Brendan hung his head in his hands, quiet, and I was afraid to move. Finally, I reached out to him and touched his arm. He suddenly grabbed my hand tightly and I jumped.
“I’m sorry,” he said, dropping my hand as if he’d just grabbed a handful of broken glass. “And I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings by ignoring you. I just knew I was so attracted… No, attracted is not the right word. I need a stronger word.” He stopped, and chewed his lip thoughtfully. Suddenly, Brendan exclaimed, “Spellbound! I was spellbound by you, and, to be honest, it took me a little off guard.”
“Your choice of words is interesting,” I said dryly, and he laughed a short, bitter laugh.
“Your first day at school,” Brendan began, “I was so impressed by how you stood up to Kristin. And I hadn’t even seen you yet.
“I turned around to give the new girl a hand, because Kristin was clearly harassing you. And then I saw your face.” Brendan’s voice was no more than a tender whisper, as he brushed my cheek with the back of his hand.
“And then I noticed your necklace,” he continued. “I mean, it’s a pretty big pendant, Emma. But, I didn’t get a really good look at the actual design of it. I just thought it was cool that you would wear something so different.”
Color touched Brendan’s cheeks, and he put his head down, stealing a glance at me. “All I could think about was you. I felt like I had been missing you all this time. It didn’t make any sense to me,” he said, reaching out and touching the pendant. He was half-affectionately stroking the charm, and half resenting it.
“I couldn’t understand why I was so drawn to you. I knew nothing about you, other than, well, you weren’t a pushover, and you were kind of a liar.” Brendan saw my insulted expression and was instantly contrite. “I’m sorry, Emma, but you kind of are. Congress Academy? I’m sure you have your reasons, but still.”
The words continued pouring out of him. “Anyway, I sort of prided myself on my disinterest in girls at school. Really, one’s worse than the next, so the last thing I wanted was to fall for some snob. And one with something to hide. For all I knew you were kicked out of your last school for setting the damn place on fire.
“That first day at lunch, Anthony made some comments about you. You were new. He had already cornered you before English class, I saw it. He thought you were an easy target.”
I remembered that first day—Brendan had slammed his chair into the table and stormed out of the lunchroom.
“You guys got into a fight in the cafeteria,” I said, awestruck.
“You noticed me,” he said, sounding slightly smug.
“You practically threw a chair,” I pointed out. “Everyone noticed you.”
He smiled at me and squeezed my hand. “The thing is, Emma, I shouldn’t have cared what Anthony said. I didn’t understand why it made me crazy. I told him to stay away from you. And let’s just say when I walked into the quad that afternoon, and found out you were involved in all the commotion—I just had to get to you, to make sure you were okay. I pushed my way through the crowd, and saw him towering over you— I thought I was going to kill him. If I got there a second later, I might have.” Brendan shook his head as if he were remembering the sight of Anthony terrorizing me. “I restrained myself as much as I did because I didn’t want to scare you. After that night at the Met, I thought you’d be freaked out by violence. So I didn’t do what I would have liked to do to Anthony. And afterward, when we spoke—”
“You noticed what I was wearing,” I interrupted, remembering how he’d held my charm.
“I hadn’t gotten a good look at your necklace before that. When I went back to my locker, I compared the two designs and started putting things together. I hadn’t even thought about the Salinger family curse until that moment.”
“Then what about before?” I asked. “Why did you ask Cisco about me and come out with us that night to see Gabe’s band?” I was surprised, but Brendan looked a little embarrassed.
“Well, I thought I was doing a pretty good job of pretending I wasn’t so into you—”
“You were,” I interjected, thinking of how many times I’d pined for him to even sneeze my way.
“But then you read that sonnet.” He scratched his hair again, nervously. “I felt like you were speaking to me.”
I remembered how I stood up, speaking those words of love. “I kind of was,” I admitted shyly.
“I hoped that was the case,” Brendan mumbled. “I was so stupid to hope so, but it felt like it. And I was so… I guess the word is intrigued by you. You are so different from anyone I’ve ever met. So I asked Cisco about you, because you two were becoming best friends pretty quickly. And I knew I could trust him to not run around and tell everyone that I was asking about you.”
I tried to tell myself that he wasn’t embarrassed to be attracted to me, but the blush that colored my cheeks gave me away.
