Max arched an eyebrow, unconvinced. “You sure you’re alright?”
“Yeah.” I swallowed and flipped through the notebook Dr. Robetresse had given us. Dani’s notebook. Filled with equations and neat, tiny handwriting, each entry dated. Nothing like the furiously scribbled lines and mad circles in my own note taking, nor the large pink bubble letters of the writing in Maya’s planner. Not surprisingly, the last entry was an equation to increase the clarity and distance her telescope could view. Nothing out of the ordinary. Something I might expect from someone whose object was a telescope.
“What’d you find out?” Max asked, keeping a careful eye on me. “Her mind must’ve been some kinda screwy to pull you in like that.”
I thought back to the strangeness I’d experienced, but the cold feeling that had gripped me was already slipping from my grasp, like waking from a dream, where, in the cold light of day, it doesn’t feel quite so scary after all.
And what had I seen, really? Just a forest. Had it really been so different than other objects I’d reached out to? After all, I’d gotten her emotional state before the incident. She hadn’t been frightened or hiding. All I felt was a singular determined focus, though the intensity of it felt a little frightening on its own. She’d wanted something the trees had obscured from her—very badly, I think. To see the stars or something in the night sky? So we at least knew that she was driven. She’d had a goal, though if that goal had been tied to what had happened to Maya or was unrelated was still unclear.
From her equations and notes in the notebook—everything listed in perfect detail, written in tiny, scrupulous notes—I had the impression that Dani knew what she was doing.
“We’ll have to go through these entries more in depth later,” I said, and Max agreed. “But from what I can tell, she’s got a disciplined, scientific approach. Her Magic is rational, precise. Almost surgical. There’s nothing to indicate she was running from something, or out of her mind with fear.”
“Nothing to indicate she knew what was coming,” Max said, and I nodded.
“So we’re back to square one.” Max stretched, back cracking so loud I nearly jumped. “I’m starving. I say we hold off for the rest of the night, and get started back up in the morning. I’m gonna get dinner.” He hesitated. “As long as you’re sure you’re okay? You’re not gonna fall into some other object while I’m not looking?” Beneath the brim of his hat, his eyes were shadowed. He was still a little worried, but his mouth crooked into a grin.
“I’m fine. Promise.”
Max stood, and Bear stared at him like he’d just got dumped in the rain. “Aw, don’t worry. I’ll be back soon, buddy.”
Max was tired, but I only felt energized after the work, and if I was being honest, a little on edge. I hadn’t been around Magic in ages, and I could feel every thump of it now, every whip through the air, racing through every crevice in the ground. I couldn’t stop now—what if another discovery was just looming around the corner? I jumped up, my hip accidentally smacking into the bedside table. “Ow. I’ll go with you.”
“Oh …” he said, slowly, putting a hand on the back of his neck. “I meant with Julia. My girlfriend.”
The world seemed to move too fast and in slow motion all at once.
Ah. The girlfriend. Her Instagram showed her as a pretty blonde with freckles who wore sundresses and laughed in every picture. She was exactly the kind of person I’d imagine him with. I bet his mom loved her.
The uncomfortable squirm of his shoulders as I invited myself to my ex and his new girlfriend’s dinner popped any bubble of excitement I’d been floating in.
“Oh. Right, of course. Ignore me, I’m an idiot.”
A crease appeared between his brows. His voice softened. “Cella Gibbons, you are many things, but an idiot is not one of them.”
I couldn’t take the pity in his voice, so I started vomiting words.
“Okay, well, good idea. Dinner, eating, good, all of it. Well, have fun eating. Have a good time, I mean. Have a good dinner. I’ll, uh, I’ll see you in the morning.”
He bit his lip. “I’ll text you when I get back on campus.”
“Sure, yeah. Super.”
My chest sagged as soon as he was out of the room. Bear turned to glower at me, as if I was responsible for his playmate leaving. I heard Max’s boots thud against the floor and the main door creak open down the hall.Super?I whispered to myself.
Whether I wanted to admit it or not, I would always feel the lack of his presence, my Magic mourning for its other half, one half of a rope stretching toward its missing piece. My mind flashed to that night we spent lying on a blanket in the bed of his truck, looking up at the stars, thinking we’d be together forever, that the universe had all but decreed we were meant to be.
But that was stupid. And Magic was stupid, and it was all stupid.
The truth was we weren’t soulmates.
We weren’t lovers. We were just two people whose Magic worked better together, and I’d been fighting a long time to make it so neither I nor my Magic gave a shit when he left the room.
I turned back toward my room and shut the door to the darkness.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Iwoke the next morning surrounded by last night’s dinner: a bag of chips I’d gotten from the vending machine and half a bottle of green tea. Bear wasn’t at my feet. Usually, he slept right on top of them. But when I squinted around the room, half-blind without my contacts in, I could just make out a hazy blob standing with its front paws on the windowsill.
