"All I ever do is try to be a good girlfriend for him and you'd think he'd try to put in a bit of effort as well. But does he? No. Of course he doesn't. And then he has the audacity to tell me that he'd rather be hanging out with his gross friends or running around a field with that riDIculous stick in his hand than spend Valentine's Day—that's right, fucking Valentine's Day—together. Can you believe that? I couldn't when he told me. But, you know, I have no one to blame but myself. Honestly, what else was I expecting from such a teenage cliche?"
"Uh huh."
"Anyways, I'm over it. I'm pretty sure he's been trying to break up with me, so I've got to make sure to do it before he has the chance. I'm thinking something big, public. Nothing smites a man like public humiliation, right?"
"Yup."
"But then I was thinking that was a little evil? He's a nice guy, just kind of clueless sometimes...but I've got a reputation to maintain. Girl, I don't know...What do you think?"
"Totally."
"Cass?" Her grip tightened around my shoulders. "Are you even listening to me?"
I sniffed. "Not...really?"
"That is. So rude?"
I rolled my eyes and pedaled faster. "What? Like you're the poster child for politeness?"
"Whatever, Cassandra..."
I stretched as best I could in the position that we rode in. My back was starting to ache. It was probably due to how rigidly I was sitting on the bike. It may have been because the reality of the situation—the fact that we were going to a gang leader's house to buy a highly illegal necromancy spell— was beginning to dawn on me. Maybe it was because we were very clearly no longer in Summerton Heights, and in tow I had two of the most likely people to say the wrong thing to the wrong people.
But I was betting it was due to the fact that Mallory would not stop talking.
"No, no, I got the gist." I said, at last fed up with her long winded rendition of The Woeful Tale of a Hot Teenaged Girl. "Max was being inconsiderate, Max was being annoying, Max is the root of all evil—y'know, it's not exactly a hard story to follow."
"Okay, alright. I didn't realize that my life paled in comparison the the rich, lived—in tapestry of Cassandra Landry."
Did she really have to pull my government name like that?
"If my boy drama is so boring," she continued, "let's hear yours."
I smiled back at her. "Uh, sorry to disappoint your highness, but I'm kind of immune?"
She frowned at me. "What do you mean?"
"...Uh...I'm gay?"
She looked up and outwards. After a moment, "Shit."
I too looked back in that direction. "What? Do you have a problem with that?" Though I'm not proud to admit it, I wouldn't have been too upset if she was. Maybe that would be the final push it took to get her off of my bike.
"Oh, I literally don't care." She said. "I just remembered that I'm probably going to miss the party tonight. Jess is going to try something with Max, one hundred percent. The whore."
My eyes widened. "You can't call her that!"
"What?" She asked incredulously. "It's true."
"Wha...Calling other women words like that is very toxic behavior."
"Oh, spare me the remedial gender studies lecture, professor. I don't mean it that way. She sleeps with all my boyfriends. It's a game we play. We've got a bet going."
That situation broke my brain. Seriously. I didn't have the neural networking capabilities to sort through everything that was wrong with that, much less the ability to relay that information into actual words. I instead opted to let out a series of guttural guffawing noises.
She cackled. "Oh my god, you're priceless."
"Uh, well, you're a—a sociopath!"
"Relax! I'm fucking with you, Landry."
"I...you..." I shook my head. "What?"
"I'm devious, not diabolical. Plus, my attention span is not nearly long enough for that kind of charade. Thanks for making me use the word by the way, I hated it. Whore. It sounds so...puritanical."
"I...I don't...Why would you do that?"
"Well, apparently, my real drama is too vanilla for the refined pallet of The Cassandra Landry. So... I had to spice it up a bit."
I...
...was impressed. As much as I hated to admit it. It was kind of funny now that I thought about it. I don't even know why I bought it in the first place. Jess was the wear a purity ring and wait till marriage type to begin with.
Still, I wasn't going to let her have the satisfaction of a response, much less praise. I turned to Sofiane, who rode a little ways ahead of us on the sidewalk (the streets were busier in this part of town). "Yo. How much farther?"
He glanced back at me. "Uh...we're just around the corner?"
I frowned. "You don't sound sure."
"You know I'm not really sure about a lot these days, Cass." He gave me a sarcastic smile. "I just found out my best friend might be a murderer."
