I Wish

Chapter 17

I don’t know if I was good, but this was just… the kind of magic that only ever happens in movies. Every inhale draws in more air than I could ever possibly need and it vibrates, every word ringing out with notes that are in no way perfect but feel like they are anyway. I had goosebumps even though it was almost unbearably warm. They started banging their drums in time to the words. Other instruments chime in when they get a feel for the notes. I was blaring out without any care for skill. I was right before, the words were in English - or that was what I heard them as, and the reason I couldn’t understand any of them was because nobody was singing the same thing. Everyone was making up their own words or just humming along, and it sounded nothing like the song, as I knew it. This was better, because there were a hundred people crying out at once with no coordination or curiosity as to why they all knew the words. Just enough raw skill for it to be amazing anyway, because they actually did have that and this time I was sure. It made you want to flap your hands about because they were tingling so hard, and your feet would itch. Like you have to run, or get up and move. To do something, because there was just no way to be still. I was spinning, or everyone else was spinning, or both, and I couldn’t tell. I would have laughed, or maybe cried, but there was this deep-seated need to keep singing. To keep the music, and the song, alive by any means necessary. If I wasn’t such a dizzy mess, and wasn’t having so much fun, it would have been terrifying.

“Like a supersonic boom, love the way we’re coming through. Whoa uh oh,” I sang and it was so loud that it felt like it was tearing out of my throat. My head thrown back, stumbling and about to fall, I noticed the looks on the faces of the people around me. Hungry, smirking, and waiting for me to fall like they knew I was going to. Humiliation is such an ugly thing to ruin a moment, a moment like this particularly, because the magic of it hadn’t gone yet. You could just see that it was all about to go pear-shaped. I stopped being able to feel my legs, and that wonderful laughing-singing-chatter turned downright malicious. A weightlessness came over me, and I knew at that moment that they had called me over here to fail.

“Wha uh oh. And we’re shooting for the sky. Living young and running wild,” Ivy joined, from her spot, watching furiously from the sidelines. The fact that she knew the words alone would have been enough to knock my sock off, but it wasn’t an issue. All these assholes could suck it, because Ivy had no intention of letting me fall. Grasping my hand, much gentler than she had earlier in the night, she swept me in a graceful ark and I collapsed with a soft omph against her chest. It made for a very nice illusion that my feet would hold me.

“That’s just my style,” we finished together, and collapsed into giggles. I could feel her heartbeat where her hands were touching me, and we were both breathing hard, but then again, so was everybody else. I tilted away from her, doing my best to not make it obvious how much I was clinging to Ivy for support, and planted a kiss on her cheek. Mad or not, she could have left me to be set up, so I thought that she deserved it. I turned to the blonde girl that had called me over. She looked like she was doing a very good job at hiding the fact that she was sucking on a lemon. Her friends, although at second glance I’m starting to think that flunkies are more appropriate, all equally as bitter. Guess it didn’t turn out like they had planned, and wasn’t that just the worst, because it earned Ivy even more brownie points than I wanted to give her.

“Your turn to pick this time, okay?” I told her as bright and bubbly as can be, as though I hadn’t even noticed them pull anything. The sad thing was how much it impacted the bad attitudes and general passive-aggression wasted on being pissy. They still seemed to think that they got one over on me somehow, when I pretended to be oblivious. It wasn’t hard to act unaffected, because trap or not, I was still having more fun than I probably should, and I had been smiling so hard for so long that my face hurt. Yep, and even so, I couldn’t even stop.

“That’s my girl,” Ivy muttered in my ear before turning to Blondie and speaking… well, not to her, but at her, like she was something disgusting that had been scraped off the bottom of her shoe, “Thing’s not go according to plan, Corrine?” Yeah, they definitely were feeling better about not being busted because the moment she stood accused they all started to mutter and have a range of facial expressions that could all fall under the umbrella of sour. The blonde, Corrine, didn’t deign to answer her and I got my grand exit. Escorted on Ivy’s arm, and feeling like a rockstar. Floating on air. People skittered out of our path until we found the root of one of the cosmos plants. “Are you doing alright?” she asked hesitantly as I stared at it.

“Yes… no. I’m… The leaves on these things look like rosemary leaves from far away,” I rambled, not knowing exactly why. She pulled me to sit down next to her, and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. I leaned to her gratefully. If this was the result of one song, an entire party would kill me.

“Your brain’s stretching to its limit. We should go as soon as your legs are good enough to hold you up,” she sighed and pressed a kiss to the crown of my head, “You were magnificent out there. Next time we should be able to stay longer. It’s all about exposure.” I… didn’t know where to start with that, so I just made it known that I was bookmarking it for a future fight.

