by G. F. Miller
Noah wipes his forehead. “Man, I’ve got the food sweats. How did you do that?”
“Look, kid. You’ve got skills. I just wanted it more.”
He smiles until his cheeks dimple. “Good game.” He holds his palm out, and I high-five him. A clutcher. With a fist bump. He blows it up. And for some reason, probably the copious amounts of sugar in the milkshake I just downed, I laugh out loud. Which makes him start to chuckle.
“Ow!” He laughs. “Oh. No. No room for jocularity in there.”
“I should high-five you again for that five-star word. But I’m too full to bother.”
A sniffle. We both look up and over at the same time. And there’s Greg. He contorts his mouth into what I assume is supposed to be a smile and holds out our check. I’m thinking how awkward it’s about to get if one of us thinks we’re going Dutch, and somebody else tries to pay for everything, and who’s going to make the first move, and this definitely wasn’t a date so I’m sure Noah will want to go Dutch—
Dizziness washes over me, and the diner dissolves into a driveway and a front lawn with a hedge of blooming purple sage bushes.
Greg runs his hand along the hood of an electric-blue 1967 Camaro. He pauses to buff out a smudge with his sleeve. The look in his eyes is like True Love’s Kiss. His connection with this car transforms him altogether—he stands taller; he is complete.
The glimpse recedes, and I blink the diner back into focus.
Since neither of us has reached for the check, Greg sniffles and sets it on the table. “Can I get you guys anything else?”
Noah is looking at me kinda hard. Without taking his eyes off me, he dismisses Greg with a “We’re good, thanks.” As soon as Greg is gone, Noah leans forward. “You okay, Charity?”
“Huh? Yeah… I mean…” I bite my lip. I feel like I’m pretty good at playing it cool during glimpses. It’s not like my eyes roll back and my head spins around or anything. Noah noticing means I’m way off my game. I’ve been telling myself I could ignore the next glimpse—that I can quit them cold turkey—but now that it’s happened, it feels like a gut punch. I need to grant this wish.
I can try to play it off, or I can tell the truth.
“Charity?”
“I had a glimpse.”
“Of Greg?” He sounds incredulous, almost jealous. It’s kind of cute.
I nod. “He wants a car. A 1967 Camaro.”
“Wow, you really know your classic cars.” He sounds a little impressed.
I shake my head vaguely. “Lane and Monique made out on top of the exact same car in Better Off Dead. That’s how I recognized it.”
“That’s way more random.”
I shrug.
“So what are you going to do?”
I’m a pro at this. Five years of wish-granting experience plus my impeccable instincts do not fail me now. “First he needs grooming. Then I’ll give him some lessons on how to wait tables and schmooze. We could double his tips by Saturday. If he’s a quick study, he could get a job at a much nicer restaurant. I could nudge the guy selling the Camaro to drop the price at least twenty percent.” I do some quick calculations in my head. “He’ll have the car by June, sooner if he’s already been saving.”
Noah is placid. “But you’re not going to do any of that, right?”
“But—”
“You promised.”
I close my eyes. I can feel my eyebrows pinching together, and I press my finger between them to stop it. I whimper, “But you didn’t see what I saw. There is a Camaro-shaped hole in that guy’s heart. He needs me. It won’t hurt anyone.”
Noah’s fingers wrap around my wrist and tug my hand away from my face. Not punishing or angry. Kind. I don’t open my eyes. The glimpse replays on the inside of my eyelids.
“Charity, you’ve got to get free. Right? Don’t do this one. Prove to yourself that you have a choice.”
I turn my head away, still allowing Noah to keep my hand prisoner. Greg is wiping off the bar, casting surreptitious looks our way. I should go to him. I’d hold out my hand for a handshake and say, Hello, Greg. I’m here to help you get a Camaro. I’m your fairy godmother. To Noah I say, “This one’s harmless.”
“You don’t know that. Every action creates a reaction. What if he would have been a brilliant scientist or something, but because you rocket boost his career as a waiter, he settles for that and the world never gets, I don’t know, a transporter? What if he gets the car way sooner than he would have on his own, and because of that he gets killed in a crash or something?”
