Page 42 of Everything She Does Is Magic

“Nothing’s wrong,” I tell her, hearing the smile in my voice.

“Stop,” she whispers. She knows, because of course she knows. We could have this entire conversation without me even telling her what happened. And as much as I love that about us, I have so much I want to say. Explain. Understand. And Grace is the only one in the world I trust with it.

“So…yeah. Anya and me,” I start as confirmation.

“I’mdying,” Grace replies.

It’s been so long since we’ve called each other with the kind of news we need to whisper about. It makes me nostalgic for our middle school days, when we’d gossip about who looked at us a certain way, obsessing over a lingering stare, a brush of a hand. So much of the last year has been about my future.

Part of me has liked that change in status. It’s all been so adult, so focused on who I will become, that it hasn’t given me muchroom to justbe. For this I’m right here—just a seventeen-year-old girl on the phone with her best friend, half tucked under her covers after having snuck out of the house to meet her crush.

“I could tell something happened after she won her semifinal,” Grace says. “She was so determined for the finals. Like she’d been reborn.”

“We kissed,” I confirm.

“I knew it,” she says, full of satisfaction. “Oh, this is so good.”

“It isn’t…random of me? Or unexpected?”

Grace quiets, all her frenetic enthusiasm distilled into one slow breath. “Why would I ever care?” she asks, genuinely. “You already know that I’ll date anyone. I would never think it’s weird that you’re with a girl.”

Idoknow this. It’s never been an actual worry of mine. But we’ve never discussed it before either. There’s something comforting about getting her confirmation anyway. What I really needed to know is that some changes don’t require any pushback. Some growth is good exactly as it is.

“I sort of didn’t, like, fully realize before her,” I say. “That I could like girls. I’ve always thought they were cute. But I’ve never had any girl who actually lived in Fableview who I wanted to do anything with.”

“Of course not,” Grace replies with her pitch-perfect understanding. “We’ve been stuck with the same dating pool our entire lives. No one’s gotten surprisingly hot around here since Parker Holt.”

Everything always comes back to Parker Holt for Grace. It’s kind of beautiful, the way she can always find a way to connect anything in her life to them. It’s something I haven’t fully understood before now. Because I’ve never seen a reason toconnect things to Kyle Holtzenberg, other than my wish to leave this town altogether.

Now I get it. I understand how Grace can filter everyone else’s experiences through her connection to Parker. Even here on the phone, I keep running my hand over my leg, remembering the stars Anya traced there. I feel so full of all this newness, desperate to dissect it.

Grace lets me. With excitement I replay everything for her, all the way back to that first exchange outside the art shop when Anya crashed our paint night. We pick apart these memories, climb inside them like they’re cocoons, living in the past until it butterflies us to the present, to the bright and vivid now of an hour ago, me and Anya atop her aunt’s Volkswagen.

“Do you think you’ll go to the Fall Ball together?” Grace asks.

It’s the first real question about the future instead of the past, and it startles me. “I hadn’t even thought of that.”

“Please,” Grace says in a get-real way.

“Okay, obviously I’ve thought about the Fall Ball, but I haven’t thought about going with Anya,” I say. “That would be…”

I imagine it, the same way I once saw my future with Kyle Holtzenberg when he lifted me up last year. I try to see Anya and me together under the purple lights. Would she want to dance with me? Would she like it? The fact that I can’t quite picture it is exciting. It’s a future I don’t know, another unknown I might want to chase.

“Maybe I’ll ask her,” I say, feeling the fizzy thrill of possibility take root. “I’m going to a dinner with her family tomorrow.”

“Good. You can find out if they’re actually witches,” Grace says. “It would explain Maddie’s wings. And the ceramics.”

In all my shock at Anya’s reveal, I forgot to ask if I could tell Grace the truth too. Until then, I’ll play my usual part.

“I’ll definitely find out if they’re witches for you,” I say. “Once we finish dessert, I’ll grab a broomstick and ask if they have any interest in joining me on the roof.”

“Perfect,” Grace says. “Then you guys can fly to the Trinity knot in the woods and sprinkle another year of good fortune over Fableview a little earlier than usual. We’re close enough to Halloween that I’m sure it’ll still be effective.”

“Won’t we need our basset hound to guide us to the correct spot?” I ask.

“The basset hound will be there spiritually,” Grace says. “Because the basset hound may or may not be going on a date with Parker Holt tomorrow…”

We’re off to the races again, Grace explaining to me how Parker apologized to her at the apple orchard. How they’re really different this time. She’s giddy, excited.