“We’re going to argue about this whole you making choices for me thing later,” I informed her, “But we probably should get back. If my mum wakes up and I’m not there.” One day I would be treated like the adult I legally was, it just wouldn’t be by my mother.

“What’s the problem now?” she huffed and I would have snapped back, but she just sounded so tired. I didn’t particularly want to start another fight, this whole thing felt like one big roller coaster. Up and down, and round, and round, but never more than one emotion at a time, so we got to flip through them so fast I couldn’t keep up. Suddenly I was tired too, the good feeling draining out of me.

“Plenty of things, but I don’t want to do this now. I’m tired,” I complained to her, “Actually. I don’t want to do it at all, so if you could just stop bossing me around, that would be great.” I didn’t see the look on her face, wasn’t interested in seeing what kind of power it would hold over me this time, and I still didn’t escape the guilty twinge of treating her like this when she’d had as little control over our predicament as I did.

“I’m doing the best I can,” she told me in a tone that made me uncomfortable. “It’s just hard to be reminded that your end game doesn’t match up to mine right now.” There wasn’t much I could say to that. At this point, I didn’t know what my end game was, and oh boy was I really starting to hate not knowing things, with or without her. It had all been up in the air for a while now, and that had nothing to do with Ivy.

“I know that, I would have been a way bigger b***h if I didn't know that. I don’t know how to trust this feeling of certainty,” I confessed, bringing one of my hands up to fiddle with the ends of her hair. “Not one that was just pressed on magically, because I trust myself to become certain about something all on my own,” I explained, going into further detail, “It’s like trying to take a short-cut, and I’m sorry but I’m just not cheat compatible. This is not a game.” I could feel her whole body just sort of sag, like her strings had been cut. The sky lightened slowly, and the sense of urgency multiplied as I realised how close I was cutting it.

“I’m really glad, because I was starting to think that this was all a game to you,” she says, and there is an odd breathless sound to it. My whole body rebels against that to the point where it is pretty offensive, but if she had felt like that… alright, so fear makes people do dumb things. If Ivy wanted me to be end game material, and thought I was just amusing myself… ouch. I did my best not to poke the bear.

“No,” I told her immediately, and she squeezed me tightly around the waist.

“Good,” she whispered before helping me to stand, “Now. Let’s take you home.” I snickered, I couldn’t help myself, it was my turn.

“You hated having to refer to any place I live without you as home, didn’t you?” I said, paying her back for before. She pulled a face and started to pull us along the edge of the party and back the way we came.

“Just because it’s true doesn’t mean that you have to bring it up,” she objected grumpily. I mentally waved it off, going into the Cosmos fields was an experience, and coming out was no different. Everything slowly shrinks, not in seamless graduation, but in drips and drabs all over the place. Until we were staggering over the line where they stopped, and holy hell if I thought I was exhausted before. That was nothing, I was so dead on my feet that without Ivy I would never have made it home.

“Hey, don’t we have to crawl through those branches that we got stuck in,” I commented blearily as I realised we’d passed them but not gone through. She snorted, and it was derisive.

“It’s only as complicated as you make it,” she informed me sardonically. The reminder was sharp, and I sighed. Now I’d have to figure out just how much I was willing to green light that statement or not.

“You realise that denial makes me feel like an i***t, and belief makes me feel all the kinds of crazy, right?” I spat back with just as much scorn. She raised both hands up in mocking surrender, and I let it go. Bed, shower, and then the examination of my life. She didn’t answer but five minutes later, when the weather had turned back to the cold threatening rain, she turned and wordlessly slipped my jumper over my head.

“You walk to the other side of those trees and you’ll find yourself in your backyard,” Ivy said, stopping suddenly in place. It was jarring, and I didn’t appreciate the lack of warning. I also didn’t like the way that this place didn’t come out from where we went in, even though we walked the same route. How long has she just been able to waltz into my literal backyard for? Perhaps I shouldn't think too hard about that.

“Stalker much,” I accused, but it sounded fond and she grinned like it was a personal point of pride.

“How else do you think I knew the words,” she divulged, and laughed like she had been caught doing my dishes instead of, you know, admitting to actual stalking. It was not cute. Why did I have to find what was literally all her flags to get out of here as fast as I could, adorable? If this all went terribly wrong, facing facts, I probably deserve it for my sheer lack of self-preservation. “Come and visit me soon?” she asked, suddenly, hesitantly and hopefully. Ignoring the blood rushing into my ears at having to explain this nicely over and over again, I lost my tact.

“Woman, I will get there when I get there. Stop badgering me. I have things to process,” I said to her, flat out, “Now give me a kiss, and I will see you as soon as I can.” It was amusing watching her facial expressions change as I told her that. She pulled me in, rubbing our noses together in eskimo kisses.

“Anything for you Little One,” she purred, and I laughed at her insolence before promptly shutting her up. With my mouth.