“Different.”
“Different good or different bad?”
“Good. I guess everyone has to grow up sometime.”
It was a strange afternoon. I’d never spent so much time alone with Harris. He was funny and kind and laid back, and he made me feel better about everything. I felt myself relax, and I was finally feeling better despite the fact that my job was in jeopardy, I had to kiss Reid again, and oh yeah, I was a supernatural being with powers like the one I played on TV.
A thought occurred to me that dampened my improved mood. “Is Michael going to be okay with the show paying for a makeover?”
“He will be when he sees you. Let me worry about Michael, okay?” he said with a certainty I didn’t quite share.
“Okay,” I said, and flipped my hair, which was blown straight for the first time in ages and reached well past the middle of my back. In my hands I held a few shopping bags—the rest had been sent to the studio.
Harris laughed, and I pulled my hair behind my ear in response.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Be self-conscious. You are stunning. You always have been. Down deep you have to know that. Own it,” he said.
Impulsively, I gave him a hug, and he patted me on the back.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
Harris’s words followed me home up to the apartment, back in front of the mirror in my room, where I was hoping to find something. Or someone. I think I was looking for myself. Instead, I saw a girl playing dress-up. But no amount of makeup was going to make me what the studio wanted.
Suddenly, somehow I knew that I could change my face with enough concentration. Focusing hard, I widened my eyes, lengthened my nose and sharpened it. I elongated my face and raised my cheekbones.
Magic could make me the girl that they wanted. But I couldn’t bear looking at her. She wasn’t me.
I closed my eyes and the bedroom quaked. When I opened them, the mirror cracked and the pieces flew toward me. I crouched down on the ground as glass shattered around me. The bags containing the new clothes Harris had bought began to smoke. I grabbed a pillow from the bed and smothered them before a fire could start. I caught a glimpse of myself in a shard of glass hanging from the mirror’s frame. My face had returned to itself.
It was my choice what kind of person and what kind of witch I was going to be. For now, I wasn’t ready to change a thing.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
Reid showed up a few minutes later. He looked and smelled like he had just gotten out of the shower. I liked him like this, free of the pancake makeup and preppy clothes that the role required. He wore an orange sweatshirt and jeans, and his signature sunglasses were propped on top of his head. He almost looked like a normal sixteen-year-old, except for his devastating good looks. Instantly I knew I could trust him, I had always trusted him, and the words burst forth. “I’m a witch, Reid. I can do things just by thinking about them. I started the fire, too.”
He put his hands gently on my shoulders. “Let me handle it,” he said, pulling out his cell phone.
“What are you doing? Who are you calling?” I asked. The lights flickered and I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself. I did not want to hurt Reid.
I could protect myself, but if I couldn’t do so while hiding my power, where would I end up? Dissected by a lab or caged by the government or used by them as weapon? I shuddered, thinking about what could happen to me
With a flash of movement, Reid crossed the room in less than a second. He deposited the mirror shards in a trash can and the offensive new clothes outside the door.
“What are you?” I asked as he finally stopped moving and stood in front of me again.
He opened his mouth and revealed teeth that did not look like ones that took an hour in Sandy’s makeup chair.
I sat on one of the chairs and caught my breath.
“You’re . . .” I began.
“Yes,” he finished.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
“I didn’t think . . . I didn’t know if you would accept this. Accept me.”
“Of course I accept you; you’re Reid.”
“And you’re Gamine. What happened here?”
I told him what Harris said about Michael wanting to fire me. And about the makeover.
“He’s a jerk!” he said.
“He’s just the messenger.”
“You’re perfect. I wouldn’t change a thing.”
“I’m not perfect. I’m something else.”
“I’m something else, too.”
He reached for my hand and squeezed it gently.
We sat like that, side by side, hand in hand, until my mom got home.
“I was out looking for you,” Mom said, looking more harried than I had ever seen her.
“I’m sorry I worried you,” I said. I was still mad at her for keeping the secret, but some part of me understood she had wanted to wait until I was ready.
Mom hugged me and spoke to Reid over her shoulder.
“Thank you for this,” she said.
He nodded, understanding.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
When I walked Reid out, I had so many questions about where he got his blood from, about whether he had ever killed anyone, about daylight. When blood rushed to his cheeks in a blush, was it his own? But he spoke before I could ask him more.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “I mean, of course you’re not okay . . . but . . .”
“I will be,” I said firmly.
“What do you do when you find out everything you are isn’t what you believed?” I asked, after staring at the new space between us for a beat.
“I’m so sorry your mom didn’t tell you. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you either. I’m sorry about a lot of things,” he said, his words coming out in an apologetic rush.
“What are you talking about?”
“I was scared to leave Hearts because I was scared that someone might find out about me. I was also scared to leave without telling you—” he said. He glanced down, looking more vulnerable than I had ever seen him, as if he was afraid that when I looked at him again, I might reject him.
“Telling me what?” I asked.
“How I feel about you. How I always have.”
I had missed this huge thing about Reid. But the thing that really mattered . . . who we were to each other. I hadn’t missed that. And, finally, after all this time, he was confirming it.