“Oh, Emma, it’s not that—it’s not what you think.” Brendan’s voice was soothing as he tucked my hair behind my ear. “Why do you keep thinking I would be ashamed? I didn’t want everyone to know because I wanted to protect you. I didn’t want people running their mouths about you.”
“I know,” I fibbed, not meeting his eyes. “Sure. So, go on, what were you saying…?”
“Emma, I really hate that you think I’m ashamed to be seen with you. That night, everything about you was so carefree…I didn’t expect how easy it would be to be around you. I didn’t expect to like it so much, so quickly. I didn’t trust it. So I stopped talking to you and ignored you.” He looked sheepish and glanced down at the gray rug. I was a little surprised at the normal answer. It stuck out amid all the talk of curses and witches. Standard guy behavior, no magic required.
“Couldn’t you have just pulled my pigtails? It would have been so much easier,” I joked lamely. Brendan gave my hair a gentle tug.
“Is that better?” he asked, ruefully smiling at me.
“Much.” I grinned back at him. “So I wasn’t imagining it,” I said, feeling a little vindicated. “You wanted to kiss me that night, didn’t you?”
“Oh, hell yeah,” he admitted. “It took all my self-control to stop myself.” But his smiling was fading—fast.
“Emma, I already care about you so much—too much,” Brendan said, regarding me with somber eyes. “Do you really believe that there’s something bigger than us going here?”
“It sounds crazy to say yes,” I admitted. “But it’s the only thing that makes sense and explains the crest and the dreams and the warnings and everything.”
“Right, that’s what— Wait.” Brendan paused. “What warnings?”
“Um, do you promise to not think me crazy?”
“Oh, like those cards aren’t already on the table for both of us,” he retorted.
“Good point,” I mumbled. I summoned my resolve and dove in, telling him about the streetlights, and Angelique’s theory that I was being warned by my brother. If we’re going to talk about curses, then my crazy visions couldn’t be that much harder to believe.
“I’ve seen my brother, and I’ve heard him, in my dreams. If some tragedy was inevitable, why bother warning me?”
“Emma, he’s telling you to stay away from me and you’ll be okay,” Brendan argued. “I’ll transfer if I have to. I’m not going to be responsible for you getting hurt.”
“No, Brendan,” I cried. I attempted to plead my case. “Some of the pages were missing from the book, remember? The story was cut short.” I racked my brain, trying to remember the final lines from the story. Where were Angelique and her photographic memory now?
“The last words were about breaking the curse. If freedom from the curse is what you seek, it takes a selfless soul to…something that rhymes with ‘eek.’ Or something like that. I don’t remember. It rhymed in the book.” I slammed my fist into the faded leather cushion, frustrated. “It sounded like the book was about to go into instructions on how to break the curse. Which means there’s a way to do it! And besides, Angelique is positive that we have a chance—simply because we’ve identified it.”
I smiled confidently, believing I had just laid out an unassailable defense. Brendan just frowned and shook his head.
“Emma, maybe the reason we can be the ones to break this curse is because we know to avoid each other.” He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees.
“No.” I remained adamant. “That can’t be it.”
“If it’s this hard to walk away after two days, I can’t imagine what it’ll be like to walk away after two weeks.” Brendan’s voice was despondent.
Finally, I realized that there was only one way I was going to let him know how badly I wanted—no, needed—this. I took a deep breath.
“Would you believe me if I told you that these past two days are the happiest I’ve been since I can remember?”
Brendan looked up. “Things were tough in—” he paused over the next word “—Philly?”
“Keansburg, actually,” I said, hoping my voice wasn’t really trembling as much as I thought it was. “Keansburg, New Jersey.”
This story was harder to tell than Lord Archer’s tale. I told Brendan everything: about my father abandoning us. About Ethan dying unexpectedly at fourteen. About my mom, marrying a man she thought would look after me after she was gone, which she knew would be soon. About initially refusing Christine’s offer to live with her—because everyone I ever loved left me. Because I didn’t want to be a burden. Brendan kept quiet and let me talk, reaching out only once to place his hand over mine, when I told him about my mother dying, and speaking only once, to tell me he understood when I said this would probably be the last time I talked about that time in my life. I just couldn’t handle revisiting those feelings.
