would blush and smile. Because every time she asked, I would think about his soft lips, and his strong, warm hands as they held me against him. Every. Single. Time. I