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I couldn’t fathom them tarnishing their reputations with a mind-numbing three hours of sitting around in silence, shoving a flimsy plastic planchette back and forth in hopes that Elvis might shimmy in from beyond the veil and tell them what was up.
I opened my jaws and felt myself almost say something awful and significantly gayer than I intended, but I drowned the words before they could slither out.
The space between the five of us felt thicker, and particles science hasn’t named yet went ricocheting infinitely fast in the vacuum between our kneecaps.
“All that power, do you feel that? All that bristling? The Pop Rocks in your skin? That’s it. That’s the magic crawling in.
My heart twisted itself to bits in my chest, and I had the notion that it’d be a useless fist of cells by the end of the night, too worn to go on beating, because I was going to have a panic attack if this girl—or, really, any girl—liked me.
I wasn’t built for this kind of emotional wear, I swear to God. I was built for skulking under bridges. This was too much.
What the four of us could do was something else. I felt seasick and disgustingly in love with it, with them.
that was gross as all hell, Sideways. Tell your skeleton to chill.”
I’m supposed to be teen Rasputin or some suburban Circe,
“I guess my point is that teenage girls aren’t supposed to be powerful, you know? Everybody hates teenage girls. They hate our bodies and hate us if we want to change them. They hate the things we’re supposed to like but hate it when we like other things even more, because that means we’re ruining their things. We’re somehow this great corrupting influence, even though we’ve barely got legal agency of our own. But the three of us—the four of us, counting you—we’re powerful. Maybe not in the ways that people are supposed to be, maybe in ways that people think are scary or hard to understand,
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I’m ambiguous, I wanted to say. I’m like you. Am I allowed to be like you?
“Don’t do that. Never do that. Don’t ever say you’re not beautiful, not ever, okay? Girls are just beautiful. That’s the way they are.”
Home had a way of popping off my scabs. Feeling safe meant feeling, and right now, everything hurt.
that I wasn’t allowed to touch it until my magic eighteenth birthday, because that was when I’d grow my responsibility bone, the one that lets you vote and make porn and go to Big Kid Prison.
Witchcraft, my life was saved by witchcraft. It was my only mode of survival. It sutured my soul to Earth.
thank my lucky stars and whatever else.
People don’t punish boys who hurt girls, because people don’t care about girls. So, when I find ’em—and I will—I’m going to make them drink nail-polish remover.
be. I’m not good at a whole lot, but I’m spectacular at terrorizing people until they’ve literally lost it. I can ruin people like you wouldn’t believe. And I wanna wreck their sorry lives.”
Daisy could murder someone with a glance. Holy hell, I wanted that. I wanted to be gorgeous and reckless and legendary, or at least somebody people liked. I wanted the privilege of being mistaken for someone like her. I wanted to be her. No, I didn’t. I wanted to be the leather in her jacket. We could be despicable together.
I was supposed to be Sideways the spooky lesbian weirdo. I had a fucking reputation to maintain, and it would not withstand a nickname like Lamby. Lamby. Goddamn it.
Sleeping with Madeline seemed like an unrealistic, if ridiculously pleasant, scenario. I was significantly more interested in, I don’t know, making her a playlist and a personalized cache of dreadful memes.
All the punk in me evacuated. She wanted my number in a potentially gay way. Oh God, I wanted to die.
IF TEENS DON’T HAVE SPIRIT, THEN WHAT’S THAT SMELL?
Remember not to bite unless she asks.”
The devil squirmed around inside my head and asked, rather politely, Hello, Sideways? A pumpkin-shaped cupcake. What is that?
