Page 34 of When We Were Magic
“Getting rid of the pieces to bring back the heart,” Maryam says softly. “Your idea.”
I shake my head and look to Iris as if she’ll give me answers, but she’s still pretending to rummage through her backpack. This doesn’t sound like what I said—but it makes sense, sort of. As much as anything does. “So, you guys think that if we get rid of all the pieces of Josh—”
“Maybe his heart will come all the way back, and then we can bring him back to life from there,” Paulie finishes. “Yeah.”
“We should try, right?” Maryam says. “I mean … it’s still worth trying to make it right, obviously. This method is better than nothing.” She’s got her hands folded neatly on top of the table, and everything about her looks carefully constructed to seem calm.
I wait for Iris to look up. When she does, I catch her eye, and she frowns.
“It makes the most sense,” she whispers. “And every time you guys get rid of a piece, except for when Roya did the arm—I feel better every time. Like the thing that’s wrong in that spell is slowly easing off.”
“It feels like we’re setting things back where they’re supposed to go,” Roya says through half a mouthful of my burrito. “So, yeah. Let’s go with it, huh?”
“What about the arm?” I ask, and Iris shakes her head.
“She didn’t actually get rid of it. She just hid it,” Iris says. “She’s gotta go back and get it out of there, get rid of it the right way.” The way she says it, I can tell that they alreadytalked about this part. Without me. They figured it all out already.
Roya rolls her eyes. “Fine, yeah,” she says. “I’ll do it again. Alexis Rules: we have to get rid of the piece all the way, for keeps, before the heart comes back to life. Right?”
Alexis Rules?I’m not used to being the one credited with the big plans, and I’m so afraid that someone will be angry with me if this goes wrong too. “What if it doesn’t work?” I ask.
Maryam unfolds her hands to drape an arm across my shoulder. “Then we’ll figure it out. Together. But we have to try.”
“Maryam’s right,” Marcelina says. “This keeps getting harder and more complicated, and you all know I’d rather run away, but … I don’t think this is a thing we can run away from, and either way, I can’t live the rest of my life knowing I didn’t at least try to do the right thing.”
“You’re not alone either, you know,” Paulie says with a smile. Before I can say anything, the lunch bell rings.
We all get up to head to class, but Paulie grabs my arm. “Hang on a minute,” she says, running her free hand through her hair. It’s a femme day for her, and she’s wearing her hair long and loose. It falls past her shoulders in perfect waves. She sees me looking and winks. “Maryam helped me out with it this morning,” she says. “She’s been practicing on me. I told her that I’d let her if she promised to stop feeling bad about how she can’t really help with the Josh project.” She tosses it back and forth in a goofy parody of aBaywatchbabe. “I think it came out pretty great, yeah?”
Pretty greatis an understatement. She looks like something out of a shampoo commercial. “It’s amazing,” I say. “She’s so incredible. Damn.” I feel myself smile, and I realize it’s the first time I’ve smiled today. I love seeing the things my friends can do. I love being impressed by them. “I didn’t know Maryam was doing hair … stuff,” I say. I glance around to see if anyone is listening to us.
“It took her like thirty seconds,” Paulie whispers. “She grew it longer, even. This morning it only came to here.” She holds her hand flat about four inches above the ends of her hair.
“Wow,” I breathe.
“Yeah,” Paulie says. She reaches out and touches my wrist with one hand. “So, I was thinking of going for a drive. Do you want to come with?”
“Uh, sure,” I say, distracted by the way her fingers are brushing mine.
“Cool,” she says. “Let’s go.”
“What,now?” She laughs and starts walking. I stand where I am, confused for a couple of seconds, before jogging to catch up with her. “What about fifth period?” I ask, like a total square.
“What, do you have a test or something?” she asks, pushing open an emergency exit door. No alarm goes off—they never do. I wish I could credit Paulie’s magic for that, but it’s really just that the school deactivated all of them because they were tired of alarms going off all day.
“No, I just have study hall,” I say, blinking in the sunlight. “But …” I trail off. But what? It’s a gorgeous day, and there’shardly any school left, and Paulie wants to go for a drive. What am I gonna miss? A bored teacher trying to get through their grading so that they can actually have a night at home without piles of half-assed essays to mark up? A room full of seniors trying to decide if they can get away with napping?
Besides, if I leave now, I won’t have to spend study hall trying not to make eye contact with Gina. I know I should face her, but I don’t think I’m brave enough to do it just yet.
I don’t say anything else, and Paulie doesn’t wait for an end to my sentence. She walks ahead, shoulders pulled back in that perfect cheerleader posture. She moves like she knows I’ll follow.
And of course, I do.
11.
PAULIE DRIVES FAST AND BRAKEShard. I buckle in and spend most of the drive trying not to grab the dashboard. Every time she accelerates, her cheeks dimple with a held-back smile. She keeps the windows up and weaves in and out of traffic with even more precision than usual.
“Where are we going?” I ask. She said “for a drive” before, but she’s driving like someone with a destination in mind.
