Tyson moved the bear skin rug off the trunk and carried it to the closet and put it away. I would have protested if I thought he would have listened to me. I didn’t bother wasting the words on him, I knew better by now. Tyson only did what Tyson wanted to do.
He unlocked the trunk with a key he had hanging on a chain he had around his neck that he pulled out of his shirt. I hadn’t noticed him wearing it before. He unlocked the trunk, then tucked the key still on its chain back under his shirt.
He lifted the top of the trunk and immediately started digging around inside of it. I wanted to get up so badly and cross the room so I could peek over his shoulder to see what he had tucked away in that trunk. I did what I was told and stayed put. Against my better judgement.
He came back with an armful of things and, suddenly I wanted to be anywhere but here. I could not do this. They all seemed so confident that I had magic. I wasn’t so sure. And maybe I didn’t want to know. What if they were wrong? What if I wasn’t anything special and nothing happened? See, this was my problem. Magic wasn’t something normal. Normal people weren’t gifted with such things as magic and I was painfully normal.
When he realized how wrong they’d been, would Tyson still want to be friends with me? Would he still come over in the middle of the night to fall asleep curled up together on my window seat watching episodes of Friday Night Lights simply because I didn’t want to be alone?
I didn’t think so.
Suddenly Tyson was kneeling before me. He cupped my jaw and tilted my face up.
“You’re crying. Why are crying, Ariel?”
I hadn’t realized I was crying. Damn. I was always giving myself away.
Why are you crying, Ariel Kimber? Because I’m stupid, that’s why. If I was smart I never would have come over here in the first damn place and set myself up for a world of disappointment.
“Ariel? Why are you crying, sweetheart? I don’t understand. Did something happen? Is it because of what happened with Quinton earlier, because I promise the twins are going to get back your panties for you. It’s likely he didn’t even have time to do anything with them. The twins won’t do anything funny with them, you know that. And, the shit w-”
I covered his hand on my face with my own. I’d never seen him like this before, rambling. He seemed nervous. Was he nervous because of me? Surely not. I needed to get him to stop talking.
“What happens when you find out I don’t have magic?” I blurted. His mouth snapped shut and he frowned at me. “Are you just going to forget about me? Are we not going to be friends anymore? Will you go back to being mean to me? No more Friday Night Lights? I really, really like Tim Riggins and I want to watch more of it, but I want to watch it with you. I don’t want to watch it by myself. I’m tired of being all by myself all the time and I like you. I like the twins and that Julian seemed nice. The others, not so much. And, umm, Quinton seems to really like me, so there’s that. And-”
Tyson placed the hand not cupping my cheek over my mouth. Now it was me who was rambling. I stuck my tongue out, licking his hand. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.
A startled laugh burst out of him.
“Always the unexpected with you,” he muttered when he finally stopped laughing.
I wasn’t laughing and I feared maybe I had said too much again. and I probably shouldn’t have licked him. Or, maybe I should have done it sooner. Much, much sooner.
“You have magic, sweetheart. I’d stake my life on it. You don’t know you have it because no one’s ever shown you how to use it before. Lucky for you, now you’ve got a whole lot of people who are more than willing to teach you and show you the ropes. You’ve got nothing to worry about. Okay?”
I nodded in agreement even though I wasn’t certain sure I wanted to. In reassuring me, he’d never answered my many questions and he’d entirely skipped over the most important one. What happens if we discovered I didn’t have magic? He’d conveniently skipped over answering that one. I feared his lack of an answer was an answer and I did not like it.
They only liked me because they thought I had magic. My stomach clenched painfully and I started to cry again. I hadn’t realized I’d stopped until I started again.
“Ariel, Ariel, why are you crying now? There’s nothing to cry about. We just talked about this.”
There was plenty to cry about. I did not like the thought of them not liking me if I didn’t have magic. They thought I was one of four women in the U.S. who had magic and to them, this made me precious. Whatever. That was absolute bullshit. I was special all on my own and there was plenty to like about me without some magical crap. But they didn’t think so. A-hole’s, all of them.
My emotions were all over the place. I went from crying and feeling down on myself one second to feeling pissed off the next.
My blood boiled.
I wasn’t their toy or their plaything or something for them to cherish even. If I had magic or not should not matter. They needed to like me for me, and they needed to treat me like a real-life person.
I didn’t want my relationship with Tyson and the rest of them to turn into something similar to what I shared with my mother. I didn’t want to be another pawn in someone’s game. I deserved more than that. I deserved a whole lot more than that.
After the bloody vomiting, the phone call with my mother, my underwear being stolen and now this disappointment, I had had more than enough.
I’d stopped crying again. Thankfully.
I jerked my head free of his hands.
“You know what, Tyson,” I snapped. “You can go fuck yourself. You only want me because you think I have magic. The same goes for the rest of those A-hole’s. I am who I am, magic be damned, and I’m worth being friends with without it.”