Brendan kept his face composed, but his green eyes narrowed when I told him about Henry’s liberal use of corporal punishment, how the tension at home was thick like a fog, how it filled your lungs until you thought you would suffocate. Finally, I told him about the accident—how Henry showed up at school wasted. How I didn’t even think about him being too drunk to drive when I got into the passenger seat of his tiny Honda—I was just trying to get away from the scene he was causing on the front lawn at my school. How I just wanted to start over and be anonymous in New York.
We sat in silence for a few minutes. Destiny or not, I wondered if my sordid home situation with Henry was a deal breaker. It had been for so many back home.
Then Brendan finally spoke. “And after surviving all that, you want to be doomed by me?”
“If I didn’t see you again, that would feel like I was doomed.”
“Don’t be dramatic, Emma. I’m not all that great,” Brendan said disdainfully.
“You’ve been the brightest spot in my life this past year,” I confessed. “Do you want to take that away from me?”
“I don’t want to take anything away from you. But that’s what this—” he picked up my charm, then dropped it “—means. Don’t you get it?”
My heart felt raw, exposed. It was irrational to hurt this much, I knew, after two dates. But I couldn’t help it—all my old wounds ripped open. Everyone you care about leaves you, Emma.
“So I guess you want me to leave now?” I stayed in my spot on the leather sofa, not moving, hoping he would tell me to stay.
“I don’t want you to leave, Emma.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled-up wad of paper—the item he had pulled off his corkboard.
“I saved this,” Brendan confessed, gently shoving the paper in my hands. I stared in amazement at my own handwriting—the note I had left thanking him for the sweatshirt.
“Why?”
“It was a connection to you,” Brendan explained plainly. “I can’t imagine those feelings are going to go away the more time we spend together.”
“It’s the same for me,” I admitted. “But, if you want me to leave…” I took the chance and pushed myself off the couch.
“I don’t think I can let you leave, Emma,” Brendan said, grabbing my hand and pulling me into his lap, holding me close to his chest. “The way I feel about you…I didn’t know it was possible.”
“I know,” I said quietly.
“Aren’t you afraid, though, of what could happen?”
“Not enough to leave,” I whispered, toying with the zipper on his sweatshirt.
“That shouldn’t make me as happy as it does.” Brendan sighed, tightening his grip around me.
I stayed curled up in his arms for some time, letting the weight of what we believed to be true sink in. Finally, Brendan spoke.
“By the way, Emma, thank you for telling me the truth. I know that was hard for you,” he said, intertwining his fingers with mine. “Honestly, it’s nowhere near as bad as I was imagining. But I understand why you didn’t tell anyone. Makes sense why you’re the only person I know not on Facebook. Smart move.”
He paused. “Then again, you’re a smart girl, even if you’re flunking Latin.”
“Don’t remind me.” I laughed—a welcome release from the weighty mood in the room.
“You’re no good to me if you get kicked out of school,” Brendan said, that playful, flip tone creeping back into his voice. “So, first tutoring lesson begins now. You’re a puella pulcherrima.”
“Puella’s a girl, so…what, a failing girl?” I asked, and he laughed.
“No, I’d have to think about how to say that. What I said was you are a very beautiful girl.” I think I might have blushed. Being called “beautiful” would take some getting used to.
“And this,” Brendan said, continuing his lesson, “is a basium.” With that, he pulled my face close to his for the kiss I needed. His lips touched mine, and a thousand years of longing coursed through me, flooding into this one embrace. His hands were strong as they moved up my back and clutched a fistful of hair as I pressed myself closer to him. The kiss was deeper, almost demanding, and when he broke away with a low moan to kiss my neck, the only other sound I could hear was my own breathing.
I fell back on the couch, Brendan’s mouth back on mine as he balanced his weight above me. It felt like he had sparks shooting out of his fingers as they ran down my arm, along my side and finally rested at my hip, where he hooked his thumb into my belt loop, pulling my hip closer. I tugged at his hoodie, pulling it off his shoulder and ran my hand along his arm, feeling the muscles move underneath his T-shirt. This time, I didn’t feel uncomfortable—being with Brendan felt right. I had no intentions of stopping this embrace. But Brendan had other ideas: suddenly, he pulled back, his black locks falling over his eyebrows as he held himself over me. I felt a little lost as he looked at me through those black-fringed eyes.