“What if I don’t help him and his destiny is never fulfilled?”
Noah squeezes my hand so slightly that it could be my imagination. “You’ve got to let it go.”
I look down at our two hands and swallow. I know he’s right. I said I would do this—try to control the glimpses. I’ve got to get a grip on my life and my powers, or I’m going to end up witching out. Or worse… turn into Morgan le Fay. Even if I can’t control when I have the glimpses, I can at least control what I do with them. So even though my heart feels like it’s cramping up with the effort, I nod.
Greg is on his own.
I slide my hand away from Noah’s and tuck it under the table.
17 This Is How You Tick Off the Universe
We go Dutch. It only hits a 7.2 on the awkward scale.
But it barely matters. Greg and the glimpse are the main event now. When I walk out of the diner without so much as a knowing smile in Greg’s direction, my head begins to ache. The pressure starts right between my eyes, but with every mile I put between him and me, the pain blossoms to new regions of my skull. By the time I drop off Noah, I feel like an electro-house concert is playing inside my head and the subwoofer in my brain is about to blow.
“Are you okay?” Noah hesitates to get out of the vehicle.
My eyes are closed. “Yeah. Headache. No big.”
Silence. I can feel him looking at me. Just go, I think. Please just go so I can collapse.
“Okay. See you at school tomorrow.”
I manage a feeble “Good luck on the meet-cute.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
He gets out, and I don’t wait for him to get inside before I go. Driving hurts. Every streetlight is like a burning poker in my eyes. Thankfully it’s only a few blocks. At home I drag myself to my bed, hoping for oblivion.
No such luck. I sleep in twenty- to thirty-minute fits throughout the night, interrupted by long and excruciating interludes of sweating, nausea, migraine, dry mouth, and muscle cramps. Sleep is no reprieve, because I dream of Vindhya sobbing, zombies attacking, Holly chained up and blindfolded, Noah as a judge in an enormous courtroom pronouncing me guilty, guilty, guilty. And Greg pleading, writhing, gasping for breath, and slowly dying at my feet.
While the rest of JLHS does the first-hour meet-and-greet, I’m at home, throwing up everything I consumed at Big Doug’s Diner. By lunchtime every muscle in my body aches. About the time I should be in trig, I finally fall asleep for real—the kind that’s too deep for dreams.
I wake up to pounding, and it takes me a second to realize it’s not only inside my head. I stumble to the front door and check the peephole. Noah.
Supporting myself against the doorjamb, I undo the lock and crack the door. All I’m wearing is a T-shirt and underwear. That should be embarrassing. I should ask him how he knows where I live or why he’s here. Or say hi. But it’s all too much work. I turn around and shuffle back to my room, leaving the door ajar. As I’m climbing into bed, Noah appears in my bedroom doorway.
“Charity?”
“I’m sick.”
“I’m getting that.” He crams his hands into his pockets. He’s wearing the new jeans I picked out. A perfect fit. “Is this because you ignored the glimpse?”
I pull my comforter up a little and grunt.
“Does that mean yes or no?”
“I’m sick.” Like, Leave. Like, I don’t want to talk right now. Like, Don’t make me t
hink. What part of this is he not comprehending?
Actually, the message must not be completely lost, because he says, “I’m sorry. Okay. What do you need?”
I grunt into my blanket.
“Who’s taking care of you?” That’s a weird question. I stare blankly. He says, “Where’s your mom?”
“Belize.”
He makes a sympathetic “aw” sound and says, “Okay, I’ll be back.”
I hear the front door click. I lie on my back, staring into space, the glimpse and the dreams infringing on my semiconsciousness. My head throbs, but it’s as if the headache is wearing itself out—the rhythm is unvaried, but each strike doesn’t have the same urgency as before. Long monotonous minutes tick by. My throat is dry and tight, and I have barf breath. But I’m too lethargic to get up and get myself a drink. I wish I could call for my mom.
