Charlie Hill was a perfectly normal sixteen year old boy - if you consider being in the closet and dealing with crippling social anxiety 'normal' - until he managed to stop a bullet with his bare hands. Confused and afraid, Charlie struggles to gain...
"You okay?" Zac asked me, placing a comforting hand on my shoulder.
"Yeah...Zac...I wish I could just tell them."
"Well why can't you? I'm pretty sure they'd be okay with it. Hell, they were fine with you having magic."
"I know Zac, and I think they'd probably be fine with it too," I sat down on my bed, putting my head into my hands, "I'm just too scared to take that risk. I couldn't stand it if they turned on me when I told them. It would kill me."
Zac sighed and sat next to me, "You know there's no rush, right? You have plenty of time to tell them."
"I know and that would be fine if it was the only thing I'm dealing with, but it's just another unwanted complication in my life. Not to mention I feel guilty lying to them like that."
"Well why don't we look up some stuff about different way to tell them, or what to do if they react badly? There's bound to be some kinda information booklet or something about this?" He grinned when I looked at him like he was insane, "I'm not meaning you should tell them right now! I just meant if you figure out how and when you want to tell them, then some of the pressure might go away and you'll be prepared for when you finally do it?"
"I guess it's worth a shot..." I agreed. I wasn't convinced having a plan would make it any less daunting, but it was better than nothing. I mean, yeah, I wanted to be a little bit freer when talking about being gay, but I wasn't insane enough to come completely out of the closet right here and now.
"Look, let's get your mind off of all of this crap. I'll order a pizza – my treat – and you pick out a terrible horror film we can laugh at. Deal?"
"Yeah, deal. Thanks Zac." I put my head on his shoulder affectionately for a second.
"Anytime."
We spent the next couple of hours stuffing our faces and laughing at the dumb movie teens that always go in there even when the other characters tell them not to. Zac kept making sarcastic comments about how my magic would let me take on any fictional slashers with ease.
"I'm tewin' you man," he said, spraying fragments of chips everywhere, "You could kwick Fweedy's asth."
"I don't think my magic works in dreams." I argued.
"You never know unless you try," Zac reasoned, swallowing his mouth full of food.
"Yeah true. How about I use my magic to invade your dreams tonight?"
"You can try," Zac scoffed, "But you probably won't like what you see." I didn't even want to imagine what kind of weird shit Zac could be dreaming about. "Besides," Zac continued, "You'd probably fry my brain with your weird sparkles if you tried to get into my head."
I whacked him with a pillow.
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We met up with Mr Beck in the same forest clearing a few days later. Zac and I had split our time between hanging out doing nothing and visiting this clearing together to practise inside the Circle. The first time we came here alone we were completely confused; I could see the Circle and for some reason Zac couldn't. Zac guessed that Mr Beck had probably put some kind of spell over the Circle to prevent normal people, like Zac, from finding it.
