Some Kind of Magic

The next night, Ryan had come over because we had the house to ourselves, and we hadn’t seen much of each other lately. It was good to get some time alone with him instead of just short visits. He had picked me up at school and drove me back to my house, but it was enough of a shock to find him waiting for me, let alone with a car. I didn’t even know he could drive. My mother was working later, and apparently had something to pick up after she was finished. As for Blade and Christabelle, they were on another outing together to check up on their house, and weren’t going to be coming back until dinner time, which the four of us planned to have together since Christabelle just adored Ryan and Blade was already beginning to think of him as a brother. Admittedly, that freaked me out quite a bit, but I did appreciate that my brother was willing to bond with my boyfriend.

“You’re about to witness something amazing,” Ryan said to me, pushing up the sleeves of his blue button-up plaid shirt.

“Am I?” I smiled, leaning against the kitchen counter. We had agreed that we would take care of supper, but it had to be Christabelle-friendly so we couldn’t make anything that had poultry, beef or cheese in it. I had nothing in mind because there wasn’t much I could think of that didn’t include that, but Ryan’s brain was just flooded with ideas. I crossed my arms and lifted my chin so I could try to see what exactly it was that he was doing. He was rushing around the kitchen, pulling out pots and pans, measuring cups and various ingredients. “What exactly are you thinking?” I inquired.

“Well, working in a restaurant has its perks. I may not be a master chef but I do know some stuff, and dinner just so happens to be my area if expertise,” he replied.

“You’re kidding. Cooking isn’t my forte, but I can tell you this much; I’m a lot better than my brother,” I said and Ryan laughed.

“Then you’re going to learn three new recipes. Come here,” he said, motioning me over with his finger. I walked toward him and looked over his shoulder. He had taken out some chicken breasts and shrimp from the freezer—which honestly surprised me since I didn’t even know we owned those—and then several different liquids ranging from vegetable oil to red wine. I furrowed my brows.

“Okay seriously, what are we making?” I asked.

He pointed to one of the large groups of ingredients. “This is for ratatouille. It’s really just vegetables in a fancy dish. And over here, this is for garlic shrimp. Since Christabelle can’t eat chicken, I thought I would make her something that’s her own and if she doesn’t like it . . . well, I guess that’s a lesson learned. And for us two and your brother, I was thinking coq au vin.”

“What’s coq au vin?”

“It’s a French meal when the chicken is cooked in red wine and mushrooms and depending on the person’s taste, you can add a bunch of stuff to it, like onions or carrots or garlic,” he said, holding up a bundle of cloves, “which I can tell you have plenty of in your house.”

“My dad used to love to cook and I’m pretty sure that was his favourite thing,” I said, pointing to it. Ryan smirked.

“You must have had some pretty stinky breath then,” he joked.

I chuckled. “I don’t know. Why don’t you check and find out?”

“I would be happy to.” His lips crashed against mine before I even had a chance to think about it, and his arms both slithered around my waist while mine hung lifelessly at my sides. Finally I clicked into the moment around wrapped them around his neck. I was lucky enough to have a boyfriend that had hands of magic and a heart of gold, but the fact that he had talents in the kitchen made him all the more desirable. He sure was a boy to be jealous over. It seemed that the more time I spent with Ryan, the more I learned about him, and he was never short of admirable qualities.

And then we heard someone clearing their throat and I tore myself away from Ryan, only to look into the eyes of my mother. And my grandparents.

“Oh,” I blurted, eyes wide. Ryan dropped his arms again and gulped. He knew what my mother was like, but my grandparents were a whole other story. They thought my successful father wasn’t good enough for my mom so no doubt were they going to be even worse for me with Ryan. They all stood in the doorway to the dining room, scowling at us.

“Isabelle,” my mother said through her teeth, nodding toward the living room. “I don’t recall allowing you to have . . . friends over while I was out of the house.”

“I asked you if Ryan could come for dinner,” I said. “This morning, actually. Don’t you remember?”

She looked at him, her eyes cold and her expression colder. Ryan took a step back. “It must have slipped my mind,” she said.

