Breaking Magic

Chapter One: Adam

     My name is Adam Wolfe, and depending on who you ask, I'm either the best magician in the world, or the worst.

     I don't really have much of an opinion on the subject myself. I'm just different, and my magic is different, and there really isn't anything I can do about it. Believe me, I've tried.

     It's the first day of my senior year of high school, and I'm already on campus. I'm always on campus. St. Bosco's is technically a boarding school, but I'm the only one who lives here during the school year. I also live here during the summer. I just live here, period, and I have the whole place to myself. And it's a lot less fun than it sounds.

     Back when St. Bosco's was first built, it was the only magic school west of the Mississippi, so students came from miles around. Now, however, there are dozens of small, local school in every state, so no one needs to board anymore. Everybody else attending St. Bosco's lives close enough that their parents can just drop them off in the mornings and pick them up again after school, although we do get the occasional foreign exchange student who stays in one of the dozens of empty dorms so they can spend a semester learning about American style spell work. It can get lonely, but at least I never have to share a bathroom.

     When I wake up, I'm so excited that I put on my uniform right away, even though it's only 6am and nobody will even start to show up for another two hours. I pull on a blue sweater vest with the St. Bosco's logo on it over a white button up, taking the time to roll up the shirt sleeves.

     I always keep them rolled up, because my arms are always just a little too long for my shirts. The cuffs hit just above my wrists, and I look ridiculous. I can't go up a size either, because then the rest of me just looks like I'm drowning in a shirt that's wide enough to fit two of me. I have the same problem with the grey slacks, but fortunately a belt helps make up the difference there and I don't have to walk around looking like I grew two inches since putting on my pants.

     I automatically reach for the grey and navy striped tie in my cupboard, but with a rush of pleasure I remember that seniors aren't required to wear them. It's a small perk for going twelve years without ending your magical career prematurely by accidentally blowing yourself to kingdom come.

     I hated the stupid tie, I'd never figured out how to tie the damn thing right. I always had to have El redo it for me when she arrives in the mornings before I can get a demerit for looking sloppy. Well, sloppier than usual.

     I glance in the mirror before I leave my room to see how bad my hair is. I hadn't cut it all summer and it was starting to get really out of control now, black curls constantly getting into my eyes every time I blink, the back almost touching the collar of my shirt. Maybe I'll ask El to ask her mom if she'll give it cut for me, before I end up with a full mullet.

     I look okay otherwise. I never look good, exactly, but I don't look like I've been steamrollered or bulldozed over or hit by a train, and that's enough for me. My magic tends to leak out of me, especially when I haven't used it for a while, which always leave me with a thin sheen of sweat on my forehead, like I've just finished a brisk jog. But I spent most of the night practicing minor spells though in preparation for the first day of classes, and I'm not overflowing yet.

     The skin under my eyes is always a little grey. My cheeks are slightly hollow, no matter how much I eat, and I am always one missed meal from tipping the scales of thin to scrawny. I have a small vertical scar on my upper lip, and one single dark freckle to the right of my nose. That freckle is my favorite thing about myself. I've only got the one, and I'm not embarrassed to say I cherish it.

     The last thing I put on is the silver watch that El's parents gave me this past Christmas. It's flashy and expensive, and way too big for my skinny wrist, but I always wear it anyways. I'd never owned anything like that watch before, and getting it from El's parents made me feel more a part of a family than I could ever remember feeling in my life.