The only person at my table is the fading memory of the friend who tried to kill me.
I swish my brush in a cup of water to wash away the paint. When I glance up, I can almost see Benton sitting across from me, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his hands buried in clay. What do you think, Walsh? Does this cup need a lily or a rose?
Benton leans back and tilts his head to one side, glancing from the mound of unformed clay to the half-finished cup beside it. I don’t remember which flower I chose. I don’t remember whether he took my suggestion or went in another direction entirely.
My hands tremble, and the brush shakes, swiping a line of blue down Morgan’s emerging face. I swear under my breath. Before, when my magic was eager to answer my call, it would be risky to reach for the water’s energy to undo my mistake. I might have done it on a day like today, when I was alone at my table and no one could see me. But now? When reaching for my magic is likely to send unbearable pain racing down my spine? I don’t dare even try. Especially not with a Phantom Benton smiling at me from across the table. The clay is gone now, replaced by oil pastels that smudge the rainbow into his skin.
Fresh laughter, loud and raw and real, cuts through my thoughts and makes Benton disappear. Nolan stands beside a table of girls, bent forward so his elbows brace against the back of an empty chair. He flips his hair out of his eyes, and the movement raises his gaze enough that it finds mine. He grins and bends lower, whispering something that sends the girls into another fit of laughter.
Let them laugh. Let them stare. I crumple my ruined painting and shove my chair away from the table. The laughter dies as I throw the paper in the trash and rinse my brushes. Someone left an empty roll of paper towels beside the wide sink, so I’m forced to rummage through shelves to get a new one.
In the third cupboard, I find a row of abandoned pottery. A cup sits at the front, the sides glazed in a beautiful marble of whites and shimmering gray. On its front sits a pink lily, each petal formed and painted with care. I reach for the piece, running my fingers along the sharp lines of the delicate flower.
“Hannah?” The art teacher, Ms. Parker, approaches the sink. She’s a short woman with curly black hair and pale skin. She teaches all the high school art classes, so I’ve known her for almost four years. Ms. Parker has a flair for bright clothing, and today’s red-and-gold-patterned dress is no exception. Her thick eyebrows are raised in concern. “Is everything okay?”
I cradle the cup in my hands, feeling its weight in my palms. I trace the lines Benton so carefully created. “Why do you still have this?”
Confusion flits across her face. “It was left over from last year. I wanted to give the owner a chance to claim it before I threw it out.”
“But it was his.”
She blinks once, twice. Then a horrified expression settles over her features as she understands who I mean. “Oh, Hannah, I’m so sorry.”
My fingers tighten around the cup. One of the petals snaps off.
Nolan saunters forward. “Benton made that?” He steps past Ms. Parker and reaches for the cup. “I bet it’ll be worth a fortune after his trial.”
The ceramic shatters before I even register the decision to throw it. Pieces skitter across the floor. Every single pair of eyes is trained on me.
The swing from celebrity to outcast is only one misstep away.
I know I should apologize. I should claim it was an accident, walk back what I did before the rumor mill starts all over again. But I can’t. I won’t.
“Benton is a monster.” My voice carries through the room, rough with emotion. “And fuck you for thinking he’s anything else.”
A hushed silence settles over my classmates. Time ticks by with impossible slowness. Ms. Parker looks between Nolan and me. Finally, she nods a little to herself, curls bouncing around her shoulders. “We don’t use that kind of language in my classroom, Hannah. Understood?”
“Yes. I’m sorry.” I have to bite my tongue to keep from saying something else I might regret.
“Thank you.” Ms. Parker turns on Nolan. “You can get a broom and clean this up.”
“But—”
“I won’t ask again.”
Nolan mutters something that sounds suspiciously like the language Ms. Parker corrected me on, but he grabs the broom and sweeps up the shards of broken mug. The shattered pink petals wink up at me, and when the bell rings, I swear I can smell Benton’s favorite cologne trailing after me in the halls.
* * *
The ghost of my friendship with Benton haunts me the rest of the day. He follows me to my locker, where he philosophizes about how we’re destined to become our parents. He consoles me in study hall about my breakup with Veronica. When the bell rings at the end of the day, the shadow of him leans against my car with his Boston University acceptance letter clutched in his hands.
But then a cold gleam enters his gaze. The envelope dissolves into shadows, transforming into a gun as Benton raises it to my head.
I climb into the car and slam the door, burying the memories as deep as they’ll go. I try to call Detective Archer to confirm our meeting tonight, but he sends me straight to voicemail. Before I can throw my phone out the window, a text comes through.
DA: In the middle of something.
DA: I’ll swing by your house after to discuss the plan.
The promise of updates calms me enough to drive home, but I end up pacing the empty house. Mom won’t get home from the university until after six, and there’s no telling when Archer will get here. I can’t sit and wait. I have to do something.
Zoë.
I hurry to my room and send a videochat request, crossing my fingers that she’ll actually answer this time.
When my screen loads with her image, I’m so surprised that I almost don’t recognize her. She’s gotten into makeup since I saw her last, her dark brown skin expertly contoured and highlighted. She wears a bold lip, a vibrant red with a metallic sheen, and her eye makeup looks like the ocean at sunset.
“Hey, stranger.” Zoë tries to keep her voice light, but there’s tension around her eyes. Her makeup can’t hide the puffiness of too many tears. When she grins, it’s a half-hearted thing. “Sorry I never texted you back last night. Things here are . . .”
“Intense?” I guess.
Zo breathes out some semblance of a laugh. “That’s one word for it.”
Silence settles between us, and her gaze drops to her lap. I don’t know how to talk about the terrible things that have happened to us. I want her to know I understand, but I can’t push the truth of my own altered magic past my lips, not when she’s lost hers completely.