Breaking Magic

Chapter 14: Felix

We have to leave as soon as possible, but Adam insists on talking to Eleanor before doing anything.

He leaves me alone in her room as he goes to track her down, and I take the opportunity to buy two plane tickets on my phone to Brittany, France. They are insanely expensive this last minute, but I hadn't wanted to go through the trouble of purchasing them before knowing whether or not Adam would agree to go.

I also book rooms at a couple of hotels, sticking to ones that had refund policies that won't completely screw me over in case of sudden change of plans.

I spend the next fifteen minutes tooling around in Eleanor's room, feeling awkwardly out of place but unwilling to leave and put myself in the middle of their lover's spat, or whatever it was.

I don't actually think that Eleanor and Adam are dating or anything. They spend so much time together, that I feel like it would be more obvious if they were. As far as I can tell, they're just good friends.

Eleanor has dated a few of the boys in school, my friend Martin included back in eighth grade. None of the relationships last very long. She seems to get bored of boys pretty quickly, and dumps them as soon as they can't hold her interest anymore, and she just seems happier in general when she's single. At least, I'm happier when she's single, because then I don't have to listen to Martin moping over how she broke his heart while he watches her and her boyfriend du jour with moony eyes from a distance.

"You dated for like two weeks in eighth grade," I remind him every time, to no avail.

I don't think Adam has every dated anyone, on the other hand. He has friends, but I get the sense that everyone is too wary of what he's capable of to even consider getting that close to him.

Magic's Might, can you imagine what might happen if you were making out and he got too worked up? You're so hot, he says, and poof, you burst into flames.

I'm wandering around the room, looking at the posters of musicals hung up on the walls, and the strings of photos Eleanor has clipped to lengths of colored yarn with clothespins. Most of them are of her and her family, or of her and Adam. Or her, Adam, and her family in places like a themepark, or at the edge of a lake.

A handful are of just Adam alone, old polaroids all blurry and out of focus. The darks are too dark and the whites too white, and he's almost never looking right at the camera. He's really young in all of them, no older than four, and they all appear to be taken in the same back yard. There are other children in most of the photos, children of a variety of ages and races. I can spot Adam at once despite the lousy quality of the pictures, because even back then he's too tall and too thin, his skin an unhealthy pallor beneath a shock of dark hair.

But he's smiling in the pictures, a big, happy little kid smile. Adam usually has a general cheerful disposition, despite his life circumstances and as long as he and I aren't having what passes for a conversation, but I've never seen him smile like that in all the time he's been at St. Bosco's.

Maybe he smiles like that for Eleanor, or his other friends. He certainly doesn't in Thaumaturgy class.

The door opens abruptly and I jump guiltily even though I'm not doing anything wrong. I spin to see Adam standing in the doorway, still looking troubled, but he's nodding at me.

"She's still pissed, but she understands why it's best if she stays behind. She wants to stay in contact with us though while we're gone, and I figure she can do research and stuff for us if we get stuck on anything while we're gone. Do you have a phone?"

"Of course I have a phone," I reply. "It's not the '90s, everyone has a phone."

"I don't," he replies shrugging. He notices what I'm standing in front of, and he crosses the room to look at the photographs. He reaches out, and I have to step to the side to avoid his arm brushing against me. His finger gently touch one of the old polaroids, and for a moment it looks like he's going to pull it off the string. But then he pulls back, letting his arm fall to his side.