And then Noah is back. Just his head appears first. “You’re awake,” he announces. Then the rest of him enters, laden with grocery bags. He sets them down on my desk and pulls out a cup of microwaveable chicken soup, a box of honey-lemon tea bags, a bottle of orange juice, a box of tissues, and—who is this guy?—a thermometer. I blink twice. The thermometer is still there, and it’s coming closer.
“Open,” he commands. I part my lips, and he sticks the thermometer under my tongue. While I’m thus incapacitated, he rambles, “I’m sorry about before. That was insensitive, to nag you when you don’t feel good. I’m an idiot sometimes. When you didn’t respond to any texts and you weren’t at school—don’t make fun of me—I guess I got worried, especially because you seemed really off last night after the Greg thing.”
Worried?
“So anyway, I tracked you down online, like a stalker—”
Irony.
“—and I had all this stuff in my head I wanted to say all day, so—” The thermometer beeps, and he pulls it out of my mouth. “No fever. Can I get you something? Orange juice or soup or…?”
My lips turn up a little. I mumble, “Tea would be nice.”
He leaves the thermometer on my nightstand and heads out of the room with the tea box, like my wish is his command. It’s unsettling. I’m always the one granting wishes, never the other way around.
I hear him opening cupboards and drawers in the kitchen, dispensing water, putting a pot on the stove. A few minutes later he returns, walking carefully with his eyes on the cup in his hand. He sets it on my nightstand. “Careful, it’s hot.”
“Thanks.” I pull myself to sitting, and Noah jumps in to arrange the pillows behind me. I lean back, trying to play it cool, like this is totally normal.
He drags my desk chair up to the side of the bed and drops himself into it, knees wide apart as if his legs are just too long to be confined. He leans forward on his elbows like he’s ready for a heart-to-heart. I clear my throat and go into fairy godmother mode. “So, how did it go with Holly this morning?”
For a split second I think he doesn’t know what I’m talking about. Then his expression changes and he says, “It was…” He blows his lips out. It could mean great or horrible. Who knows? “I did everything you said, and I held myself back on the loogie front. She was friendly and everything. But, I don’t know, I thought maybe we’d have this instant reconnection. Like magnets… like—” His eyes flit to mine, and he goes hot pink in the cheeks. He fixes his eyes on his knees and finishes with a mumbled “Never mind.”
“No, I get it.” I stare at my cup—as a professional courtesy because of his embarrassment and not because I’m feeling any kind of way about all this. “Everybody wants that. But maybe it’s just gonna take some time.” My throat is burning. I take a tiny, experimental sip of the tea.
He huffs out a breath. “Yeah. Well. Anyway. Ten minutes later, I pull up at school and she and Kade are trying to eat each other’s faces off in the parking lot.” He throws his hands up.
I think, Poor guy. Then I think, His fault we didn’t do this the easy way. Then a little light bulb dings in my head, and I say, “Wait a second. You have a car?”
He shrugs. “Kinda. My mom lets me drive hers.”
“Then why the heck did you make me come pick you up yesterday?” I find a throw pillow next to me and cause it to fulfill its destiny.
He deflects it, grinning. “I was being hilarious. I didn’t know you were going to swoop in to rescue me like Star Trek: Bridge Crew. Plus, it was fun. Right?”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, until I defied the Universe and my whole body went Fukushima.”
He sighs. “Man. I’m sorry. I—”
I shrug. “On one hand, I blame you a hundred percent. But for real, I made the decision. I want to control this.” I drink the tea. And it’s good. The warm liquid soothes my throat and cleanses the rancid taste out of my mouth. “Don’t worry about Holly. She’ll come around. I mean, come on, you’ve got the new jeans and everything.”
He looks down at his legs. “Yeah, I can’t believe I paid money to look like I’m wearing somebody’s Goodwill donation. What’s the point?”
I wave him out of his chair. “Get up. Turn around.” He obediently pivots, with an audible sigh. His old drawstring sweatpants gave one the distinct impression that he had no butt at all. These jeans hug his backside, with worn spots perfectly placed to draw the eye. Now I can tell he’s not one of those chicken-leg guys. I wonder what exact type of gluteal muscles I’m looking at. He definitely doesn’t sit on the couch playing video games 24/7, but it’s not an “I do two-hundred-pound squats at the gym” butt either. Copping a feel might be the best way to ascertain—
“Are you checking out my butt?” He looks at me over his shoulder.