He pressed his lips against mine softly—but with less passion than before. Then, taking a deep, almost resigned, breath, Brendan pulled himself upright into a sitting position on the leather couch.
“Is something wrong?” I continued lying there, staring at the side of his face, a little puzzled at the halt in what had been the most phenomenal make-out session of my life.
“No, nothing’s wrong,” Brendan replied. He paused, then took my hand, pulling me upright.
“I should, however, behave and get us some dinner. It’s getting late.” I must have still looked confused at the sudden break in our embrace, because Brendan leaned over and kissed me very gently on the cheek.
“Just because you’re my soul mate doesn’t mean I should rush things with you,” he whispered in my ear, softly kissing the spot under my earlobe. Keep going, rush things! my body screamed, but my head nodded in agreement as I tried to pull myself out of his kiss-induced haze. Somewhere in my mind, I knew he was right.
“Actually, because you’re my soul mate, I shouldn’t rush things with you.” His lips tickled my skin as he spoke. “No matter how badly I want to.”
“So,” he continued, pulling his laptop over and opening a food-delivery website. “What are you hungry for?”
What I was hungry for was sitting nonchalantly next to me on the couch. The sudden break in our mood was still sinking in. I generally liked roller coasters, but any more ups and downs tonight, and I’d probably lose whatever dinner we were about to have.
“I should probably call my aunt and make sure she isn’t expecting me,” I said, looking for my cell phone and remembering it was in my purse, all the way downstairs. Brendan handed me his phone—a sleek, expensive-looking one—and I called Aunt Christine. Even though she was well into dinner at Ashley’s family’s house, I owed her the courtesy.
“I’m cool to stay,” I said after talking to her. “I should get home soon after, though. I don’t want to be on the subway too late.”
Brendan rolled his eyes at me. “You’re not taking the subway. I’ll take you home in a car.”
“No!” I exclaimed, embarrassed. “Nothing is going to happen to me on the way to Sixty-eighth Street. I don’t need a sitter.”
“I’m not your sitter,” he said, winding his arms around me and kissing my neck so persuasively, he made my toes curl.
“I’m your boyfriend. So get used to the princess treatment.”
I wasn’t exactly a stranger to feeling like a princess—if you meant the princess in the first half of the fairy tale. Cinderella as a scullery maid. Snow White with the wicked stepmother. But I wasn’t used to what life was like after you meet the prince, after the slipper fits, after the kiss wakes you from your slumber. It would take some getting used to.
Which explains why I was floating, again, when I shut Christine’s apartment door, still a little breathless from Brendan’s good-night kiss in the back of the dark car. His family had a car service on call. Of course. They probably had a private jet on call, too. Still, I managed to collect myself when I heard Christine puttering around in the kitchen.
“Aunt Christine, I’m home,” I called, letting my keys drop into the angel-shaped dish she kept on the coffee table and walking toward the kitchen.
“Did you have a good time, dear?” Christine asked, splashing some vermouth into the martini she held in her hand.
“Yep,” I said, smiling a little too widely.
“So funny, you and the Salinger boy,” Christine murmured, taking a critical sip of her martini and frowning.
“Why is it so funny?” I asked. Of course it’s funny. It’s hilarious that a guy like Brendan would be interested in me, right? Even Christine sees it.
“Not funny ha-ha, Emma.” Aunt Christine sighed, taking out a bottle of vodka and scrutinizing it as she poured it into her glass. “Just funny interesting.”
“You’ve lost me, Aunt Christine.” I dropped my purse and settled into the floral-covered kitchen chairs as she took another sip of her martini and frowned again, splashing more vermouth in it before pouring the entire glass down the drain.
“I could never make a martini as well as your uncle George,” she said, and began making a fresh martini from scratch. “Well, dear, where were we? Oh, yes—you probably don’t remember this, but when you were very young, your parents would take you into the city to stay the weekend with me anytime they went away.”
“I remember,” I said, thinking back to those happier times. They were times of seeing matinees of the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall and making fortresses out of Christine’s couch cushions with Ethan, all before my father decided to play absentee dad.
“Well, one weekend, we went to the playground in Central Park in the West Sixties. You were pretty adamant about going there instead of somewhere closer. I remembered the Salingers being there because his mother and I were working together on some charity thing for the school and she was being a bit of a pill about it. And you and Brendan played together that afternoon.” Christine punctuated her bombshell with a rather large gulp of her new martini.