“Hi grandma, grandpa,” I said to them, but they still had their eyes glued to the very intimidated boy who was now probably wishing he never stepped foot into my house. “I didn’t know you were coming over.”

Finally, my grandma tore herself away and turned to me with a forced smile. “Your mother invited us about a week ago. She said something about how she wanted us to meet the mother-to-be before she hit the third trimester and started to get really emotional.” How lovely.

“Yeah, that sounds like mom,” I mumbled, just loud enough for them to hear.

“Your grandparents will be sleeping in your room, Isabelle,” my mother said and I frowned.

“Then where will I sleep?”

“On the couch, down here,” she replied.

I sighed. “Awesome.”

“So what’re you two up to?” my grandpa asked, eyeing up Ryan again, “Besides what we walked in on you doing.”

“We’re cooking dinner,” I answered.

“Hm. It looked like you were cooking up something else to me.”

My grandma hit him on the arm and frowned. “Stop, Joseph.”

“I’m just saying.”

“We should really get back to this now,” I cut in, more for my own benefit than theirs. I really just wanted them to leave so I could apologize to Ryan, and hopefully convince him to stay even though he was probably far past uncomfortable already. Maybe he would be able to impress them, because it would definitely be a surprise if they accepted him. And it would make the night a lot more bearable.

“Okay, well I hope you have enough for us then,” grandpa said. “We haven’t eaten yet and we’re starving.”

My jaw dropped, and before I could object since we hadn’t planned on making something for them as well, they all left the room. I looked at Ryan to see him staring after then and then finally he turned his attention back to me. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea my mom would be home this early. I didn’t even know my grandparents were coming over,” I said, putting my hands on my cheeks.

He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. It’s okay.” Then he smiled. “Besides, it gives me an opportunity to try to fit in with your family.”

As much as Ryan’s enthusiasm soothed me, I had a feeling that this was going to go horribly wrong.



I was thankful that Blade and Christabelle came home slightly after my mother’s arrival, because during dinner they would save Ryan and I if we really didn’t know what to say. My grandparents asked a lot of questions about him, and wanted to know what his plans were for the future. My mother was upset to say the least, when she learned that I was dating someone who was nineteen, but mostly because she considered older boys dating younger girls to be a “sexual predator” situation. She clearly didn’t know the kind of person Ryan was, or maybe she just wasn’t listening when he answered everyone’s questions about us.

My grandfather wasn’t so bad, but my grandmother was definitely the worst; she tried to embarrass him and make him feel like he wasn’t good enough for me. Ryan held himself well though, and only let his irritation show when they said things about his education. As hard as he tried, I could tell that he was weakening and every time I went to say something to them so they could stop, I couldn’t find my voice.

“So, Ryan,” my grandpa said, poking at his chicken. “Do you have any plans for the future?”

He shrugged. “I have a few ideas, but right now I’m really just focused on my job. I’d like to become a cardiologist, though. My mom has a . . . condition that sort of influenced my dad into joining the medical field and it’s encouraged me over the years as well.”

I didn’t even know that about him.

“Doctor, huh?” my mother said with a shake of her head and a dry chuckle. “That’s a pretty expecting job. Are you sure you wouldn’t want to aim for something a little . . . lower? What, with your education history, I’m sure you won’t even be able to make it into a college.”

Ryan frowned. “I’m not ashamed of who I am, Mrs. Donahue.”

She smirked. “I would be.”

“That’s enough,” I said, standing up when I saw his eyes cast down to his shoes. My chair scraped against the tile floor and everyone looked over at me. Blade widened his eyes at me, telling me not to say anything and a couple of months ago, I probably would have listened to him but my grandparents and my mom were just taking this way too far. “Ryan’s my boyfriend, and you have no right to treat him like this. If you’re my family, then act like it, for God’s sakes.”

Ryan stared up at me, shocked, but I grabbed his hand and pulled him out of his chair before he had a chance to object. As I passed Christabelle, she held her hand out below my mother’s line of sight, wanting me to high-five her so I did.

“Let’s get out of here,” I mumbled, and by the time my mother screamed at me to come back to the table, we were already long gone.



