Love Me, Love Me Not

by Alyxandra Harvey

  I kept a wary eye on my family. “Three, two…one.”

  The cafeteria doors flew open and a handful of students rushed down the steps, car keys clutched in angry frantic hands. Aunt Ellie was the first to notice them from her vantage point. “Fall back!”

  “Civilians,” Jude added.

  Aunts, uncles, and cousins scattered.

  I grabbed for my backpack, smirking. “Teach you to interrupt my studying.”

  Ana

  I could not catch a break today.

  I’d already been neck-deep in a blood feud and now Jackson was determined to interrupt my try-not-to-smile-like-an-idiot-at-Edward time. I could manage weird-blank-face and overexcited-toddler-on-a-sugar-high grin. Neither of which were possible right now because Jackson was chasing Rosalita across the parking lot. Edward was leaning under the hood of his car, looking hot. Confused, but hot. Jamie was there, too, waiting for her ride and sporting a new angled bob haircut.

  “Rosalita, wait!” Jackson called.

  She didn’t look back, but she did flip her hair over one shoulder. I hurried over. “Cut it out.”

  “What?” She blinked innocently. Well, as innocently as she could while wearing a dress so short I was pretty sure it was actually a blouse. The long sleeves hid her training bruises. Mine were tucked under my T-shirt, all up my left side.

  “You proved your point this morning,” I told her. “Let it go. We already had a fight with the Renards today and—”

  Jackson caught up to us, his eyes fiery and dazed and too bright. He looked high, but I knew it was the magic amplifying whatever idiot thoughts were already inside his head. “Rosalita.” He sighed her name.

  “Jackson, go away.” I sighed, too.

  “No.” He scowled at me. “What’s your problem?”

  My problem was that I was trying to save him from himself and he wasn’t making it easy. Rosalita never made anything easy, so no surprise there.

  “You never called me back,” he said to her. “I wanted to say thank you for the cupcakes, but now you won’t even look at me. You wouldn’t talk to me at the party and I love you.”

  Rosalita looked bored. “That’s nice.” She patted his arm. “Bye now.” She glared at me as we hurried down the last steps. “What more do you want? And don’t think I don’t know this is your doing. I never baked him cupcakes. As if.”

  “Well, one of us had to do something.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I have an arrow with his name on it. It’s not like I don’t know what to do, Ana.”

  “He’s not a Renard. And you can’t just make people crazy because you can’t be bothered to try anything else first!”

  “Whatever.” She rolled her eyes again. “Lighten up. Plus, you’re not actually slut-shaming me are you? Uncool.”

  “Give me a break. I don’t care who you sleep with.” To say our family is not prudish was an understatement. “Sonnet sleeps with just as many guys as you do, the difference is you’re mean about it.”

  “Well, good for Saint Sonnet.”

  “There are lots of other options that don’t involve arrows,” I insisted.

  Which I was about to demonstrate.

  Because Jackson wasn’t giving up and I was out of patience. He grabbed Rosalita’s elbow and swung her around. Her ballet flats skidded on the thin gravel. “You have to give me a chance.”

  “Let. Go,” she snapped.

  “No, you have to—”

  And that’s when I punched him. Before Rosalita could use an arrow, and before he did something so irrevocably gross that punching him wasn’t enough. His head snapped back and he didn’t make a sound, not even when blood trickled out of his nose. That scared me most of all. “Go home, Jackson.” I sang it, but only a little. He blinked, disoriented, and wandered away. The wind touched my hair.

  “You might try using all that interfering magic on yourself,” Rosalita said silkily, smiling in Edward’s direction.

  My stomach dropped. “Don’t.”

  “Maybe you need a dose, too, to cure your self-righteousness. Since smacking your ass down didn’t seem to work.”

  “Jesus, Rosalita. I was trying to help.”

  “Then stay the hell out of my business,” she snapped. “That’s helpful.” I tried to grab her backpack, but she was faster. Her fingers drummed lightly on the hood of Edward’s car.

