Some Kind of Magic

Ryan.

I didn’t know what to do, and because of the shock that this was the restaurant he worked at, and I had somehow missed it when I saw the sign, I ended up choking on my water.

I had to put my glass down on the table, both hands coming flat against the cloth beneath while I coughed.

“Are you all right?” Dylan asked, reaching across the table to lay his hand on top of mine. Ryan frowned when he saw this. Oh, this was so not good.

I held up a finger. “I need a minute,” I croaked.

“Can I get you something?” Ryan asked me, playing it off like he was just my waiter. How had Dylan not recognized him yet? Had he completely forgotten, or was he just choosing to act like he had no idea who Ryan even was? Maybe he had forgotten. It had been about a month, after all, since they met. But faces usually stuck with people.

“I’m fine,” I said at last, catching my breath. “I’m sorry.”

“What are you apologizing for?” Dylan laughed.

“I . . . I don’t know,” I said honestly. What was I apologizing for?

“Are you both ready to order?” Ryan asked. “If not, I can come back in a few minutes.”

“I think we’re ready,” I said quickly. Dylan looked at me, confused, but said nothing about it and just let me go first. I ordered as fast as possible and told Dylan to go immediately after me. Ryan took our menus and walked off without a word. I felt guilty and humiliated. From Ryan’s point of view, it must have looked like I was on a date with Dylan, when I already agreed to go on a date with him. It was like getting caught cheating really, except for the small fact that we weren’t even together. But by this point, I had a feeling we both liked to think we were.

I kept my eyes on Dylan most of the time or sipped mercilessly at my glass of water while we waited for our food, because I knew that if I looked up, I would have to look at Ryan while he waited on other tables. I felt horrible. Dylan got up from the table after a while so he could go to the bathroom, and this left me alone. And I was all right for the first few minutes, but then Ryan walked down the aisle and stopped when he noticed me watching him. Then he looked at my glass.

“Do you need a refill?” he asked.

I blushed. “Yes please,” I whispered. He picked it up between two fingers of his left hand and began to walk away but I grabbed his wrist. He kept his eyes ahead of him but I saw him swallow hard like he was trying as hard as he could not to look at me, or holding back from saying something he shouldn't.

“Ryan—”

“I have to get back to work,” he said quickly and walked away. Just then, Dylan came back to the table, maybe five seconds after I was forced to let go of Ryan. Maybe making a fast exit was his way of protecting us both. If it was, I didn’t feel as bad about it but if it was just because he didn’t want to talk to me, then I was right back to what I felt before; pitiful. The woman from before brought over our food then, replacing Ryan as our waitress, but Ryan just seemed to disappear out of thin air. I spent the night just trying to concentrate on Dylan and what he was saying but it was really difficult when I couldn’t get my mind off of Ryan. Where had he gone anyway?

When we were finished eating, Dylan got up to meet the waitress at the front counter and pay for everything on his credit card, but I stayed by the table while I pulled on my coat and scarf. I looked over my shoulder once more to see if I could find Ryan. I saw the clock on the wall which said 7:45pm. He didn’t get off until eight, so he still had a good fifteen minutes until his shift was over. Then I saw him over behind the bar, serving an older man. He was mixing together an apple martini before he poured it into the martini glass, slid it across the counter and passed it to the man with a smile. He walked away and left Ryan by himself. He leaned forward, crossed his arms on the counter top and looked directly at me. I froze, mouth hanging halfway open. At least now I knew the minimum age he could be; where we lived, the legal age to be making alcoholic beverages at a restaurant or anywhere else was nineteen. Knowing that he was older than me just made it so much harder to deal with crushing on him.

He gave me a nod, but his smile was gone. He just wanted me to know that he knew I was there, looking for him, but he wasn’t pleased one bit that I was out to dinner with Dylan. I didn’t blame him; it was almost like catching a girlfriend on a date with another boy, and then having to actually serve them was a whole other story. It felt like I had been caught doing some sort of unmentionable crime. Dylan called out to me and I forced myself to tear my eyes away from Ryan to where he stood at the door, holding it out for me. During dinner, he had called his mother and asked her to pick us up at quarter to seven so as we stepped onto the street, she was waiting there for us. Dylan started to move toward the car but I put a hand on his arm and he stopped.

“I’m actually going to stay,” I said. “I’m waiting for a friend.”

