"This is not a good idea," Harper groans. We've been looking for a spell for a week now. With only a week left in our two-week deal at the studio, the pressure has been on. Even after an exhausting evening of looking through spell books the first night, we still hadn't located a spell to help with the show. Harper hasn't skipped a beat, though, and every night that we're sprawled over an assortment of spell and charm books, she's right behind me telling me what a bad idea it is to try and do a spell. Sonny is lying out on the couch in the lair while Harper stands over my shoulder pestering me with what ifs. Several magic books are spread out onto the oak table, each with its pages facing up. My eyes spread across the books. "Alex, if your dad catches you…"
"Which is why I'm not going to get caught, Harper." I say exasperatedly. Sonny chuckles from the couch, flipping a page in the book she's looking through. It's nice having a friend that doesn't know about all my magic screw ups.
Yet.
For now, she doesn't have a worry when it comes to me and magic. Sonny doesn't know about the time I nearly destroyed my family, or corrupted the space time continuum, or when I accidentally turned my fifth grade teacher into a bird. She has a completely unbiased point of view. Harper circles the table again, sighs, then places the palms of her hands flat onto the oak and looks my directly in the eye.
"What happens if something goes wrong?" she mutters under her breath. I look over to Sonny, who doesn't look up.
"Nothing will," I hiss. "Can't you have a little faith?"
"You've known Sonny for less than three months, Alex," Harper glances over to Sonny as well, then grabs my wrist and pulls me a little further into a corner. "She doesn't understand magic the way I do."
"Right now I consider that a good thing,"
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"All anyone in this family can think when they see me is my screw ups," I vent. "Justin is the perfect wizard. Justin will win the family magic. Justin never messes up. Alex, though, Alex can't do magic to save her life, and apparently not Sonny's either, since I had to have Justin save me there, too." When I say it, I don't believe it came out of my mouth. Harper lets her lips part a little, then close, and then open again, and then finally they settle on staying closed. I've left her speechless with my five second rant.
It's not as though I'm bitter that Justin saved us. No, I'm glad he did, of course. And I'm glad that, even though I stupidly didn't call him when Sonny was first abducted, that he knew how to find me. I'm relieved that Justin saved our lives; I just wish it had been me that really saved Sonny. I wish I could have done it on my own. I wish I could prove to everyone that, just maybe, Alex Russo isn't such a horrible wizard after all. I look over to Sonny, still absorbed in her book, and bow my head a little. She thinks I'm something I'm not. I'm not this great wizard. She's putting her trust into someone who can't handle their own powers.
I didn't not call Justin out of lack of thought; I didn't call him because I didn't want him. I wanted to do it by myself. How can I be a great wizard when I put Sonny's life, and my life, in danger, simply by not wanting any help?
"I'm doing this," I say stubbornly, looking Harper in the eye now. "It's a simple spell."
"How do you know it's simple if you haven't even found it yet?"
"If you don't want to be a part of this, then go." The words come off my lips harsher than I wanted. Harper spins around and leaves, slamming the door on her way out. It's the first time Sonny is startled out of her book.
"What happened?" she sits up. I shake my head, sit down in the large matching chair behind the table, and flip another page in the book.
"Nothing,"
"Something."
"Hey, here is a spell!" My finger traces the lines of the words, reading them off my lips silently. Sonny bolts over to me, her hair falling lightly over her shoulder and grazing my neck, letting a sweet strawberry scent waft to my nose. She urges me to read it out loud. "Voltus abeo, also known as the 'In the Eye of the Beholder spell', changes the appearance of one to his or her peers. Although the change isn't physical, how the person is perceived by others is altered." I take a deep breath. "In order for spell to be properly performed, caster must first prepare a potion…" My heart drops a little. "…a potion," I repeat. "…containing the following ingredients: finely trimmed lemon shavings, essence of Giant, two drops of Madame Mildred's Magical Mousse, two teaspoons ghost sweat, and an entire bottle of Whiskey." Whiskey? Shrugging, I continue reading. "Combine all ingredients in cauldron, size small, and stir carefully counterclockwise for twenty minutes precisely. Let simmer over open flame until a deep, putrid green. When desired color is reached, pour into an average sized bowl and bake into personal favorite treat, such as brownies, cookies, cakes, muffins or breads."
"Takes an entirely new meaning to 'special brownies'," Sonny mutters.
"Feed treats to individual and provide five minutes for ingredients to settle. Afterwards, enjoy in casting the spell and watching the effects take place soon thereafter." I bookmark the page and close the book, letting my thoughts settle in the front of my brain. This spell is a lot more complicated than I thought.
"Can you do it?" Sonny asks.