  “Edward.” She sang his name and made him straighten jerkily, like a marionette with pulled strings. It’s not that our magic could control people, mostly it only called the wind and helped herbs with their healing; but it could draw attention. So much attention that the person thought they were in love, because for long moments they could see nothing but you.

  “Stop it,” I hissed at her. I could already feel myself turning bright red. Sonnet honked the horn of the van impatiently.

  “Ana can help you with that,” Rosalita said to Edward. “She’s great with engines. Aren’t you, Ana?”

  I wanted to kill her. I was great with engines, but so was every Vila who’d ever had to ride in the stupid van. It broke down once a week. And Rosalita wouldn’t do something as simple as flirt with him. She was sure she could win him, if it came to it. She wanted to torture me instead.

  “I’m sure he has roadside assistance,” I muttered, hoping he would take the out. I still had blood on my clothes from Jude’s dagger. It was probably dumb for me to be worrying about that.

  Rosalita touched his shoulder. Her voice lilted again, like a lullaby. “But Ana’s right here. And so very helpful.”

  She flounced away before I could punch her, too. Edward blinked at me, the sun making a halo around his dark hair. “Can you really fix it? That’d be great.”

  “Maybe.” I took a deep breath. “Sure.” I dropped my back pack and tied my hair up into a knot. I was wearing my overalls so at least bending over the engine wouldn’t be embarrassing. It was about the only thing about this that wouldn’t be. “Why don’t you get in and turn it on.”

  “It won’t go.”

  “I need to hear how it won’t go.”

  “Oh. Okay.” He left the door open and craned his neck out as he turned the key. Nothing happened. “That’s bad, right?”

  “Could be worse. Okay, turn it off.” I ducked under the hood. The battery was dirty, with swirls of rainbow grime and lumps of corrosions.

  “So do I have to walk?” Edward asked, grinning.

  “No, this is an easy fix. Your battery clamps are dirty. You’ll have to replace them, but a quick clean should get you around for now. I wouldn’t wait too long, though.” I undid the negative clamp first, remembering Aisha’s terse warnings of electrocution and exploding my own head. I wiped off the terminals before reattaching both cables. I stepped back and bumped into Edward. He was closer than I’d thought. I cleared my throat. “Give it a try.”

  He turned the key and the engine gave a satisfying roar. I wiped my hands on my overalls and slammed the hood down. Edward slid out of the driver’s seat, still grinning. “Thanks, Anne.”

  “Ana,” I corrected him.

  “Oh. Sorry. But thank you. Seriously. My dad would have a fit if he knew I couldn’t fix it myself.” He looked around the empty parking lot. “Looks like I made you miss your ride. Let me take you home.”

  “No, that’s okay,” I said, even though it was way too far to walk home and Rosalita had the van keys. I’d have to wait for Pierce’s shift to be over. I couldn’t sit in a car with Edward for twenty minutes with nothing to say.

  “I owe you,” Edward insisted. “And I promise I’m not a weirdo.”

  I half laughed. “I can’t promise the same.”

  He smiled. “I’ve been warned then. Get in.” He even opened the door for me. I swallowed a nervous giggle.

  There were empty pop cans on the floor and band stickers on the glove compartment. I was used to Pierce’s fiercely clean truck and books piled everywhere, including ones taped to the ceiling. I still didn’t know why he’d done that. An
d I didn’t know why I was comparing them. Edward rolled the windows down and the car filled with sunlight and wind.

  There was a long moment where my brain was about as useful as his corroded battery. I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. I smiled but it felt wrong, like my lips belonged to someone else. A bird flew over us and I wondered if it was a swan. My head was full of old songs, my belly full of fire.

  “So, we have history together, right?” he asked finally.

  “Yes.” I jumped on the subject, as if it was the most interesting thing in the world. “I mangled that quiz. You?”

  “Not too bad.”

  There was another beat of silence. I tried not to stare at the way the sunlight gleamed on his forearms. His sleeves were rolled up and it was totally distracting.

  “Are you trying out for the play?” he asked. I remembered that he was part of the Drama Club. It was something to talk about. Something to stop me from telling him he was beautiful. God, I was annoying.