I jerk my eyes upward. “What? I mean… only in a strictly professional, analytical capacity.” My cheeks betray me. I can feel the color rising—something between Wildfire Red and Fuchsia Inferno.
He sways his hips ridiculously. “You’re totally checking out my butt.”
I flop backward onto my pillows and consider pulling the covers over my head. Noah sits back down, still grinning. “So, now that you’re done ogling me, what’s next?”
I look at him slack-jawed for a second before I realize he means What’s next with Holly. I snap my mouth closed. What did I think he meant, for crap’s sake? I rub my cheeks, irritated with them for being hot for no reason. I muster my strictly business brain cells and say, “Do you know where she lives?”
“Well, yeah. I’ve been there a few times.”
“As of now, you love jogging. At five thirty a.m. and after dark. In her neighborhood. Capisce?”
“Huh?”
“Holly looks angular lately. She mentioned something about running. A lot. But it’s gotta be either really early or really late, because she spends all her daylight hours watching football practice.”
“So I’m going to jog around her house until I accidentally-on-purpose run into her?” His eyebrows are up.
I nod feebly. “Pretty much.”
“I think I hate this. When will I sleep?”
I think of all the mornings I was torn from sleep by meaningless texts, and I smile real pretty. “Karma’s a bitch.”
18 Seriously, What Are Friends For?
Karma’s a bitch? Seriously?” Noah looks wounded. “Come on, I made you tea and everything.”
He did. He came over and took care of me while I was sick. No one has ever done anything like that for me before. Not even Memom. And I had to go and be snarky. I’ve gone full Morgan le Fay.
I press my finger to the epicenter of pain in my forehead. “You’re right. That was uncalled for. I don’t know why stuff like that comes out of my mouth when you’re around.”
“Probably because you hate me?”
“I don’t, though!” That was too eager. I dial back the enthusiasm. “At least not lately. As much. Also, you hated me first.”
Noah suddenly stands. He walks to the desk, turns around, and comes halfway back. He stands at the foot of my bed with his arms spread. “I’m sor
ry.” Big breath. “I’m sorry I called you the bad guy. This whole ‘not granting wishes’ thing is obviously not as black-and-white as I thought.”
I blink a few times. That was an IRL uncoerced apology. But instead of accepting it, I counter, “You said I’m manipulative and criminally insane.”
“I was wrong. I’m sorry.” He looks at his feet.
My turn to say something. I clear my throat. “I’m sorry I called you a stalker.”
His head pops up, and his eyes lock on me. “And loser, creeper, dork. And Captain America, but you were being ironic.”
I drop my eyes. “All those too.”
“Then I’m sorry I called you the Borg Queen.”
“I shouldn’t have threatened to murder you in front of your mom.”
“I implied you were a Nazi sympathizer. That was out of line.”
I stick my lip out, eyes up. “You tried to kill me with chunky peanut butter and rainbow sprinkles. That was inhumane.”
“I’m sorry.” His eyebrows draw together. “But the Deanna Troi costume, Charity?”
“How many times do I have to apologize about the dress? I’m really sorry!”
We both go silent. The only sound is the bass drum in my head and the soft hum of the air conditioner. Then, simultaneously, we both confess, “I’m sorry I pepper sprayed you.”
Noah hangs his head and kind of chuckles. He makes his way back to the chair and sits in it. “So, is this an official armistice?”
“You recorded all my secrets on your phone and threatened to put them on the internet.”
He sighs, takes his phone out of his pocket, finds the file, and drags it into the trash. Then he goes to his email account and does the same thing. He holds the screen out to me. “Deleted.”
I bite my lip. “I’m sorry about everything… with Holly.”
He drops his arm. “I forgive you.”
“I forgive you too.” And the miraculous thing is, it’s true. My heart feels lighter. My headache is 15 percent less intense.
“Can we be friends?”