Spells

THIRTEEN

THE NEXT DAY, LAUREL AND CHELSEA SAT ON THE porch swing in front of Laurel’s house, lazily swaying back and forth. “I hate Saturdays,” Chelsea said, her head hanging over one arm of the swing, her eyelids closed against the sun.

“Why?” Laurel asked, similarly draped.

“’Cause boyfriends always have to work.”

“Sometimes you have races.”

“That’s true.”

“And besides, you get to come over and hang out with me. Isn’t that worth something?” Laurel said, poking her.

Chelsea opened her eyes and looked at Laurel skeptically. “You don’t kiss as good as Ryan.”

“You don’t know that,” Laurel said with a smile.

“Not yet,” Chelsea said, leaning toward Laurel.

Laurel swatted at her arm and they both leaned back again, giggling.

“You do have a point,” Chelsea said. “We don’t hang out as much anymore; aside from lunchtime, I mean.”

“And you mysteriously disappear about half the time,” Laurel said with a laugh.

“I’m a busy girl,” Chelsea said in mock defense. “Oh, hey! Ryan’s having a big party at his house next Friday. You and David are invited. It’s the old ‘say good-bye to summer’ thing but minus the cold water, scratchy sand, and smoky fire.”

“He’s a little late,” Laurel said, forgetting that not everyone was hyperaware of the change from summer to fall.

“Meh. Close enough. It’s still a good enough reason to have a party. Ryan has the best party house. Surround sound, big rec room. It’ll be awesome. You guys should come.”

“Sure,” Laurel said, accepting the invitation for the both of them. David wouldn’t mind; she was the one who usually didn’t like late-night things.

“Awesome.” Chelsea squinted at the sun. “Is it five o’clock yet?”

Laurel laughed. “I’d be surprised if it’s even three.”

Chelsea stuck out her bottom lip dramatically. “I miss Ryan.”

“That’s good. You should miss your boyfriend.”

“I used to mock girls who practically swooned when their boyfriends walked by. I always wanted to tell them to grow a personality and stop letting someone else define them. Sometimes I did tell them.”

Laurel rolled her eyes. “Why am I not surprised?”

“And now I’m one of them,” Chelsea said with a groan.

“Except that you have a personality.” Chelsea had more personality than almost anyone Laurel knew.

“I hope so. But, seriously, he’s become such a big part of my life.” She lifted her head to look at Laurel again. “Did you know that the two races he’s come to this year have both been personal bests for me? I run faster when he’s around. And I thought I was running as fast as I could before. I’m a scoring runner on our team now. He did that to me!” She put her hand to her forehead and mocked fainting back against the swing. “He’s wonderful.”

“I am so glad, Chelsea. You deserve a great guy, and Ryan seems to really like you.”

“Yeah, he does. Weird, huh?”

Laurel just snorted.

“Do you think we’re moving too fast?” Chelsea asked seriously.

Laurel raised an eyebrow. “Well, that depends. How fast are you moving?”

“Oh, nothing like that,” Chelsea said, waving away her concern. “I mean more like maybe I’m getting in too deep too quickly.”

“How so?”

“I was registering for the November SAT the other day—”

“November?” Laurel interrupted. “How come November? David and I aren’t taking it till spring.”

“Chronic overachiever,” Chelsea said dismissively. “Anyway, it asked which schools I wanted my scores sent to. And I said…?” She looked at Laurel.

“Harvard. You’ve always wanted to go to Harvard,” Laurel said without even having to think about it.

“I know, exactly,” Chelsea said, sitting all the way up now and crossing her legs beneath her. “But I went to write Harvard and I was like, Well, wait. Ryan’s going to UCLA; Boston’s really far away from UCLA. Do I want to go that far away from him? And I totally didn’t write it down.”

“You had your scores sent somewhere else?” Laurel sat up straight. “Where? Stanford? You hate Stanford.”

“No, I just left it blank. I haven’t finished it yet.” She paused. “Do you feel this way? About David?”

“Yep,” Laurel said. “I would totally not go to Harvard for David.”

“Sure,” Chelsea drawled. “That’s because you want to go to Berkeley, like your parents, right?”

The question took Laurel completely off guard. She nodded, vaguely, but her thoughts were in Avalon. There was a place for her at the Academy — tuition-free, room and board, no SATs required, and even though Jamison wanted her to help watch for trolls now, she assumed the faeries would expect her at the Academy full-time pretty soon. But how could she tell Chelsea that?

“Let’s say David goes back East. Would you throw away your plans and follow him there?”

That’s two years away, Laurel told herself, attempting to quell her rising discomfort. She gave a little shrug.