I tilted my head and smiled back, just as sarcastic. "Yeah. I heard about that. You doing okay?"
He rolled his eyes and faced forward again. "Alright."
I sighed and sped up, riding alongside him. "Hey." I swerved in his direction slightly before evening out to get his attention. "I'm sorry, okay?"
"Yeah."
"I know how much we're asking of you, and it means a lot that you're helping me through this. I know I owe you one. Seriously."
He glanced at me before scoffing. I thought that was going to be it before he swerved into my path, causing me to have to steer abruptly in the opposite direction and eliciting a shriek from Mallory. "Several you owe me."
I laughed. "Yeah, yeah, alright."
He tossed a glance over his shoulder to where Rebecca rode quietly behind us and jerked his head in her direction. He lowered his voice. "So what's the deal with her anyways?"
I was suddenly very aware of the mean girl I was chauffeuring around, and how liberal she was with other people's business. "Nothing. There is no deal."
He frowned. "Is she not that Rebecca?"
"Which Rebecca?" Mallory leaned in. I was surprised was suddenly interested in the conversation, and we hadn't mentioned her once. Progress?
Anyways, I wasn't keening on letting her in on anything. I gave Sofiane what I assumed to be a meaningful look. "There is no Rebecca."
He raised his eyebrows at me in what was an equally meaningful look, just not the meaning I was looking for. This look seemed to spell out s e v e r a l. "Are you sure? Because I specifically remember you practically forcing me to scroll back through a certain blond's instagram for what must have been half an hour at least."
I looked back at Mallory. She may have said she wasn't diabolical, but that was really the only way to describe her smile. "Oh?"
I groaned. "I didn't force you to do anything, Sof—"
"How far back did you get?" Mallory asked, her voice taking up that low, gossipy tone, the same she used back in the detention room to describe her encounter with Max in the sound booth.
"Oh..." Sofiane shook his head as if he were thinking, as if there were a brain taking up that desolate expanse between his willfully ignorant ears. "I don't know...was it two years? Three? You'll have to remind me, Cass, cause I—"
"—Alright, enough!"
"What's going on up there?" We heard Rebecca pipe in and ask.
Even more meaningful looks were exchanged before at last Mallory said. "Don't worry about it, hon, okay?"
A dark look came over Rebecca's features and her pedaling slowed. She seriously looked as if she might cry again. "Oh...okay."
I wanted to throw Mallory off my bike. I wanted to erase that sad look off of Rebecca's face but I couldn't. What would I tell her we were talking about? How deeply I was half in love with her? There was no point in denying it any further. Some time, when wasn't looking, my gay ass decided that liking a girl like her wasn't a completely absurd thing for a girl like me to do.
Because it was so obvious. I mean, seriously, what a predictable thing for me to do, to fall in like with Rebecca Lovelace. How uncool of me to fall in like at all.
"Oh. Woops."
I glared at Sofiane. "What?"
He took a moment to answer. He squinted over at us. "We passed it."
I stopped pedaling and shook my head at him.
He was still going before he noticed, slowed, and stopped as well. "Yeah, it's just down here."
"Idiot."
He walked his bike over towards us. "What? There was a lot going on! We were....I'm not even super familiar with this neighborhood!"
I turned my bike around and went toward the building that he indicated. "Idiot."
***
Our bikes stowed, now standing in front of the infamous Miss Kelly's Not–Office, (it looked like an office building to me...) Sofiane took on one of his more annoying personnas and sidled up the large man standing in front of the entrance looking at his phone while we stood a ways back behind him (his request). When he went unnoticed, Sofiane cleared his throat.
The man looked up from his phone, irritated. "Can I help you, young man?"
Sofiane laughed nervously. I swear that boy couldn't more suspicious if he tried. "Um, yes, I am le petit garçon. I scheduled a meeting with madame Kelly for tonight?" It was abundantly clear to me in that moment why he failed french twice.
The man narrowed his eyes at Sofiane, looked behind him, and back. He pointed to the phone in his hands. "I'm waiting for my Uber."
I resisted the urge to both face palm and to connect my palm with Sofiane's face while Mallory snorted and Rebecca squeezed her eyes shut as if praying to be anywhere but here.