"Of course I can do it," I snap. She takes a step back. Whoops. "I mean," Shoving foot in mouth can now commence. "…yes, Sonny, I can do it. I'm sure Justin has the Mousse and we've got lemons in the kitchen. Dad probably has whiskey stashed somewhere in here where my mom can't find it. Check that cabinet for ghost sweat, will you?" I point to a shelving unit on the wall with doors attached. While she looks in there, I dig through the bottom cabinets on the other side of the room for essence of giant. Hugh Normous, a friend from the Wizard world, brought us some as a gift shortly after we settled matters with his parents regarding his adoption.
"Looking for this?" I turn around and stand up. Harper is back, and in her hand, the tiny vile of giant essence. She tosses it to me.
"Thanks," A weak smile. Behind her, Sonny is looking up from her search. She smiles, too, but a large, genuine one. She's smiling at me. "Really," I add in for effort.
"Justin is upstairs. I would wait to get the lemons,"
"You overheard?"
"Yes," she admits. "Unfortunately. I still don't like this, and other than that little bottle I'm not going to be a part of it. This is cheating."
"Maybe Harper is right." Sonny slowly walks over to us. Surprised, Harper grins. Well, crap. "I mean, we're not being very fair, are we? Using magic against Mackenzie Falls. Shouldn't we want to be number 1 without magic?"
"They knew taking our time slot would push us out!"
"Maybe if we talk to Chad," she suggests.
"You're kidding, right?" Talking to Chad is like talking to Helen Keller on the phone. "You said it yourself. In fact, one of the first things we ever talked about was how annoying and conceited Chad was. He's not going to give up being on top just because you talk to him."
"Chad and I have a weird friendship,"
"You guys hardly talk."
"We talk." She admits. Does my face show how utterly shocked I am? "I mean, not a whole bunch. But, we're friends. Ish."
"And you never told me this, because why?"
"Does it matter?"
"Well, a little." Our voices are getting higher. Harper takes a step back and I take a step forward towards Sonny.
"Why?"
"You said you hated him."
"I don't hate Chad," she angrily yells. "I hate what he is, sometimes, yeah, but Chad can actually be a really nice guy if you get him alone."
"So you've been alone with him."
"Oh, Alex." Sonny groans.
"No, really. This is getting fun."
"I had a life before you came here!"
"The way you put it when you told me, you made it sound like you were miserable before Tawni left and I showed up. You said you had no one to relate to and you couldn't stand how rude and inconsiderate and self absorbed some of those people are."
"I still had fun! It wasn't all horrible!"
"Well sorry for assuming."
"You know what they say when you assume."
"That's really original, Sonny." I tout. Harper steps in the middle of us, holding her hands to position us away from each other. I lean in closer, though, and Sonny does the same. We're close enough to feel each other's breath every time we open our mouths. "So you and Chad are all buddy-buddy?"
"We're friends, Alex. Yes. I don't know why that's so horrible, that I have a friend." She retorts. "You know, I like Chad, and he likes me. We've had some interesting times on set and even more off set. He's not as much of a troll as you might think," My eyes grow dark.
"You like Chad."
"Not like that!"
"No, I get it. You'll talk to Chad and he'll agree to talk to the producers about switching back the times and you'll come back all happy and perky with your little friendship all content, while you settle for me because you couldn't get him. Chad was the big stud and you the sweet little girl from the farm that made it to the big time and you two fell in love. But the shows don't get along," I shake my head and take a step closer, feeling Harper's arm dig into my side.
"Alex, stop." Harper pleads, looking at Sonny.
"So you two didn't do anything about it because if you did Nico, Grady, Zora and Tawni wouldn't have talked to you anymore. You would have been an outcast, more than you already were." I take a deep breath. "That's all I am, aren't I? Your settlement. That's all I'll ever be for anyone. I'm the one to come to when the first thing doesn't work out." I wave a hand at the door, towards nothing in particular, but in my mind, I see Justin studying at the table. "When Justin can't work in the substation, there I am. Second best. When Justin can't help my dad with something magic, Alex gets the job. The only thing I'm good for is being chosen for this jacked up special magic shit that I don't even want, for putting you in danger, and for screwing up anything and everything that can go wrong. Because that's when I get called first: when something is wrong, when something broken, when something can't be fixed." My gut twists into tighter knots and I gulp down hot breath, hoping not to shed a tear in front of Sonny. I see her eyes sparkling with a thin layer of moisture. "I'm never going to be enough for you. I'm just not good enough." Harper keeps looking from me to Sonny, and I push backwards and grab the book off the table, letting my desperate need for fresh air guide me out of the room.
