Page 65 of When We Were Magic
“No, we’re good,” I say. “I mean, she gave me some real talk today, but nothing bad. She’s just, um. She’s going through a hard time right now.”
“She’s not hurting herself or anything, though, right?” He says it fast, so fast that I almost don’t catch it. He pokes the crumbling log in the fire a couple more times, not looking at me. His face is set.
“No,” I say softly. “She’s not hurting herself.”
“Can you promise me that you’d tell me if she was?” He looks at me and there’s the feeling again, the one I had with my dads last night. Uncle Trev isn’t talking to me like a kid right now. He’s not asking me if I’m lying to him. He’strusting me to take care of someone he cares about.
“I promise,” I say, and I lift my hand to hold out a pinky finger. But then I think twice, and I hold out my whole hand.
We shake on it.
He stands up, brushing grass off his butt. “I’m going to go back in and check on her,” he says.
“She actually said that she wants space,” I tell him. “She needs to be alone for a little while.”
“Okay,” he says. “I won’t bother her or get into her space or anything. But I gotta make sure she’s okay, you know? I’ll leave her alone, but I can’t leave heralone.” He musses the back of his hair, frowning. “I’m the only adult around right now and I gotta make sure she’s safe. Do you want to come with?”
I shake my head. “It’ll make her feel ganged-up-on. When she asks for space, she really needs it, you know?”
“I know,” he says, nodding. “I’ll just poke my head in to make sure she’s in one piece and then I’ll leave her be. I promise.”
He walks back toward the house with his hands deep in his pockets. He’s a good guy. He’s trying to do the right thing. I wish I could convince him not to check on Marcelina, but at the same time, I’m really happy that he’s going to check on her. Because maybe she needs checking on. Maybe she needs someone making sure she’s in one piece. I think I’d notice if she was feeling bad enough to need checking on, but then, there are lots of things I don’t notice.
I’m glad Trev is here for her, is all. I’m glad that Marcelinaisn’t going to bealone-alone. I look around me at the green grass and feel a pang of something like emptiness, and even though I know I’m notalone-alone, I feel lonely. I pull out my phone and text Roya.
Hey.
She texts back so quickly that I wonder if we hit send at the same time.Wyd?
Getting slobbered on by Handsome and Fritz.
She responds with her favorite picture of Fritz, from his birthday party a year and a half ago. We’d filled a cupcake wrapper with peanut butter, and his snout was covered in it. Roya caught a photo of him in the exact moment that he was trying to lick his own eyebrow. It’s a picture with a lot of tongue. She captions itTell him I said he’s a good boy.
So I do. I poke at the embers in the fire pit with a stick, and I tell Fritz he’s a good boy, and I wait for Marcelina to come outside into the gray world.
19.
WHEN I WAKE UP ONMonday morning, there’s a text from Roya waiting for me. My heart stutters, then rights itself when I see that it’s just a message on the group text. I squint blearily at the screen. When I see what she’s written, my stomach drops.
Senior wing girls’ room 1st period 911
It’s the “911” that does it. That’s a summons that means exactly what it implies: Emergency. Come right away. No questions, no arguments:I need you.
There’s a long line of thumbs-up emojis from everyone else on the chat. It’s the only acceptable response. I send one too, then put my phone down and stay in bed, listening to the sounds of the house and trying hard not to worry. Water is running in the bathroom—Nico’s morning shower, which will last for about thirty minutes or until Dad pounds on the door to tell him to leave some hot water for the rest of us. Dad and Pop are murmuring to each other in the kitchen. I strain to hear what they’re saying,a habit from when I was little and would try to overhear them talking about me. I wonder if they’re talking about me now. About what they know, and what might need to be done about me.
I wonder if I was wrong to show them.
My alarm goes off again. I turn it off and stay under the covers. It feels like maybe if I lie still enough, everything will freeze around me and I won’t have to face the day. I won’t have to find out what the 911 is about, what today’s disaster is going to be. I won’t have to watch that gray-haired cop pulling people out of classrooms. I won’t have to eat, won’t have to have conversations, won’t have to breathe.
But then I hear Dad’s footsteps down the hall, his knuckles on the door to the bathroom. A few seconds later, they’re tapping on the wall outside of my room.
“Hey, bug, time to wake up,” he says to the door.
“I’m awake,” I say, and the spell is broken. I can’t stay in bed, and I know it. I become aware of the bad taste in my mouth and the way the covers are a little too warm.
Something bad is happening. I can feel it. I wonder if someone else lost something big, if something else is broken beyond repair, if something else is going horribly, horribly wrong.
The day is waiting. The 911 is waiting. The gray-haired cop is waiting. The worry is waiting.