"Oh!" Sofiane said to the man's retreating back as he crossed the street. "Sorry about that, sir!"
I stormed over to him and punched him in the arm before jerking door of the building open myself. "I.Di.Ot."
I startled a bit at the sight of the interior. While the outside had made the rundown brick building seem like it was a wonder it was still standing upright, the inside told a much different story. It was a bright white cushy interior that was much more expansive than the exterior, through with the soft sound of smooth jazz drifted, sporting a front desk manned by a woman in uniform. I swallowed as I approached her, my gait much less sure.
She tilted her head at the sight of us, her expression attentive, but her eyes dead and empty. There was something off about her—she was too still. But who was I to judge. I smiled at her, smoothing out the edges of my voice. "Hi. We have an appointment with Miss Kelly?"
Her eyes darted across her faces before catching on Sofiane's. "Authorization?" Her voice was flat and even.
He cleared his throat and stumbled forward, still rubbing his arm where I'd hit him early. "Um, le petit garçon?"
She blinked at us before her smile went from a passive, unthinking expression to an active, conscious choice. "I'll send you right up."
I can barely get out a word before the floor disappears out from under me, closely followed by the walls and ceiling, and we are transported out of the lobby and directly into what I assumed Miss Kelly's office.
The witch in question sat behind a glass desk wearing a dark purple fitted suit with a black satin scarf tied tight around her neck. Her dark brown eyes drifted across our bodies as we huddled together with our back nearly to the wall of the doorless room. She turned her head toward the man stood in the corner of the room closest to her, brow furrowed, and lazily moved her thumb to her chin, wiggling her index finger over her curled middle, ring, and pinky.
The man raised his and and tightened them into fists, circling one with the other before connecting them. "Your appointment," he said, his voice as low and grumbly as you would expect from a spell dealer's right hand.
She nodded slowly and turned back to us. She pointed a finger at us before bringing it to her forehead, her hand falling away to circle the other, both in claw like formations.
"You're confused." The man translated. As she pointed to herself before touching her earlobe and then her chin, "I'm deaf."
"She's deaf," Sofiane whispered to the rest of us.
I glared at him, "Yeah, I can see that now!"
I turned back to see the man's hands moving through the air once more, quick and crisp.
Miss Kelly smiled at him. She sighed something to him and he laughed.
Turning to us, he said, "My name's Oscar."
Something totally alien to me possessed Rebecca to say, "Hi Oscar." When I looked over I at her, I saw she was signing out the words.
Miss Kelly looked impressed. She signed something back, her eyebrows raised.
"You know sign language?" Oscar translated.
"A little," Rebecca signed and spoke at the same time. "My...cousin? Is hard of hearing...I'm sure we're still going to need your help though, Oscar."
He laughed again, signing. "Of course."
Smiling and nodding, Miss Kelly curled two fingers at her chin. "Cute," Oscar voiced. Looking over to Sofiane, she continued to sign.
"So, Mr. Clarkson." Oscar said. "You said that this was an emergency. You bring three unvetted strangers to my private office on a Friday evening who reek of dark magical energies and we begin to talk about Shirley Temple's hearing impaired cousin." She raises her eyebrows at him. "Now does that sound like the kind of behavior I'm tolerant of?"
Sofiane swallows and looks down, shaking his head. "N-no, Miss Kelly."
Her face twists as she shifts backward in her seat.
Watching her hands move once more, "Well," Oscar said, "It's a good thing I'm feeling very tolerant."
Rebecca is the first to laugh nervously, and I follow in suit before Mallory elbows me in my gut.
"What is it you need, Mr. Clarkson?"
Sofiane glances up at me nervously before mumbling to the carpet.
Miss Kelly gives Oscar an expectant look and she shakes his head and shrugs at her.
Rolling her eyes, she signs something curtly, and following the action is Oscar's booming voice. "Speak up!"
"A necromancy spell!" Sofiane blurts. His eyes widen at his tone, and he swallows before looking down again. "Ma'am."
After reading what Oscar signs, Miss Kelly raises her eyebrows, tilts her head back, and lets out a silent laugh.
Chuckling along with her, Oscar says, "You're probably fired, kid."
Sofiane glares at me and shoves his hands into his pockets. "Yeah, I know."