“She doesn’t like anybody.”
“Did she like Kelsey?” Noah’s silence is all the answer I need. I groan and look up at him.
“Stop, stop, please.” He pushes his hair away from his forehead. “My mom knows Kelsey’s mom. They’re friends. My mom doesn’t know your mom.”
I laugh, just a short sound. “Can you imagine our moms being friends?”
Noah grunts. “Not in a million years.” He leans back until he’s lying on the table. “Come here.” He motions with his hand.
I lie down on my side and put my head on his chest, right onto the warm spot it was in before.
“Don’t worry about anything but us, okay?”
“Okay,” I agree, my voice small. Normally I wouldn’t care who likes me, but this is different.
“We’re magic, Ember. Say it with me.”
I look up at him. The tree towers behind him, it’s long branches drooping down. The moonlight filters through the leaves, casting iridescent arcs that dance over us.
“We’re magic,” I whisper.
And I believe it too.
9
Noah
Three days doesn’t seemthat long a time to ignore someone. But, according to my dad, who’s using his firm voice and standing in my bedroom doorway right now, any time spent ignoring my mother is too long.
“She wasn’t nice to Ember, Dad.” Why am I telling him this? He has eyes, he was there.
He sighs and looks over his shoulder, then steps inside and shuts the door. Coming to a seat in my desk chair, he looks at a picture of Ember that I leaned up against a soccer trophy. She hates the picture, but I love it. I took it last week with my phone, when the wind was so strong it made her hair swirl around her. She laughed and closed her eyes, just as I captured the moment. I had printed it out that night.
“What happened last Saturday night wasn’t your mom’s fault. She can’t control her mother’s mouth any better than you can control hers.”
“It wasn’t just grandma. I mean, yeah, she sucked.” I sink down onto my bed. “But Mom didn’t even try to get to know Ember.”
Dad tips his head back until it’s supported by the back of my chair. “She doesn’t mean it,” he says to the ceiling.
“She could at least try. I know she liked Kelsey, and Ember’s not anything like Kelsey, but she makes me happy. Can’t that be enough for Mom?” I punch the pillow beside me.
“I’ll talk to her.” He looks down and then back up to me. “You want to kick the ball around with me?” He props his foot on top of a red-and-blue soccer ball lying on the floor beside my desk chair.
“Only if you promise not to start wheezing again.” My taunt prompts him to slip his toes under the ball and bounce it up into the air. Using the inside of his left foot he gives it a small kick and looks at me with challenge on his face.
I jump off the bed and steal the ball away, kicking it from my room. “Let’s go, old man.”
“Are you going to stop ignoring your mother?” he calls after me. Still doing his dad/husband duty, I guess.
“Yes,” I respond, even though I still think my mother deserves to be in the doghouse.
Ember doesn’t seem to mind my mother’s behavior. She’s more concerned about people at school finding out we’re together. I don’t give a shit what people think about us, but Ember does. That surprised me, because I thought Ember lived in a special land where people at our school didn’t exist. She doesn’t seem to care about anybody there, and she never participates in anything. When I asked her yesterday, she explained that she has made it this far by being drama free, and she’d like it to stay that way.
I get it. But I have a small plan that will let me kiss her at least once during the school day. If she won’t let me openly show affection to her at school, I’ll just have to sneak it.
* * *
My idea is unoriginal,but it’s all I have. I never see Ember at school. We don’t have the same lunch hour, no classes together, and she’s not in any extracurriculars.