“But you’d think about it, right?”

“Maybe,” Laurel said automatically. But it was so much more than just a question of following David a thousand miles. Following David would mean leaving behind Avalon, the Academy, everything. Would going to the Academy mean not choosing David? It was a new thought, and not one Laurel liked.

“So do you think you and David will be together forever? Because some people do that,” Chelsea added in a rush, speaking more to herself than to Laurel. “They meet in high school and it’s just like — click! — soul mates.”

“I don’t know,” Laurel said honestly. “I can’t picture myself ever not loving David. I just don’t see us breaking up.” But torn apart? Suddenly that seemed like a distinct possibility.

“You said the L-word,” Chelsea said with a grin, pulling Laurel away from her dreary thoughts.

“Why, yes — yes, I did.” Laurel laughed.

“You’re in love with David?”

Just thinking about it made Laurel’s whole body feel warm. “Yeah. I am.”

“So do you guys…you know?”

There went that fuzzy moment. “Not…exactly.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means not exactly,” Laurel insisted stubbornly.

Chelsea was silent for a while. Laurel hoped she wasn’t dwelling too hard on the precise state of Laurel and David’s physical relationship. “I think I might love Ryan,” Chelsea finally said, relieving Laurel’s tension. “That’s why this whole Harvard thing is throwing me. It’s what I’ve wanted to do since I was, like, ten. Go to Harvard, major in journalism, be a reporter. But now, I can hardly bear the thought of being away from Ryan.”

“Maybe he should follow you to Harvard.”

“Don’t think I haven’t considered that,” Chelsea retorted. “He wants to be a doctor like his dad, and Harvard’s got a great med program.”

“So send your scores to Harvard,” Laurel said, doing her best to focus on Chelsea’s problems instead of her own. “You have almost two years before you have to decide. A lot can happen in that time. And, seriously, if you have to give up a dream to be with a guy, maybe you’ve chosen the wrong guy.”

Chelsea’s brow furrowed and she fiddled with her fingers. “And what if the time comes and the dream doesn’t seem worth it?”

David’s and Tamani’s faces seemed to float before Laurel’s eyes, the Academy looming in the background. She shrugged and forced the images from her mind. “Then maybe it was the wrong dream.”

Ryan’s house was vibrating with music when Laurel and David pulled up on Friday night. “Wow,” Laurel said. The three-story, bluish-gray house had a slate roof and bright white shutters. A large set of picture windows adorned the front and looked out onto a beautifully landscaped yard with dogwoods lining a rock-paved walk and ivy crawling up the south wall. The house was right up against the rocky shoreline, and Laurel suspected they had an incredible view off the back deck. “This is really beautiful.”

“Yep. It’s nice to be the only child of the town cardiologist.”

“I see that.” They walked hand-in-hand up the walk and through the front door. Since it was a small town and a big house, the party wasn’t too crowded, but it was full enough. And where people didn’t fill the corners, music did. Laurel already felt a dull ache in her ears.

“Over there,” she said, raising her voice over the music and pointing toward Ryan and Chelsea. Ryan looked fairly normal in a bright red T-shirt and Hollister jeans, but Chelsea had outdone herself. She had pulled her curls up in a high ponytail and was wearing long, swinging gold earrings. Dark blue jeans with cute black sandals and a black tank top with shiny beading set off the tan she’d gotten that summer.

Probably on the deck of Ryan’s pool.

“Look at you!” Laurel said as they approached. She pulled Chelsea into a hug. “You look awesome!”

“You too,” Chelsea said.

But Laurel was already wishing she hadn’t had to wear the long, empire-waist, tie-back blouse with a rather large bow that covered up the bump from her blossom. It was warm, and she was already starting to feel confined.

“Don’t you just adore this house?” Chelsea exclaimed, pulling Laurel a little off to the side.

“It’s gorgeous.”

“I love to come here. With three brothers under twelve, we can’t have very many breakable things at my house,” Chelsea said. “But here? They put statues on the coffee table. At dinner the glasses are made of — would you believe it—glass.”

They both laughed.

Chelsea turned her head to watch David and Ryan talking and laughing together. As if feeling themselves being observed, they both turned to look over at the girls. Ryan winked.

“Sometimes when I see the two of them together like this I wonder how Ryan could have been there for so many years and I never saw him.” She turned to Laurel. “What was I thinking?”

Laurel laughed and put her arm around Chelsea. “That David was hotter?”

“Oh yeah, that’s right,” Chelsea said, rolling her eyes. “Come on,” she said, pulling Laurel toward the back of the house. “You have got to see this view.”