The witch talk didn’t come on my eleventh or twelfth or thirteenth birthday either. By my fourteenth birthday, I didn’t even think about witches or magic anymore.
But maybe I should’ve, because how else do I explain to myself what happened yesterday with Danica and Ben? Maybe Mom gave me witchy powers but forgot to tell me.
“What’s with you today?” Martin asks me from across the table in the cafeteria. Martin is one of my best friends. He’s white, with curly blond hair that grows faster than he can cut it. His favorite clothes are corduroy pants and cable-knit sweaters. This would be normal if he were a septuagenarian professor of English living in the cold English countryside. It’s less normal for an eighteen-year-old boy living in Los Angeles, where the average temperature almost never calls for tweed.
We’ve been friends since second grade. We were in library class together on our very first day and wanted to check out the same book. The librarian said we had to share by reading it out loud to each other. One book led to another.
“I think I might be losing it,” I say.
He rests his hand on his chin and considers me in his usual slow and careful way. “Tell me,” he says.
“It’s about Danica. She and Ben broke up.”
He straightens. Martin’s had a crush on Danica since the fourth grade, when he imprinted on her baby-goose style.
“When?” he asks.
“Last night.”
He does a tiny, happy fist pump with himself. “What happened?”
“He cheated on her with his ex.”
“Jesus, what an asshole,” he says.
I wait for him to pull himself together. It takes a few seconds.
“So you’re losing your mind because they broke up?” heasks.
“No. I mean, yes.”
“I’m confused.”
“Iknewthey were going to break up.”
“Of course. They had to. We’re destined to be,” he says, smiling.
“Okay, but let’s put destiny aside for a second,” I say. “What I mean is I knewwhenthey were going to break up. Andwhere.Andwhy.” I take a very long breath. “I knew it allbeforethey broke up.”
He slow-blinks at me, which is what he does when he’s contemplating something he doesn’t understand. “Are you saying you can predict the future now?”
“Of course not.” I take a sip of chocolate milk. “What I’m saying is I think maybe I can predict the future now.”
Another slow blink from him. “This is where you say ‘Once up on a time’ and don’t stop talking until you come to the end,” he says.
I tell him exactly what happened yesterday. How I’d just ridden home from giving my books away to the old woman at the Little Free Library and how Ben and Danica—oblivious to the world—were kissing on the stoop. He winces at that detail, but there’s nothing I can do about Danica’s propensity to kiss people who are not Martin.
I tell him how the vision was like watching a movie. The first scene was Ben asking Danica out. Next was them kissing in front of me on the stoop. The third was them at the bonfire, and the fourth was Danica alone in her room.
I stop talking to gauge his reaction so far.
He’s not looking at me as if he thinks I’ve finally lost my sanity, so I keep going. “But the craziest part is that when I got home, she told me they really did break up because she caught him kissing his ex on the beach.”
“Was she really upset?” he asks quietly.
“She was fine,” I say with a sigh. “But I need you to focus. I feel like you’re maybe missing my very enormous point.”
“Sorry, sorry,” he says. “So you saw the whole history of their relationship from beginning to end? Past and present and future?”