  I had him drop me off a concession away from the farm. Not that I was particularly worried; even Pierce couldn’t find Cygnet House if I wasn’t with him. There was enough magic to keep it unnoticeable, not to mention acres of trees and fields, and a driveway that was barely two ruts in the ground. “Thanks.”

  His eyes met mine. “See you tomorrow?”

  I nodded, back to not being able to speak when he looked at me. Especially like that. I could practically feel the feathers poking out of my spine.

  I waited until he was out of sight before cutting through the field. I glanced behind me once, just in case. No swan.

  I walked through the corn stalks towering above, lost in my own secret cocoon where all of this might have been real. It was the closest to a proper conversation we’d ever had; the closest to an actual moment. But I had no idea how much of Rosalita’s magic clung to him.

  So it may have been the best moment, but it wasn’t real.

  Pierce

  Watching Edward flirt with Ana under the hood of his car was even worse than watching her try to flirt with him. It made me want to punch him right in the face, just as hard as she’d just punched my brother. Ana would say jealousy was stupid, and anyway it’s not like I had anything to be jealous of. He wasn’t interested in being her best friend.

  That just made me want to punch him more.

  I went to my shift at the café, drank four espressos, and was sent home for being “surly.” The caffeine kept me wired until Ana texted me that she was coming over. I just wanted things to go back to normal between us. And she didn’t even know they weren’t normal; I was the one being weird inside my own brain. For nearly two years now. She had no idea how I felt about her. Or that it was getting worse. Or how much it sucked to watch her check out every other guy at school, hoping he might lead her to her wings.

  She tapped on my window just as I was contemplating swearing off coffee forever.

  “Shh, don’t wake my grandmother,” I said as she crawled over the ledge. “She’s in a mood.”

  Ana knew about Nana of course. It was why she rarely came over, and why she never used the front door. Ana had a hundred strange magical rules about being a swan, but the Kents had one family rule: no girls allowed. Okay, two: don’t piss off Nana. When Nana suddenly inherited three grandsons, she fell on strict rules to keep us together. And she was decidedly old school about punishments.

  Spartacus, our aging German shepherd, raced into my room. His tail wagged furiously when he saw Ana. When he was a puppy she had snuck in every day for over a month just to play with him.

  “I thought you were moon dancing tonight?” I asked her.

  “Later.” She made a face. “I want to avoid Rosalita as much as possible.”

  “So where’d you go after school?” I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to see if she would tell me. She had no reason not to. And I had no reason to even wonder why she wouldn’t.

  “Edward drove me home.”

  I wondered if she was blushing. I couldn’t tell; the only light came from a string of old Christmas bulbs over my bed. “And?” I pressed. What the hell was wrong with me?

  “And, surprisingly, I didn’t make a complete ass of myself.” She smiled drily. “It’s a nice change.”

  I wanted to ask her more, but I didn’t want to hear it at the same time. I felt weird.

  She raised an eyebrow at me. “You’re being weird.”

  I snapped back to reality. “Sorry, just thinking.” Or not thinking, which was the problem. I changed the subject hastily. “Got more cupcakes for Jackson? Something in a chocolate raspberry that might make him not an asshole? That’d be great. On top of everything, he just got busted for shoplifting again.”

  Ana sighed, sitting next to me on the bed. The mattress tilted us into each other. “Rosalita is an asshole, too. Maybe they deserve each other.”

  “True. Hey, don’t sit on Ray Bradbury.”

  She shifted. “I have to sit on books in here,” she teased. “The other choice is levitating and I haven’t quite mastered that.”

  “You can sing the wind up,” I said sternly. “You can mind my books.”

  “Sir! Yes, sir!” She got to her feet and carefully made her way between George R.R. Martin and Agatha Christie. “Anyway, my cupcake mojo isn’t enough, apparently.”

  “What’s going on in there?” Nana shoved my bedroom door open. Ana shot back into the shadows. Luckily her braid wasn’t visible and her overalls were baggy. And Nana was blinking sleepily. She might not even remember this. Still, she was entirely capable of shooting us both if she thought we were intruders. Although seriously who would bother breaking into this old cabin?