“God, I can’t believe them,” I growled, picking up a stone and tossing it into the water. I was aiming for it to skip across but it just landed right in with a ‘plop’. Ryan stood behind me, watching but not saying anything. I grabbed furiously at the sides of my jacket and shook my head. “I thought they would at least be civilized but they lack so much tact that they can’t even muster up enough respect to keep their mouths shut on their feelings.”

“Isabelle—” Ryan said.

“And the fact that they would voice their opinions like that . . . it’s one thing for them to even think so low of a person such as yourself but to say them right to your face . . .” I sighed. “They’re not even right—not on anything they said.” I looked back at him sadly, while he put his hands in his coat pockets and tilted his head to the side. “I don’t deserve you; you’re too good for this kind of treatment. I would completely understand if you wanted to end things with me because of this.”

“Isabelle, stop,” he said, coming up to me and grabbing my hands. “I don’t care what your family thinks about me, okay? I care about what you think of me. What’s more, I care about you and if they don’t accept that, then fine. That’s their business but I’m not giving you up just because of this. They have absolutely nothing to do with our relationship, and if they feel it’s necessary to get in the way of that, then I’ll confront them with no hesitation. And like I said, I don’t feel embarrassed about how I was brought up or what I’ve gone through, and just because I don’t have proper schooling doesn’t mean I’m not educated.”

I nodded. “I know. You’re quite worldly.”

“Exactly. So your mom and your grandparents or whoever can say what they want about me and try to make me feel like I’m not good enough for you but that’s not going to drive me away.”

I blushed and quickly turned away from him, covering my face in my hands. “But I’m so humiliated. This is my family, people I’m supposed to be proud of having in my life and right now, I couldn’t be more ashamed of them.”

“That doesn’t reflect on you.” He wrapped his arms around my waist and put his chin on my shoulder. “Isabelle, you’re an amazing person and anyone who thinks otherwise is out of their right mind. Yeah, your family is a little . . . unconventional,” he decided on, making me smile, “but that doesn’t mean you’re anything like them. You’re sweet and they’re—”

“Brutally ignorant?” I put in and he laughed.

“That is one way to put it.”

I sighed. “I’m so sorry. This was a dinner date gone horribly wrong. They must have ruined your night.”

He shook his head firmly. “No way. I got to see you, didn’t I? And they may not have liked me, but at least now I know what it takes to fit in with your family.” I shot him a warning look and he grinned at me. “I’m kidding.”

“Don’t go changing for them,” I said.

“Oh, I don’t plan on it.”

I turned in his arms and wrapped mine around his neck. “We’ll redo this, I promise. And no parents . . . unless they’re yours. I like yours.”

“That reminds me,” he said, looking up at the sky. “My mom would like to extend an invitation for you to have dinner with us next weekend. She asked me to let you know before I came tonight but I completely forgot until right now.”

I snorted. “You call that forgetful? It’s only been a few hours.”

“So would you like to come?”

I nodded vigorously and kissed him on the mouth. He smiled, and I said, “I would love to.”



The next day, during fifth period while Elsie and I were looking through our notes for valuable Shakespeare quotes, I glanced up, feeling eyes watching me and expecting them to be Mackenzie’s while she glared but instead, it was just a girl at the side of the classroom who, as soon as I caught her looking, had an expression of panic flash across her face and she turned around.

I held in my laugh and nudged Elsie. She lifted her head. “Are people actually afraid of me?”

She smiled. “You bet. It’s gotten around the entire school that you’re a menace.”

“Then why do you hang out with me?”

“Because I like having a friend by my side who would punch a teacher for me,” she teased and when I shot her a look of doubt, she winked at me. “No, I’m friends with you because I’m one of the few people who’s not terrified of you.”

“Elsie—”

“I’m kidding!”

I laughed. “I hope so. Hey, where’s Michael?” I asked, for there was no sleeping boy on my other side. Even though all he did in this class was sleep, he never missed a lesson so it threw me off when I didn’t hear snoring.

“Up your bum,” Elsie sang jokingly, returning to her work. I could see Mr. Bishop glimpse quickly at us and then chuckle, which made me smile despite my best efforts to hide it.

