Page 22 of Everything She Does Is Magic

“Sorry I missed the costume parade,” Piper says. “I hope it went well.”

“It was great,” Darcy tells her. “This is Anya, by the way.”

“Hi,” I say.

“We had math together last year.”

“We did,” I confirm.

“Darcy’s been hanging out with Anya a lot,” Kyle interjects.

A shot of something—adrenaline or a last-ditch effort notto die of mortification—straightens my spine. “Aren’t you and Darcy kind of dating?” I ask Kyle.

Darcy gasps. “Did he say that? We’renotdating. I’m very, very single.”

“Yeah, Darcy says she’d never date someone in Fableview,” Kyle tells me. “But if she would, it would probably be me. Which is what I meant. I just didn’t get a chance to explain that the other day, because I was too busy making sure all the ceramic pieces got cleaned up.”

“I wouldn’tneverdate someone,” Darcy says.

Now,thisis interesting. Everyone has something to prove, except Piper Blake, who leans against a tent leg, smiling. “I think I missed a lot more than the costume parade,” she says.

11

Darcy

What’s happening right now?

Somehow, this has turned into a conversation about who is dating who.

No one is dating anyone.

“Everything isfine,” I say. There’s a child standing twenty feet away. I spring up to approach her and her guardian. “Would you like your face painted? It’s free!”

It’s actually ten dollars, but I need a task more than I need the money, so this one will be on the house.

Anya told me she gets shy around pretty girls, and now I’m shy around her. It’s not like me to be shy. It’s also not like me to miss someone’s interest in me. It’salsonot like me to rebel against my parents this much.

Or maybe all of it is like me. Maybe it’s just been easier to ignore it because my entire life, I’ve been taught to fear change. That there’s no use in tweaking what’s already working. But thetruth is, everything changes anyway. It’s harder to stop it from happening than it is to embrace it.

The random child does not want a free face painting, so I text Grace and ask her if Maddie’s here. Grace responds within seconds, confirming her whole family is in attendance.

Send Maddie over to our booth,I write.I’ll paint her face for free. And you should come too. I need help. I’ll explain later.

Coming.

Grace is outside the booth by the time I’ve slowly walked myself back. The swell of gratitude I feel for her is so overwhelming, I have to give her a hug.

“Thank you for always showing up for me,” I say.

“Wow, it’s that bad?” she asks, giving my back hard, confusedpats.

“It’ll all be fine,” I say.

“Cryptic.”

If Anya, Kyle, and Piper have held a conversation in my absence, that’s not for me to know. No one’s moved from the position I left them in, that’s for sure.

“I understand now,” Grace says to me upon entering the tent. She gives Piper a hug. “Did you just get back?”