Prom, exams, turning your longtime crush into a zombie... life's tough when you're a teenage necromancer.
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Willow has had a crush on Jensen Peters FOREVER. And with prom days away Jensen seems to be finally feeling the same... then a terrible acc...
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"And what are these?"
I take another bite of the orange mound, devouring it with relish as the spices dance across my tongue. Henry chuckles, smiling at me from his seat next to mine.
"That's Moi Moi, one of my grandma's favourites."
"Well, she's basically just a... mmkdj... a culinary superhero. These are just..."
He laughs deeply in a very un-Henry-like way as the mouthful of delicious food muffles my words. Looking down at my plate of delicious treats, I pick up another and hold it up.
"And this?"
"That is a meatball... and I'm fairly certain it came from an Ikea freezer. My sister's crazy about them." I giggle and Henry's smile broadens. Sunlight beams down on his face, bathing his features in gold, searching out the sparks in his eyes. Henry's dressed in a loose grey blazer, looking older and more relaxed than I've ever seen him. When he'd arrived at my house, my stomach had done a little flutter that had shocked me into uncharacteristic silence for much of the bus ride here. I'm wearing an old violet dress of Mum's - not exactly fashionable, but I blend in at least with the rest of the colourful outfits.
We're sitting at one of the many mismatched antique wooden tables surrounding a dance floor of ornate rugs forming a large square in the middle of a field. The wedding ceremony had been in a beautiful rustic barn. All soft candles and velvety blooms and knotty wooden beams. There is a marquee, abandoned to one side of us. The perfect weather had the happy couple dragging rugs and furniture and plates of food from the giant tent and building a party right out in the open air.
I've never seen a wedding like this. I thought Mia was imaginative, but whoever planned this wedding has a mind comprising glitter and sunshine. Although most people are still eating, and the evening reception hasn't even started, people are already dancing. They're moving, swinging their bodies to a live band, fronted by a pretty redhead with a coquettish voice most singers would kill for. Toddlers giggle as they rush across the floor, tumbling onto the soft grasses between the tables. The sky is a faultless blue overhead, the sun softly warming our skin as a light breeze licks at our hair and faces. The sweet smells of the grass and woodland that surround this space, mix with the scents of spices and champagne. A long buffet table is bursting with platter after platter of homemade delicacies and quirky shop-bought favourites courtesy of Henry's grandma and aunties.
It had been a weirdly lovely day so far, as I long as I didn't think about the thing that used to be Jensen growling away in his garage. Henry tenses in his seat and when I turn, I see a man with matching expressive eyes fixed on him, and a familiar frown. Henry tightens his lips and turns away.
"You know... you don't have to sit with me. I'm having a great time. You could go sit with your family?" Henry glances in his dad's direction. The man mumbles something to the kind-faced woman at his side. They're across the dancefloor, sitting opposite us at the long table with the rest of the wedding party. Henry's grandma is dancing and has been from the moment the band plucked the first note, swaying merrily with her sisters. They'd dragged Henry up for a few songs, his face twisted in horror and his long limbs moving awkwardly in time with the beat. Their laughter filling the air with as much music as the band.
