Sealed with a Wish (13 page)

Nat frowned. “Layla, why are you--?”

“Ladies.” Mr. Lopez smirked at us from the doorway. “We’d love it if you could stop by our class today. Are you free?”

Sweet, unexpected relief poured through my anxiety, and I had never been so happy to see my sarcastic English Lit teacher. Ah, good old Mr. Lopez.

“Sorry,” I trilled. “Going in now.” The smile that dawned across my face was so bright that Mr. Lopez took a step back, as if he might catch the new strain of crazy that was bubbling in my veins.

Without another glance back at Natalie, I zipped into class.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

It should have been like ripping off a Band-Aid--just tell the freaking truth and then go on with the rest of your day.

Right?

“Coward,” I muttered, staring at my reflection in my locker mirror.

Hours had passed since my non-conversation with Natalie this morning. It was lunchtime now, and I knew Natalie and Rajesh were waiting for me in the parking lot. Still, I moved slowly as I deposited the morning’s books into my locker.

Natalie was already suspicious after my incoherent rant this morning, so there was no way I could avoid the subject again. I wasn’t sure I had the stomach for that, anyway. The only thing that had saved me from blurting anything out in Mr. Lopez’s class was his strict no-talking policy.

Come to think of it, I was really starting to enjoy English class. It was like a mini-vacation from awkward situations.

Now, of course, my little vacation was over. I closed my locker, then stepped through the hallway with all the grace and speed of a drugged stegosaurus.
Here goes nothing,
I thought.
Or everything.

“Hey, I caught you.” Sean leaned against the doorway of an empty classroom. “You wanna grab lunch?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” Seeing him brought a smile to my lips, despite the anxiety that bubbled through me. I came closer. “I don’t think I can, though.”

He gave me a lopsided grin. “You’re not about to turn me into a pink... What was that?”

“Nematode,” I said. “Sorry, but I have plans with Nat and Raj.”

“That’s cool. Why don’t I come along?”

“What? No way!” I cried. My voice was loud enough to make a few guys clustered nearby interrupt their in-depth analysis of Megan Fox’s boobs to give me a weird look. I really had to learn how to use my Inside Voice.

In the meantime, I pulled Sean into the empty classroom behind him, my face burning. “Nat and I have to talk,” I said. At the heaviness in my voice, Sean’s face pinched with doubt. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say anything, I added, “About girl stuff.”

As I had hoped, that was enough to extinguish Sean’s curiosity. He nodded, suddenly satisfied. “Uh... Good.”

“Maybe next time,” I said. “Well, I gotta run, so--” But my brain interrupted my mouth. As I stared at Sean, I realized he had adopted his Thinking Face. My limbs felt stuck in place, even if my brain was screaming for me to
Run! Run away from the Thinking Face!

“Layla, I really gotta tell you something,” he said. “It’s about the wishes.”

My heart pinched. Oh gawd, it was actually happening. Just like I had feared, Sean was going to tell me that this weekend had been a big mistake, and that his mouth had only fallen on top of mine five times
by accident
. My catastrophizing had come true.

“You know,
you
kissed
me
,” I heard myself say. “It wasn’t my fault I kissed back.”

“I... Huh?”

It took a moment for me to realize I had actually said those things
out loud
, instead of just thinking them. I tucked my bottom lip under my teeth, hoping to prevent any more accidental slip-ups as I tried to think of some explanation.

Which, of course, was when my over-active brain decided to turn off yet again.

“Did you... not want me to kiss you?” he asked.

“What? No! I mean,
yes
. I mean...” I sighed. “Ugh. I don’t know.”

Sean frowned down at his shoes for a second. When he looked back at me, his eyes were dark and careful. “Sorry, I guess.”

“That’s not what I meant. Well, that
is
what I meant, I just... Look, I really can’t talk about this right now. I should go.” I turned to leave, but Sean’s hand hooked around my elbow and I stopped in my tracks.