“No way!” My jaw dropped and I clutched the seat of the chair, my nails scraping against the fabric. “How old could I have been?”
“Oh, dear, this was before your idiot father left,” she said, using the “pet name” she called my father any time he came up in conversation, which wasn’t too often. “You couldn’t have been more than three or four.” Christine took another swallow of her martini.
“So we played together,” I said nervously. “Well, I guess that’s not too weird. I mean, I knew Matt in kindergarten and we dated freshman year.”
“Oh, dear, that’s not the interesting part.” Christine chuckled. “When it was time to leave, you let out such a scream. You said that you knew Brendan would be there, and that’s why you wanted to go to that park. Both of you threw such tantrums about leaving each other.” She laughed, lost in the memory—and I was glad it was dark in the kitchen. There was no way she could see my face, which I would bet was drained of all color.
“Oh, well, I guess we liked each other at an early age,” I said, laughing nervously.
“You sure did.” She chuckled. “Your idiot father didn’t appreciate it, though, when I told him the story.”
“What do you mean?” Although part of me wanted to run into my room and hide to process all this new information, a bigger part of me realized I might never get Christine on a talking tear like this again. I wondered how many martinis she had sampled while trying to make the perfect drink.
“He never appreciated all your quirks,” Christine said with a dismissive wave of her hand.
“What quirks?”
“Emma, dear, you know those little twin things you and your brother would do, speak in your own language and things like that.”
“I remember him yelling at us to speak English.” I thought back to him scolding us in the middle of Kmart for babbling in what we were later told was our twin-speak, which sounded normal to me.
“Yes, and when you’d guess who was calling before he answered the phone, he hated that. Your mother used to do it, too.”
I felt my blood run cold. “What did you say I used to do?”
“Oh, you know, dear. Someone would call the house, and you’d announce, ‘It’s Uncle Dan!’ before anyone answered the phone. Your idiot father swore you and your mother had a caller-ID box hidden somewhere and were ganging up on him.”
I was suddenly aware that I had been clenching my hands into fists, leaving little half-moon marks in my palms from where my nails were digging in. I tried to count to ten, then to five, to steady myself from the thoughts that were coming together in my head.
“Well, dear, it’s late and I’ve got to get to sleep,” Christine said, draining the last of her martini. “Have a good night.” She kissed me on the top of the head and shuffled off to bed, leaving me flabbergasted in the floral chair.
Brendan and I had a connection when we were toddlers?
I was able to “predict” things when I was a kid?
I apparently inherited that ability from my mom?
Two words from Angelique popped into my head: born witch.
I raced for my purse to check my phone, which I’d ignored since going to Brendan’s house. Still no reply from Angelique. Damn it! I had fourteen texts from Ashley asking how my date with Brendan went, and nothing from Angelique. I had a lot to discuss with this girl. Where was that absentee little witch?
The next morning, I had my answer to Angelique’s where abouts before I even left the apartment for school. Angelique’s mom had used the school’s emergency contact sheet to call Aunt Christine and ask if I could bring Angelique’s books home that night. Seems even witches can fall prey to the flu.
I had lied to Ashley the night before, saying I had to get to school early to hand in a late assignment. I hated fibbing to her, but I couldn’t handle her constant stream of questions this morning. I had a lot to mull over.
After putting my headphones on, I stuffed my gloveless hands into the pockets of my wool coat as I walked down Park Avenue. First, stripping away anything supernatural about our romance, Brendan was my boyfriend. And whenever I was with him, I conveniently forgot anything but what it felt like to be in his arms—whether that was part of being “cursed,” I didn’t know. But when I was with him, I didn’t care about little things like my soul being at risk.
And then there was the whole born-witch thing. I stared down at my hands, flexing my palms as if I expected to feel some kind of new strength emanating from them. Instead, they just felt chilly. I stuffed them back into my pockets and continued walking.
I had never thought I’d be the kind of person to give up everything—hell, anything—for a guy. I had seen my mother make all the wrong decisions to keep Henry around. But, I reasoned, Brendan wasn’t just some guy. And I didn’t feel like I was giving anything up. I felt like I was getting so much more.
With each step toward the school, I knew I was coming closer to my destiny—with Brendan. All that remained now was how to figure out how to keep that destiny—and me—safe.