  “I have a friend here,” I said. “Andrew.”

  Ana grunted a greeting. She probably thought it was a manly sound. She sounded like a tiny ridiculous pig. It was kind of adorable.

  “Bit late.”

  “We have a project due tomorrow. We need to pull an all-nighter.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh, shutting the door behind Nana. “Way to man up there, Vila.”

  “Hey, I’d make a great—” She tripped on Spartacus, who had squeezed through the door before it closed completely. I reached out to grab her and we fell into a pile of flailing limbs on the floor. Books scattered everywhere. Spartacus sat on my chest, his tail smacking me in the face. I pushed him off as Ana giggled so hard she snorted. It made her laugh harder.

  We were lying close enough that I could see the freckles on her nose, the widening of her pupils. Her laugh trailed off. If I moved even an inch, our mouths would touch. My leg would press into hers. My tiny cramped bedroom was suddenly electric.

  Spartacus squirmed between us before I went and ruined everything. I made a mental note to give him all the dog cookies in the house.

  Because Ana was always looking so hard for her first love, but she never once looked my way. I could take a hint. She wasn’t interested in me, and I didn’t want her to have to say it out loud. It would be beyond awkward.

  But for a tiny moment there, I’d wondered if she might kiss me back. If she finally saw me.

  “I should go,” Ana said finally. “It’s late.”

  I frowned, scrambling to my feet. “You can’t go alone. I’ll get the truck.”

  “I have my bike.” She wriggled out of the window. “I’ll be fine.” She smiled up at me. “I’m magic, remember?”

  I watched her pedal away. “Yes, you are.”

  Ana

  I was late for the dancing again.

  I was distracted as I picked my way through the fields. Something had sparked between Pierce and me, lying on the floor of his dark bedroom. I was sure it was just a strange moment, a recognition that he was a guy and I was a girl. Nothing more. It happened sometimes. It was probably normal. But it made me notice the mole by his left eye and the exact shape of his bottom lip.

  Information I did not need.

  I blamed the full moon.

  Mei Lin had plugged po
rtable speakers into her iPod to give us a soundtrack to dance to. The aunts didn’t approve, because by tradition we were supposed to dance to the sound of the wind or the crickets or the rain. But the aunts weren’t here and crickets really can’t hold a beat.

  I leaped about with the others, turning myself into a cup to be filled with moonlight and magic. There was always a certain giddiness to the last night of the full moon. It was like the first day of summer vacation; there was nothing you couldn’t do and you were greedy for every sunny lazy hour. Story had stolen pink champagne from the locked chest Aunt Felicity kept in the attic. And I’d picked the last of the blackberries earlier. They were slightly squished from being in my bag and turned the champagne bubbles purple.

  My bag now suddenly pulsed with blue light, as if I’d hidden an alien’s head inside. When it kept flashing and flashing, I knew something was up. Only Pierce would text me this late, and if he was texting that much then something was up.

  Jackson snuck out to follow you. He’s after Rosalita.

  Shit.

  I lunged for Mei Lin’s iPod, yanking the cables out. Silence descended, stealing the loud laughter and the drumbeat we made out of bare feet and earth. My cousins turned toward me. I glanced at Rosalita. “Jackson’s trying to find you.”

  Story used what was left of the champagne to douse the fire. The smoke smelled sweet and sharp. “He won’t be able to find us,” she said.

  “He will if he followed you,” I answered. “He’s not a Renard so the spell won’t confuse him. And he knows these woods pretty well.”

  “No one’s ever found us here,” Rosalita broke in, but she sounded uncertain. “He got lucky before. And if he’s drunk again he might get lost.”

  “If we’re lucky,” I said.

  We weren’t lucky.

  Jackson emerged into the small clearing, his boots glistening with water. He must have run through the river to gain speed.

  Of course, Sasha chose that very moment to visit us. Her swan shape was dark against the yellow moon. Mei Lin shouted once, waving her arms. Too late. Sasha landed softly, a naked girl who shook her arms once until the feathers turned back to bone and flesh and skin. Her cloak pooled around her bare feet. “I thought I’d— Oh.”