Air

First Dates and Soul Mates

"But the moment you're gone all my colors fade..."
-Jussie Smollet, "Born to Love U"

It is a Friday afternoon. Over the course of the week, Mom and Sarafina have done many a thing to convince me to go on a date with James. They want me to find out more about him, so I can figure out what struggles he is going through. I have a feeling it has something to do with the hex Arielle casted in front of everyone, but I decided not to bring that up with my family. They don't need to know I joined a coven.

Yesterday, James agreed to go shopping with me and he kissed me on the cheek.

So now, here I am.
I wait inside the Goldenvalley strip mall for James. I am so excited! This is my first real date, with a boy! I never thought this would happen. I tap my feet and twiddle my fingers. I can't seem to stay still. Maybe this is just part of my being so overjoyed. 

5 minutes later, the doors open. He enters. I gaze at him. His hair is so red, and his eyes are so green. He is wearing grey shorts and a sexy white tank top that shows off his muscular shoulders. I feel endorphins rapidly tingle from my pinky toe, all the way up to my chest.

I run over to James. I greet him with a hug and a kiss on the lips. "I'm so glad you came!" I say. We lock hands, and walk around the mall for a little bit, in search of interesting stores. We don't find anything interesting other than a record store, so we settle on that and head in.

I look to my right and left. This place is crowded with retro shit! I am surrounded by so many vinyls. I can't even count the number of GoGos records on the shelf next to me. It's insane.

But right now, I can't afford to focus on old music. I have something much more important to do, and that is find out about James's life. If I am going to save him, I might as well get to know him better. 

We walk from aisle to aisle in the store, smiling at each other and staring into each others' eyes. 

"So, James, why don't you tell me a bit about yourself?" I say. I sway my hips a bit and smirk. I try to act as flirtacious as possible. I need to convince James to tell me all about his life. 

"Well," He says, "I'm 15 and a half. I really like music. I play the drums in the school band, actually."

I nod. I tap my fingers on the shelf behind me. It makes sense that James is a musical person. He is the one who suggested we go to this old-school record store. Only true music enthusiasts with no money would shop in a tiny, aging place like this.

Maybe the person trying to hurt him is in the band. I should ask him about whom he plays with. This way, I can see if he has any friends or enemies and possibly get to know about them. I fold my hands together, and put them in front of my chin. This is a brilliant plan. 

"Do you know any band kids really well?" I ask. 

"Well, yeah. Mason, Kelly, and Aria are in band with me. I've known them since I was 7," He replies. James shrugs his shoulders and smiles. His eyes squint out of the blue, and then go back to normal. I think this is so cute! But I need to stay on task here.

"Who are they?" I ask.

James leans in close to me. "They're the other kids in our coven," He whispers in my ear.

"Well, do you get along with them?" I whisper back. 

James moves his body away from me, and I do the same. He shakes his head, and crosses his arms. "We have a really bad history," He says. 

"Do you want to talk about it?" I ask, in a high, feminine tone.

James shrugs and sighs. "I guess so. I mean, there's not much to talk about," He says. "Mason stole my boyfriend in 9th grade. Just for your information, I'm not gay, I'm bisexual. Kelly cast a spell on my mom so that she would hate me, just because she got pissed at me for not doing her homework for her. And Aria, don't even get me started."

I raise my eyebrows. I'm starting to suspect that maybe Aria is the one out to get James.  "What's her deal?" I ask. 

James sighs. "We used to be best friends, 1st through 8th grade. Then I started noticing Aria was acting all...different."

"Different how? What do you mean?" I say.

"Well, on her 14th birthday, Aria invited everyone in the coven over to her house. She told us she wanted to be a teenage rebel. We laughed. At first, we didn't take her seriously. Aria was such a goody two shoes. She had never done so much as sneak food out into her front yard.

"Although, she turned our foolish views around. She casted some dark magick spell that made everyone levitate so close to the ceiling. It was insane! 

"You won't believe what else she did after that. She said she was going to cast hexes on all the teachers that gave her bad grades. Do you know how many times our English teacher came in sick to school last year? That was just a result of Aria exacting her revenge on Mrs. Bowen. And she also said that she was going to summon some demons soon. 

"We don't know if she has brought anyone up from hell yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if she has," Says James. 

"Woah," I say. "You have bad blood with everyone in our coven."

"Yeah," Says James, as he turns around to pick up a Beatles record. "Except for you and Arielle. Arielle is like a sister to me."

At dinnertime, I sit down at the far end of the table across from my mom. Sarafina sits to my left, and Carl sits to my right. Mapa is on the other side of Sarafina, and Darren is on the other side of Carl.

"So, James told me about all the people who might have it out for him," I say.

"Dish," Says Mom, as she picks at her broccoli with a fork.

"Well, he has some minor issues with some kids named Kelly and Mason. But there's this girl named Aria he knows. She practices dark magick. This girl hexes everyone she hates, and has threatened to summon demons," I say.

"Well, who do you think is the one that's going to try to hurt James?" Asks Sarafina.

"It's obviously Aria," I say. "I mean, she's really good at the dark magick she does. She has literally messed with people's senses of gravity and physical health. She's probably going to take a demon and use it against him in some of the worst ways possible."

"I don't think that sounds right," Says Darren. "I think it's that Kelly chick."

"Darren, he barely has any problems with Kelly, and vice versa. Why would she try and hurt him?" I ask rhetorically. 

"I don't know," Says Darren. He looks up at Mom. "Hey, pregnant brain, what do you think?"

My mom smacks her fists on the table. Our plates and silverware shake. Mapa's glass of water even breaks. "Go. To. Your. Room," Mom tells Darren.

"Oh, yeah? Make me!" Darren says defensively.

Then, using her magickal powers, my mom literally sends Darren flying at the speed of light into his room. I hear him land on his bed. The door slams. I think Mom's pregnancy hormones and estrogen may be increasing her abilities. I definitely do not want to get on her bad side, witnessing what just happened.