A Magician Never Tells His Secrets

I didn’t say a word as we walked back to the car. I thought the waves of rage radiating off me would physically burn Tori. I hoped they would. But she just kept prattling on, totally oblivious to my anger.
“What was that back there?” I demanded, cutting her off mid-sentence when she started the car.
“What was what?” She asked absentmindedly, fixing up her lip-gloss in the rear-view mirror.
“That!” I almost yelled. “Talk about a stab in the back.”
“Oh, you know,” she said distractedly. “Just making the most out of an opportunity. You wouldn’t get hired for the job anyway. They need someone pretty.”
My mouth fell open, breath leaving in a whoosh.
“Excuse me?”
She laughed. “Oh sorry, that came out wrong.”
“No, it came out like you meant it to come out,” I shouted.
“Stop being such a drama queen,” Tori sighed. “I meant that they’d want someone classically pretty. You’re . . . interestingly pretty.”
“I can’t believe you,” I scoffed.
“Jeeze Meg, just forget it okay. You’re being so fickle.”
I glared out the window for the rest of the ride, not saying a thing while the atmosphere in the car grew steadily colder. Tori didn’t seem to feel it as she sung along to the radio under her breath.
When she stopped at my house I didn’t say thankyou, just slammed the car door on my way out.
I stomped up to my bedroom, growling under my breath as I attacked my wardrobe. Jeans were thrown onto the desk chair, t-shirts went on the bed and anything inappropriate for working at a carnival went on the floor. I was so preoccupied visualising all the things I could have said and done the enormity of what was about to happen didn’t touch me.
By seven o’clock I was finished packing. It had taken me all afternoon and evening to track down everything I would need for the three months of being away.
My mom poked her head in when she got home from work to find me running the zipper around the edge of my over-stuffed suitcase.
“You got the job?” She said; her voice sad.
“No,” I growled. “Tori did.”
“So you’re packing because . . .?”
“Because I’m still going,” I sighed, flopping down onto my bed. “I’m just going to be a carnie instead of a performer.”
“Oh,” my mom said, comprehension dawning on her face. “I see.”
We sat in silence for a while before she made a discovery.
“So tonight’s your last night?”
“Yep,” I said, popping my P.
“Last time you’ll sleep in this bed for three months.”
“Sure is.”
“Won’t be in here for a quarter of a year.”
“Guess so.”
There was another moment of silence before I burst into tears. It was like my emotions had become a combustible material, and they had all exploded.
Me and my mother cried together, sobbing that we’d call everyday, write every week. We’d miss each other almost unbearably.
“Imagine, blubbering like a baby when my baby’s the one leaving,” she sniffed, wiping her face.
All I could do was smile wetly.