The Abby Diaries

The Abby Diaries: Entry Six

April 17 * 10:16PM

Currently Reading: Summer and the City by Candace Bushnell

The other day I caught Brooklyn in Asher’s room. She was over for dinner and somehow ended up in there alone. It’s not like she was snooping. I think. She wasn’t going through his things, or reading his personal stuff. She seemed to just be looking around. Apparently, Asher had left her in there for a minute while he went to help out our parents, and somehow within that time she found the picture.

            The picture that I’d taken of her before we’d ever officially met. She took the discovery better than I thought she might. Better than I would if I found out someone had been taking photos of me without my knowledge. I have a sneaking suspicion that it was because it was Asher’s room that the picture was up in, that it was okay. When it came to him, anyone could tell that Brooklyn was head over heels.

            Anyway, after she saw the photo and I explained to her that I’d taken it during class and that Asher had asked to keep it, she seemed way excited. She was trying hard to hide it, but you only had to look at her to tell that she was doing a happy dance inside.

            And because love was clearly on her brain after that, she started in with the questions. Did we date a lot? Did we only date other witches? How many crushes had we had? Brooklyn, of course, included me in the conversation, even though we both knew that she was actually grilling me about Asher.

            The answers were easy: No, we didn’t date a lot. We didn’t only date witches, but tended to have more in common with them. And yes there had been crushes.

            But the truth was, the whole love subject didn’t come up around the Astley household all that much. Not that we were against it—far from it, actually—but for whatever reason, we’d managed to avoid it.

            Not that Asher had ever had trouble in this department. He’d always had plenty of admirers. I can’t tell you how many times I heard that my brother was dreamy from other girls growing up. People my age, people his age, it didn’t matter. There was something about him that made girls go crazy. Maybe it had to do with the fact that he didn’t seem to know or care that they felt this way. You know…people always want what they can’t have. For Asher, it wasn’t a game though, he just never really connected with anyone. 

            Until now.

            I think Brooklyn took both of us by surprise. Asher and I had been around other twitches before—our parents used to set us up on playdates with the kids of their witchy friends all the time growing up—but none of them had really meshed with us. We never seemed to like the same things they did. Asher didn’t get along with the boys his age and I preferred to have my nose in a book rather than talk about makeup and boys. Neither of us had ever felt the need to expand our friendship circle before.

            But then Brooklyn came along and changed everything. I can’t even explain what it was about her that bewitched us. I think I liked the idea that she was a lone wolf. She was used to being alone—even if she didn’t like it when she was. She knew what it was like to be alone with her thoughts, to find other ways to occupy her time. And Asher? Well, I think logic can’t really explain why you connect with someone on a romantic level. But there is definitely something there.

            Watching him fall for a girl for the first time was really interesting. The usually uber-confident guy I knew, suddenly had doubts and fears and insecurities. Whenever he was going to see Brooklyn, he took more time getting ready. This was especially annoying to me, because we share a bathroom. And even though I don’t really care what other people think of the way I look, there is a beauty regime I like to stick to. After all, I still had to look at myself in the mirror. And when I did, I liked to see hair that wasn’t sticking up in all directions and a face that didn’t give away the fact that I’d been up all night reading.