My (Not So) Charmed Life

Dates and Mistakes

Hi everyone! Sorry for the delay! Check the bottom of the chapter for an important AN! :)

After that debacle, it took a lot of convincing to get my parents to allow me to continue going to school. Even without them knowing about the first kidnapping, they were still super freaked out by the idea that someone knocked me out cold in the middle of the day.

The next few days of school went by without incident. Lacey was staying out of my way, Bradley was sulking about my rejection and Ryan, Shira and Max were all but glued to my side.

I felt guilty about not telling Shira and Max about what had happened to me, because usually I told them everything. But somehow, this was different. This wasn't a crush on a boy or a bad grade on a test. This wasn't my secret to tell, no matter how badly I wanted them to know the true me.

I started taking self-defense lessons with Ryan. He taught me the right way to position my hand for a punch, how to break someone's nose, and how to use magic to slash someone who was attacking me. After each lesson, I left feeling physically exhausted and magically drained but getting more powerful and feeling slightly less paranoid by the day.

It was a relief to feel as though I had some kind of chance against someone if I got kidnapped again. I hated feeling powerless, and these new skills gave me a fighting chance.

I was thinking about this, and laughing at my ridiculous pun when I approached my locker a few days later. I twirled the lock and heard it click open, and I gathered my books for the day. In between my math book and my history book was a folded piece of paper. I pulled it out and slowly unfolded it, hoping that it wasn't another one of Lacey's tricks. It read:

Meet me by the place where our houses take different paths -R

I shivered in anticipation of what he could be needing to talk about that he couldn't do here at school.

By the end of the day, I was on edge. Was it something that I'd done? I didn't remember being more annoying than I usually was, so what was it? I made my way home and stopped on the corner where we usually split up.

For a few long minutes, I waited there alone, getting more nervous by the second. Even though I felt more confident about my abilities to defend myself, I still wasn't sure how useful that would turn out to be if I was just knocked out like last time.

Before I could dwell on that for too long, I saw Ryan walking towards me. He walked up to me wordlessly, and conjured up a bouquet of yellow tulips. There was a very large card on top of the flowers, and assuming that Ryan's silence meant that he wanted me to read it, I plucked the card from the flowers and read the words: Will you go on a date with me?

I looked at Ryan, his face attempting to appear confident, but there was an obvious undercurrent of insecurity lurking below the surface. I smiled at him and kissed him.

"So was that a yes?"

~~~****~~~

I looked at Ryan's unmoving form in fear. What have I done?

Okay, before you all kill me, maybe I should back up a little bit.

I was at Ryan's house for my next lesson, and I was feeling cocky. I had done well with my last few lessons, and I felt invincible when it came to mastering whatever Ryan wanted to teach me.

Ryan came upstairs being me, carrying a gallon jug of water and a cup. He set it down to the side and turned to me.

"Today I'm going to teach you the art of manipulating water to distract an attacker." He gestured to the water sitting on his bedside table and grabbed the cup, filling it with water. "Ideally, you would be using the water to act as a shield against whoever was coming after you, but today were just going to focus on lifting the water from the cup."