“You are?” he asked.

“Yeah. But you go on ahead. I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” I said.

“All right, are you sure? Because it’s no problem if you—”

“I’m sure,” I smiled. “Have a good night, Dylan. And Happy Halloween.”

“You too.” He walked slowly to his mother’s car and glanced back at me quickly to check if I was sure about the ride but when I waved to him he got in and the two of them drove away. I sat down on the bench and ended up waiting for a good twenty-five minutes so I could see Ryan and get a chance to talk to him. He came out ten minutes after eight o’clock, changed out of his all-black uniform into a pair of casual jeans and a brown button-up jacket over whatever navy blue shirt I could see him wearing. Betraying someone that sweet and good looking had put a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“Ryan,” I said immediately upon seeing him exit the restaurant. He hadn’t even known I was there and probably thought I left with Dylan so he looked surprised when he noticed me standing up from the bench. Then his face fell. “I’m sorry for tonight. I didn’t mean for any of that happen.” He looked away for a second and I could see him open his mouth to say something but I wasn’t ready to hear him speak yet, so I took a step closer to him and drew his attention back to me quickly. “Dylan and I were only hanging out. He’s one of my friends and neither of us had anything to do tonight so he took me out to dinner just for something to do. I swear, I didn’t know this was the restaurant he wanted to go to, or that you’d be our waiter. If I had known, I never would have said yes to coming here with him.” He frowned and I lifted a hand, shaking my head. “Okay, that sounds bad but I just—”

“Who is he?” Ryan asked finally, that being the first thing he said to me. I knew what he was really wondering was whether or not Dylan was more than a friend, or enough for me to be attracted to him on another level if it came down to it. He had already met him, and he remembered him, but he wanted to know who he was exactly to me.

“He’s just a friend from school,” I assured him. “I’m so sorry, Ryan. I never meant to upset you.”

He sighed and ran his fingers roughly through his hair. “I’m not upset, per se. I was just surprised to see you with him. I thought you two were on a date.”

“I know that’s what it must have looked like,” I said, putting a hand on my chest. “I promise you, we weren’t. I . . .” This was my opportunity to tell him what I really felt for him. I knew well enough I couldn’t just wait for things to happen, or leave it up to him to take on that responsibility all of the time even though he did it voluntarily. I needed to take some action every now and again. “I really like you, Ryan.”

He smiled and shoved his hands in his pockets. “You do?”

I blushed and scratched the back of my head, not really knowing what to do with myself. “Yeah, a lot.”

“Well, if it’s of any interest to you, which I hope it is,” he began to reply, “I’ve liked you since the first time I met you. When I saw you outside of that gala that one night, I just really wanted to talk to you.”

My eyes were wide and my jaw was dropped showing my full shock that he was actually interested in me to that extent, but inside my head, a little voice screamed “yes! Hell yes!”. Ryan Chaney liked me; Ryan the magician, the one any passing girl would drool over, the sweetest boy in the world. And here I was, standing on the edge of the sidewalk with my mouth hanging open while he confessed his feelings for me. I could have sworn I was dreaming.

“Though, I have to be honest. Your mother kind of scares me, and that was one of the reasons I held off telling you how I felt about you,” he admitted, biting the corner of his lip. I couldn’t help by laugh.

“Yes, well she is pretty intimidating,” I agreed. “I’m still really sorry about what she said to you. It was as if she was trying to make you feel ashamed of who you are and that wasn’t appropriate of her. So I don’t blame you.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that her attitude or her opinion of me reflects at all on what kind of person you are because, well, if you were anything like the woman I met that day, I don’t know if I’d be particularly comfortable around you,” he said. I knew exactly what he meant; if I was anything like my mother, I’d loath myself. “But there was a reason I left the tickets with your brother instead of her. She’d probably rip them up and toss them out. I’ve kind of caught on that she doesn’t like me, or at least doesn’t think I’m good enough for her daughter.”

“I don’t care what she thinks,” I said, stepping closer to him. “My mom has no say in who I like or who I date, and if anything, I don’t think I’m good enough for you. Plus, I like you so I don’t care if she does or not. This doesn’t involve her.”

He smiled. “I just don’t know if getting seriously involved right now would be a good idea; at least not until one of your parents is comfortable with it. I’d hate to date a girl whose parents hate me. That would make all of my visits very awkward.”