Behind me, Sonny falls into a helpless Harper's arms.
This is such a bad idea. Oh dear goodness it's a bad idea. These are the moments that I want Harper standing behind me, whispering in my ear, telling me that I need to get a grip, to realize what I'm doing is so beyond stupid it's almost Max worthy.
I'm huddled in the lair, only the tip of my wand providing a decent amount of light into the room. Everyone else is sleeping, though, no surprise there; it's three o'clock in the morning, and I've not slept much in the two days and a half Sonny and I haven't talked. I took a short break from So Random, citing a family emergency, and have been secretly residing in the lair for that length of time. When someone comes in, I pop out. It's been working really well, until I started eyeing the spell book, and the cauldrons, and the ingredients that still lay on the desk table where we left them. That's when my troubles began.
And my troubles have landed me here, in the exact same spot, stirring and pouring and pouring and stirring ingredients in a little black cauldron. The smooth liquid bubbles and pops, then turns a deep forest green. Wand in hand, I wave it at an empty area near a wall. A stove appears, and then a bowl of brownie batter and spoonful by spoonful I mix together the two and pour them into a greased pan. The brown and green swirl together, reminding me of chocolate chip ice cream, and then it's just brown. The batter sparkles a little, glistening off the light of my wand. It reminds me of the sidewalk in front of the theater near our house. The cement sparkles in the sunlight, as though by accident a container of glitter was mixed into the cement. I shove the pan in the oven, but as I pull my arm back, my elbow grazes the side of the hot oven door.
"Fudge muffins," I hiss, pressing my hand to my burned elbow. Is this an omen? I take my hand off and attempt to look at the burn, but it's in the perfect spot where I can't see, not unless I fully twist my entire arm around. With a heavy sigh, I slide down onto the floor and flip open my cell phone. There are no missed calls or unread text messages from Sonny. Earlier, Nico called me twice and Zora three times, and Grady sent me a couple messages asking me where I was. Harper left me a voicemail, and my dad called, but him I picked up for. Sonny, though, she's been completely absent from my cell phone's life. In my drafts, there are a couple of messages started to her that I just couldn't finish. I open the first one, which I wrote the first day that we fought. I go through each one, and they're all the same: I'm sorry.
I just can't bring myself to press send. I wipe a glob of brownie batter off my cheek, the sweet chocolate running past my lips. This plan better work.
"You're back!" Zora's high pitched voice is the first thing I hear when I walk on set the next day. I awkwardly cross over to the stage where she sits with Nico, who is chomping obnoxiously on a piece of gum and staring at me. Grady is off in the background with Marshall and Sonny, and all three look flustered as they gather around a piece of paper. Sonny doesn't notice me; her eyes are glued to whatever Marshall is holding. I don't know what it was that I expected to see in her when I came back. She doesn't look any different. Did I expect her to be disheveled and torn apart because of our fight? Get real, Alex.
"Yeah, I'm back. Sorry I didn't get to your calls, guys. My dad's aunt was in the hospital." I lie. Zora nods and looks down at her script again. Nico still stares. "Hey, Nico."
"Hello." He says shortly.
"Is something wrong?"
"Oh no," he says dramatically. "Nothing's wrong at all. It's not like we needed you here the past two days since the show is slowly dying. But hey, it's all good." Turning on the spot, Nico is gone. I feel bad, but think back to the brownies sitting on my desk, still steaming hot as though they had just come out of the oven. The wonders of magic, right? Abruptly, Marshall walks over, his hand shaking a little with the papers he's holding. Sonny finally notices me, and she stumbles a little. Our eyes lock. It doesn't last long, because she turns away too quickly, but for the briefest moment I saw the broken girl I imagined I'd come back to see.
"Welcome back, Alex." He says quickly, not taking a breath in between the words. "We have a big, big problem, guys. Mackenzie Falls has taken nearly 75% of our viewers."
"Why don't we just switch our time?" Zora says.
"You don't think I haven't thought of that?" Marshall is clutching the papers in his hand so tightly that his finger pokes through the middle. "The station can't move us. No shows want to switch, and we can't switch mid-season anyway. The Falls has a different schedule than us. They split their season's right down the middle, for summer and winter releases. They had the perfect opportunity to switch and they did."
"We could lie," I offer. "Tell the station our season is over, and then switch our timeslot. We could break our season in half. We have a ton of sketches lined up anyway. We could claim mini hiatus."
"Not everyone is comfortable with lying," Sonny says bitterly.
"Besides," Marshall interrupts. "The station only ordered a twenty five episode season. We're already at eighteen. We can't just take a hiatus so near the end." He sighs. "Honestly, guys, I'd start packing up anything you've got laying around the station. Once we're done filming the remainder of the season, we're through."