We just stood there, with Sean looking more confused as the seconds passed while I could barely look him the face. Finally, I slipped away, sighing. My skin felt cold where his hand had been, and I crossed my arms to keep from shivering.

“Listen,” I said, “it’s Natalie, okay?”

He shook his head. “What about Natalie?”

“She’s my best friend, Sean.”

“Yeah, okay...” From the uncertainty written all over his face, it was clear he had missed the train.

“You don’t get it, do you?” I said. “How self-centered can you be?”

Sean stiffened and took a step back. “What’s your problem today?”

“My problem,” I said, my voice rising again, “is that my best friend has been in love with you for like, three years and you barely even know she exists.”

“Hey, I didn’t even--” Sean started, but stopped dead to stare at someone behind me. From the way he winced, I knew it could only be one person.

In that moment, my chest felt ready to collapse. I didn’t want to turn around--I could have stayed planted on this spot forever, sprouting roots like a tree. Anything would have been better than looking behind me.

But I did. I had to.

Natalie stayed just long enough to link eyes with me, as if she expected some kind of explanation.

All I could do was shake my head.

The sound of her footsteps rushing away echoed in my ears.

#

I didn’t go after her, and not because of some deep understanding of my best friend’s state of mind. I knew Natalie would want some time alone to process my betrayal, but that wasn’t why I waited so long to emerge from the classroom.

Through the dull roar in my brain, Sean’s questions were like music from another room. I didn’t have the strength to answer. As I stepped into the hallway, he tried to come after me, but I shrugged him off.

The rest of the day blurred around me as I replayed the scene with Nat and Sean over and over in my head. Thinking about it was like pressing on a wound, but I couldn’t help myself. By the time I got home after school, the moment was crystal clear in my mind, every frown and eyebrow twitch magnified.

I climbed upstairs to my bedroom, shutting the door with a little more force than necessary. I decided that I was going to stay in my room forever, living only on pancakes (which could be slipped under the door). Years later, some archeologist would find me shriveled up and silver-haired, my brain addled from a lifetime of uninterrupted TV consumption.

All in all, it didn’t sound so bad. It was a hell of a lot better than facing the best friend I had been lying to for weeks, not to mention the guy I had accidentally kissed five times. Well, not completely by accident, but mostly. If I had been thinking straight last Friday night, I wouldn’t have kissed Sean.

Instead, I would have scooted away and told him, “Sir, you’re being highly inappropriate. Making out with you would mean betraying my best friend, and that’s something I would never do.”

But the second his lips touched mine... Yeah, forget about decent judgment.

It was funny how a kiss could just switch your brain off. Bad kisses tended to have the opposite effect--as seen with Todd Griffin, when tactics for making his life miserable had sprouted in my mind like radioactive weeds.

I slumped onto my bed, wondering what to do next. Was there anything I could say to Natalie that would fix things? Any way you sliced it, this was bad. Even if Natalie knew about all the genie stuff, she had still found me blabbing one of her biggest secrets, and to the absolute worst person I could tell.

Why the hell had I said those things to Sean? I guessed I had been trying to prove some kind of point (that he was self-centered or oblivious or something) but I shouldn’t have said that. It was Natalie’s secret, not mine.

Was
being the operative word, thanks to me.

I groaned and swept an arm over my eyes, blocking out the daylight. I was completely and thoroughly screwed. And yes, I deserved it.

There was nothing I could do now--no amount of begging or bargaining would ever convince Nat that I wasn’t the worst person in the world. Then a sly thought came to me:
I wish...

“No,” I said aloud. “No, no, no.” Because of course I couldn’t wish to start the day over. That was ridiculous.

I didn’t even know if I
could
time-travel. And even if I managed to pull myself back to eight in the morning, what if I caused some kind of weird timeline disturbance during Today, Version 2.0? If the zombie apocalypse was coming, I’d rather not wonder if it was somehow my fault.

