Page 52 of Everything She Does Is Magic

Dad nods emphatically. “Never. We’ve loved it ever since we were younger than you. And we wanted a kid so badly. You know that. It took us a very long time to get you, and once we did, I guess we expected you to pop out liking all the same things we do.”

“We figured, if we showed you everything there was to love about this place, you’d never want to leave us.”

“Idowant some of it,” I say. It’s important that I don’t let my sympathy turn into guilt. Their desires for me can be different from mine, and I don’t have to feel bad about that. “And maybe someday, I could even want all of it. But I also want a chance to know for sure.”

Mom’s still fighting hard to return to her dignity, one hand covering her eyes as if that might make the tears stop. “We should have asked you. Which seems very obvious now. But you know, for as old as we are, we’re still new to this wholebeing a parent to an adultgig.”

I’ve certainly felt like an adult more times than I can count, but I’ve never been called an adult before. It’s technically noteven true yet, since I’m still seventeen, but it’s meaningful to have her say it—to recognize I am more than just her precious baby girl.

“Does this mean I’m not grounded anymore?” I try.

“It’s notthateasy,” Mom says, letting out a laugh.

“Does it mean that I get to apply to more colleges out of state?” I try next, poking her in the rib. Even if I’m not making any real headway, I’m at least making her smile.

It’s Dad who laughs this time. “If I remember correctly, you informed us you’d already done that.”

“I applied toone,” I admit, feeling guilty. “But I do have others I want to look at…”

Mom stands up, heading down the hallway toward her room. When she returns, she’s holding her laptop. She hands it over to me. “Show us. Tell us what you like about them.”

“I don’t know what I want to major in or even what exactly I’m looking for from a school,” I say as a preface, feeling strangely self-conscious as I place the laptop on our coffee table.

My parents don’t give me a hard time for not having a clear vision. They help me imagine a plan in more specific terms instead. For being Fableview lifers, they’re very good at knowing what I should look for. Probably because they’re good at knowingme.

In these last few weeks, it’s felt like they haven’t really seen me changing, like I’ve been sending up all these flares, and most have gone right over their heads. But even with all the details they’ve missed, they still know my interests—the constants that have always been around. We all agree I should find a school that supports my passions, which boil down to art, music, and language. It seems obvious once we’ve settled on them, but itwas something I couldn’t yet see, too distracted by my need to prove to them that I should be able to do this at all.

Our evening of movies becomes an evening of research, which wouldn’t normally be appealing, but it reminds me of our best past moments, like the time I came home sheepish, admitting to them that,whoops, I had an entire rainforest habitat diorama due tomorrow, and I’d forgotten to start it. After a little bit of frustration—and more than one comment about how I should’ve told them sooner—we gathered up supplies from the art shop and started building, using glue and markers and Popsicle sticks and construction paper, winging it until we came up with a pretty impressive re-creation of the rainforest.

Theseare the parents I love the most. The ones who work with me, who help me when I can’t do it alone. Who find the answers I didn’t even know I was looking for. Who make something logical out of my mess.

By the time Kathy Holtzenberg has stopped by downstairs to pick up the costumes, we’ve whittled down my choices to four other schools, and we all seem genuinely excited by the picks, even Mom, who has always had the hardest time with all this. I think about how she inherited the art shop fromhermom. She’s probably had this whole image in her head of the day she’d pass it down to me.

When she returns from giving Kathy Holtzenberg the costumes, I feel such a swell of affection that I hug her again. “Thank you,” I say.

“You’re still grounded for now,” she says from the depths of my squeeze.

“That’s not why I’m hugging you. I know this is hard for you. And I really appreciate the fact that you’re still letting me try.”

Without meaning to, I’ve started up her tears again. She grabs me back with a newfound urgency. “You can still go to the Fall Ball,” she whispers into my hair.

“Really?”

“Really. If you want to go, that is,” she adds. “No pressure.”

“Mom, I still love all our town’s traditions,” I assure her, tilting my head up to see her. “I just think we should be able to, you know, change up our costumes every once in a while.”

“Don’t tell me you meanGhostbustersandGrease?” she asks, aghast.

“I meanGhostbustersandGrease,” I say.

With a little more back-and-forth, my dad throwing his hat in the ring for this discussion, they both agree to take the note, promising to look for new costumes with me—afterHalloween is over.

“So we can get the best deals,” Dad says with a wink.

We’ve gotten so much accomplished that we’ve all forgotten about the movie. It’s me who suggests we commit to finishing it.

Mom presses play, and we make it no more than a minute before Dad claps his hands on his legs and says, “We’ve gotten everything else out in the open; why don’t you go ahead and tell us more about what’s going on with Anya?”