"No-"
"Marshall-"
"We can't just-"
"Enough." He claps his hands together. "We had a good run." His face falls, and I watch him walk away. I've never seen him look so dejected. Zora slips out of her seat and slowly walks away, leaving an awkward silence behind between Sonny and me. We don't look at each other. I pick up the papers Marshall dropped and read the numbers. Our ratings are as down as they could get.
"You just left." I look up. Sonny has her arms folded across her chest and is looking at her shoes. "No note, no text. I came to set thinking we were going to work things out and you weren't here."
"I…" my voice trails off and I set the papers down.
"What? Did your cell phone explode? Were your thumbs broken and you were physically incapable of sending a text message?" She snatches the papers up. "I see no injuries on you so I'm going to assume you're healthy. Physically, that is. I don't know what is going on in your head." Her heels turn and she begins to walk away, but she stops. My stomach jumps. "And for your information," her head doesn't even turn around. "if you can't even trust me when I say there is nothing between Chad and I, this isn't going to work." My heart pounds a little faster. And then she speaks one more time, her voice a little lower and less harsh than before. "You were good enough for me." She walks away, her shoes clinking on the cement floor as she goes. When I hear nothing else, I slump into Zora's chair.
This is the most uncomfortable position ever. I'm crouched behind a fake bush in The Falls studio waiting for the lobby to empty. Chad's dressing room is obviously the one with the flashing neon sign on the front with his face embroidered in the door. There is only one person left, a custodian, and a mop is in one hand and an iPod in the other. Although he's distracted, I know I wouldn't have time to get to the door and unlock it with magic without being noticed. The phone rings at the desk, he answers, and before I can decipher what the conversation is about he sprints to the nearest stage door. Moving briskly, my wand flicks out of my pocket and I open Chad's dressing room door.
I've got the brownies in my bag. They still smell fresh out of the oven, and I find a pen sitting on the desk. With Chad's own personal stationary that sits on the desk, I write a quick note. Chad, it reads. I made these brownies for you. I loved working on the movie with you. I hope we can work together again soon. Love, Miley. Xoxo
The door jiggles behind me and I dive behind the couch, my wand still clutched in my hand. All he has to do is eat a brownie, and then I can cast the spell. Mackenzie Falls favorite poster child won't be so loveable to the masses anymore. Chad walks in, and behind him trails Sonny. My heart drops to my stomach.
"Can't you just try?"
"I'm sorry." He puts his hands up in a mock defensive position. "I just can't go around asking for time slot changes. Chad Dylan Cooper works best at prime time."
"It's our time!"
"If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." He shrugs. "Speaking of kitchen, what is that heavenly chocolatey smell?" I try and smile, knowing he's found the brownies, but I can't stop looking at Sonny. "How sweet. They're from Miley."
"Miley Cyrus?"
"The one and only," he picks one up, moving it from hand and hand. "We just finished filming scenes for a little movie her boyfriend is producing." Sonny rolls her eyes.
"Can you just focus?"
"On what?"
"So Random!"
"Why on earth would I do that?"
"Chad!"
"Okay, okay. I get you're angry that we took your time, but there is nothing I can do about it. As much as all you crazies over at So Random think I'm out to get you, I'm really not. Well, I wouldn't mind getting you…" I feel like punching something.
"Gross," Sonny shrivels her nose.
"I'm joking." He doesn't look like he's joking. Asshole. Just then, his hand moves towards his mouth as though he is about to take a bite, but he pulls his hand down again and begins to talk. "If you want your show to do better you need to come up with something that will pull in the audience."
"Like?"
"If I told you that, this wouldn't be much of a competition, now would it?" He eats the whole brownie at once. Fumbling with my wand, (which at some point during my intense staring at Sonny and intense seething at Chad had slipped from my fingers and onto the floor), I point it between the space of the couch and table. "Voltus abeo!" I whisper. It's a tiny spark and hardly recognizable. There is no sound. But the only problem is, in the fumbling for my wand, I picked it up backwards. A slow, creeping cold climbs my spine and my teeth chatter. I let my wand drop onto the carpet. My arms shake, and I can feel a bubbling in my stomach. I licked a tiny bit of the batter. I can barely hear the words Sonny and Chad are exchanging now; I hear the door close and I know I'm alone. My entire body shakes, but the cold has subsided. And then, everything stops. But I know something is different. I know something is wrong.
What have I done?
Sorry. It's been forever. Way too much going on this summer.
Review and let me know. I'll try and be more quick now. I've got some sweet ideas. Hopefully.