So no time-hopping, and that was final. But maybe I could try something smaller. I mean, I didn’t want to change history. I just needed Natalie to forget about what had happened. If I wished right, couldn’t I just record over that part of her memory and edit my betrayal away?

It seemed so simple. I just needed a pen and paper to jot down some conditions...

I sat up and reached for my backpack. On the way, I caught my guilty reflection in the bathroom mirror, and shook my head disdainfully. What kind of a person had I become? First, I had lied to my best friend and my parents about Sean, and now, I wanted to pull some sort of mind-scramble on Nat to cover my tracks.

Honestly, I wasn’t even sure I could pull that off. I had never erased memories. What if I made her forget something else, something important? This sounded like a delicate procedure, and I definitely didn’t want to practice on my best friend.

Maybe I can do a trial run on Fabry,
I thought, smirking.

Ugh, and while we were on the subject... I pulled my cell phone out of my back pocket and found three missed phone calls since lunch, all from Sean. By now, I should have called him back, but I only snorted and tossed my cell phone away, watching as it bounced underneath the bed.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t avoid Sean forever. I still owed him one wish. Yesterday, knowing this had filled me with a grayish dread, but now? I rested a hand on my gut, wondering at the ambiguous tightness coiled inside.

Sighing, I crawled to my bathroom and started a bubble bath, making the water extra hot to sizzle away the indecision in my belly.

The smell of the bubbles tickled my nose as I watched the tub to fill, but instead of relaxing me, the scent had taken on a cloying flavor. Suddenly, it reminded me of the sick-sweet perfumes wafting off Diana Bukowski and her posse of clones.

Still, I couldn’t waste a perfectly good bath. I mixed in a little vanilla body spray, and the smell wasn’t half-bad.

I plunked a foot into the water, then cursed as the heat singed my skin. My toes came out looking like tiny little sausages.
Of course not,
I thought, sitting on the edge of the tub.
Why would anything work out?

At the sounds of the front door opening and closing, I shut the bathroom door, adding another layer between me and the rest of the world.

Normally, I would have come downstairs to say hey to my parents, but I didn’t think I could handle it when they inevitably asked, “How was your day, Layla?” The only answer I could think of involved shouting various expletives.

A few minutes later, Mom’s voice strained through two sets of doors. “Layla, honey?”

“I’m taking a bath,” I yelled, hoping my reply would reach her.

A moment later, Mom’s voice boomed so loudly that I jumped. “What did you say?” she asked through the thin bathroom door.

“I said I’m taking a bath.”

“Oh, okay. How was your day?”

Ugh, there it was. I steeled myself against the tide of bad words that immediately jumped to my throat. “Fine,” I managed, wishing I could just dunk my head underneath the scalding water and get it over with. “Can you just get out of here, please?”

“What? Why?”

A fresh tide of annoyance rolled through me. “Just leave me alone, okay?!”

If Mom answered, I didn’t hear. In the heavy quiet that followed, my sigh echoed against the bathroom tiles. I tried to cling to my last shreds of anger, but all I could do was feel tired.

“Great,” I mumbled into the water. Not only was I a terrible best friend, I was also the kind of person who spat venom at her mother just for asking an innocent question.

I sank into the tub like an anchor, heavy with guilt.

#

I stayed in the bathtub just long enough for the water to burn my skin into a soft pink that would have looked great on my cheeks, but looked more like a contagious rash when it covered the rest of me. Clouds of steam curled around me as I emerged into my bedroom.

Mom sat on the bed, her arms crossed over her chest. I did a double take when I noticed that her eyes were gentle, instead of stern. “Really,” she said, “how was your day?”

Shrugging, I sat next to her. “Do you think we could move across the country?”

She smiled. “That bad, huh?”

“Kind of, yeah.” I reached under my bed and groped in the darkness for my cell phone. When I found it, I flipped it open and found two missed calls and two messages, one from Sean and the other from--

“Natalie,” I whispered, surprise shaking my voice.