I nodded. “I understand.”

“I just want you to know that I do have feelings for you, and they’re really quite strong,” he said, moving his hands into the front pockets of his jacket, “and also that that Dylan guy makes me feel really jealous.”

“He does?”

“Well, yeah. You two hang out every day at school, you see each other on the weekends, you went on that trip to the cottage with him, he’s in band with you . . . I don’t know, I just worry sometimes that something could happen with you guys,” he said, his mouth twisting to the side while he lifted his shoulders.

I shook my head. “I can promise you, we don’t feel that way about each other.”

As if anything was ever going to happen between Dylan and me.



I decided to join student council. Luckily, it didn’t run nearly as long as band did because Christopher already came prepared with a list of things for everyone to talk about or issues to be resolved. I loved how friendly everyone was, and it didn’t seem like even one person in that club was left out; they were all friends, even if they didn’t spend time together outside of club activities. After it was over, Elsie and I decided to study in the back of the library and work on our next big English essay focusing on the relativity between the character of Macbeth and anyone else we had read about in another literary work during the course. ight now, there really wasn’t all that much to be compared since we still had a good three or four months left until the end of the semester.

“I’ll be right back,” I said to Elsie after I had dug all the way to the bottom of my bag only to realize I had forgotten my notebook in my locker. “I have to get my notes.”

“Okay. If you come back before I do, I’ll be down that aisle. I need a research book,” Elsie replied, pointing to an entire area of shelves which didn’t really specify where exactly I could find her but at least I’d have an idea.

“Well then save that,” I said with a nod toward her laptop, where her four pages of her essay lay open for the world to see. “You don’t want anyone erasing it while you’re gone.”

She scoffed. “There’s no one around who would benefit from erasing my essay,” she said, and disappeared around the bookshelf. I looked around; Elsie was right, because no one in our English class was in sight, but then again, we were in the far corner of the library, and there were two whole floors of it so there could very well be someone we knew in our English class that was responsible for her missing assignments in here with us. I just wanted to be cautious so while Elsie was out of sight, I quickly pressed the ‘save’ button on her laptop and walked quickly out of the library and down the hall to my locker. I pulled out my notebook and clicked the lock together again before I headed back, but when I stepped inside and rounded the corners that would lead me back to where Elsie and I were seated, I noticed a girl leaning over Elsie’s laptop, but it definitely wasn’t Elsie. Elsie had black hair, not dirty blond with even blonder streaks in it, and that was when I realized that that head of hair looked familiar; too familiar.

I crossed my arms and frowned. “What are you doing?” I demanded.

With a start, Mackenzie whipped around but when she noticed it was me and not Elsie or a teacher, she smirked and clasped her hands together behind her back. Was that supposed to make her look innocent? “I’m just taking a look at how Elsie’s doing on her essay,” she answered. “I wanted to know how many pages she was at. That way, I can try and beat her.”

“Why don’t you go mind your own business and actually do your essay?” I suggested. Being around Elsie and the twins sure had given me a sense of empowerment. I didn’t feel nearly as intimidated by Mackenzie as I had that day in the cafeteria before the food fight. Although, it may have had to do with the fact that we were in a library where other people could watch us, as opposed to a secluded area—I definitely wouldn’t stand a chance then, because she could corner me and beat my face into the ground. She had that look. “Don’t go snooping around other people’s work. It could get lost that way.”

She chuckled rather darkly and started to move towards me but it wasn’t until she was by my side, stopping that I came to the conclusion that she was only doing so to get around me. “I know,” she whispered, and walked away. I glared after her, suspicious. Something about the way she had said those two words bothered me, like she knew something I didn’t. Maybe she had meant it that way. I didn’t think about it for too long though, and rushed over to Elsie’s laptop to see if everything was as it was when I left. Elsie was still down the aisle flipping furiously through the pages of a research book. Her essay seemed to be untouched, but just for good measure I clicked the save button again.

I narrowed my eyes at the screen, still feeling unsure. If Mackenzie was the one who had made Elsie’s projects disappear, and if she had planned on deleting this one right off of Elsie’s laptop, I must have just caught her. I looked back up and saw Mackenzie walk out the library doors, her butt swiveling around like she had a stick shoved right up it.

What was she up to?