Breaking Magic

Chapter 23: Adam

We order another couple of pizzas, even though I feel pretty sick of the stuff after gorging myself last night. But food is food and I'm always starving, so I polish off the first one by myself in about a minute and a half anyways. It's past six in the evening by now and it's already dark, and we still have three hours to kill before we have to head to the airport. Felix is messing around on his phone, and I'm pacing the room like a caged tiger, checking and rechecking the lock on the door every time I pass by it, and peering out the window at the dark garden every time I loop around that way, as if I'm expecting to see someone dressed in all black peering back from behind a bush or something.

Finally, my tireless skulking becomes too much for Felix, and he throws his phone down with an exasperated groan. "Just sit down already, for Circe's sake. You're going to drive yourself crazy—and more importantly, you're driving me crazy." He stands up and goes over to the window, pulling the shade down so I can't keep staring out it every thirty seconds.

"I can't just sit down," I protest. "I can't just... sit and do nothing for three hours!" Not while members of a radical political faction might show up at any moment to kidnap and brainwash me into becoming the perfect super weapon.

"Then watch a movie or something," he replies, tossing his phone at me.

I try, I really do. I scroll through Netflix, struggling to find something to watch that doesn't say "not available in your country". I get ten minutes into some indie film about time travel, when I realize I have no idea what's happened so far. I start it over and try again, but I just can't focus. I keep spacing out and getting really confused every time I tune back in after missing some critical plot point.

I finally give up with a miserable grunt, setting Felix's phone down and letting myself fall back onto the bed.

I look over at Felix, and see he's laying down too, looking up at the ceiling with his arms behind his head. His hair is pushed back from his forehead, and I can't help but be reminded again with a pang of irritation that he really could be a model if he wanted to. I wonder briefly if he's ever considered it.

A few minutes of silence pass between us. It feels weird not to talk at all, considering how we'd been keeping up pretty much continuous conversation until this point; but I realize that the subject of every conversation we've had has been about the staff, or me and the Council, or me and the MRF. We've talked more in the past two days than we have in the past three years, but we haven't had one casual conversation. I can't even think of anything to say or to ask to break the stretching silence. "Got any plans for winter break?" It just sounds stupid, even thinking it.

"Got any plans for winter break?" Felix asks me out of the blue.

"Uh... I don't know. I mean, I usually spend at least part of it with El's family, and usually the rest of it with Ms. Cross. So, I guess just that. If my life hasn't basically imploded by then, at least."

"You spend Christmas with Ms. Cross?" Felix asks, rolling over onto his side and looking at me with surprise.

"Well, yeah," I say, a little awkwardly. "She invites me every year. Or she has the last two years, I guess. I assumed she would this year too, but I guess I don't really know for sure. She always has so far, though."

"You go to her house?"

"I did last year. The year before that she came to stay with me at St. Bosco's, but last year she invited me to her home."

"I know it's childish to believe that your teachers live at school, but I really can't imagine what Ms. Cross is like outside of St. Bosco's. Circe, can you picture her doing something as mundane as grocery shopping? Out buying snacks for the next Reformer meeting where she'll probably be calling for the downfall of the Council?"