“I think he heard you,” I said.

She looked up again and shook her head. “Nah, he was talking to ass-kiss over there,” she muttered with an expressive arm gesture toward Mackenzie. She was sitting at the front of the class as always, leaning forward so her boobs nearly fell right out of her top and of course, Mr. Bishop couldn’t tear his eyes away anymore. Even though Mackenzie had her normal tough-girl act up still, I noticed a look of worry flash across her face when Preston stepped inside the classroom. He had come in a number of times to monitor the class and when Mr. Bishop asked him about it, he just told him he was mirroring his teaching methods for when he took over one of the older teachers’ jobs after they retired. I couldn’t believe that Bishop actually bought that poor excuse though, seeing as the oldest English professor at our school was around fifty years old, and nowhere close to retirement.

“She looks a little wary, doesn’t she?” I whispered to Elsie, and nodded at Mackenzie.

Elsie shifted in her seat to lean close to me, but not before she moved her index finger, motioning for me to come closer so I scooted to the very edge of my chair and put my elbow on the corner of the desk. “While you were gone,” she began in a hushed voice, “the principal started calling down a bunch of students; said there was some sort of investigation in case there were any shady teachers and certain kids were under suspicion for knowing something. I’m not entirely sure what’s going on though. I don’t even know who the teacher is. It’s a ‘heard it through the grapevine’ situation.”

“And Mackenzie was called down?”

“Three times, actually.”

“Were you?”

She shook her head. “Well, technically, I was but for a different reason. They wanted me to tell them what happened that day in class when you freaked out at Mr. Bishop because he asked them to talk to me. Lovely teacher, isn’t he? Something goes wrong and he immediately suspects I’m involved. But anyway, that’s why Mackenzie freezes up whenever she sees Preston; she’s worried he’s going to want to take her down to the principal again. Apparently she received it pretty rough, says Robbie,” she explained. “She’s one of the students they suspect is lying to them so they’re trying to work it out of her.”

I sat back and pushed the air out of my cheeks. If the principal was calling students down to talk about this, and if it really was Mr. Bishop they were talking about, like Preston had warned me of, then it would only be a matter of time before I was sent down as well. And without Emma to guide me through it, I wasn’t so sure I would be able to last.



On Friday, Mackenzie’s full plan was revealed to me. During my fourth period, I excused myself to go to the bathroom because I had accidentally rubbed my eyes from being sleep deprived the night before, and the mascara I had put on this morning—the one day I decided I would use it—was beginning to smudge. I wiped it off and was just about to leave the bathroom when the door swung opened and I could hear the annoyingly high-pitched voice of Mackenzie and one of her friends. I didn’t want to get my face pounded in so I quickly jumped into one of the stalls and closed the door, then proceeded to stand on the toilet. The worst thing about this was tied between the fact that if she realized I was there, I would probably get a swirly, and that since my school shoes were partially heeled I nearly had my foot drop into the toilet bowl many times.

“I’m worried about you, Kenzie,” I heard her friend say, who I recognized to be one of the girls from band, Brittany, who was highly annoying. It would only make sense that she was friends with someone like Mackenzie.

“Don’t be. It’ll all work out in the end,” Mackenzie said. I moved my head to the side so I could see out the small slot between the stall door and the wall. She stood in front of the mirror, playing with her hair and fixing her makeup. I rolled my eyes.

“But you could get caught,” Brittany said. “It’s bad enough that you’re fooling around with a teacher but bringing drugs into the situation makes it so much worse. I don’t even think your parents could get you out of that one; I expect they wouldn’t want to.”

My eyebrows shot up. Drugs?

“I won’t get caught,” Mackenzie said calmly. “Do you want to hear my side or not?”

Brittany sighed. “Fine. What’s happening?”

“Okay, so you know how the principal and Mr. Bishop are like, best friends even though he wants his job? Well that’s where I come in; being his helper has its perks and I want Principal Sinclair out of here as much as he does so since he’s naïve enough to trust Mr. B with his second office key and I know enough people that are willing to help me out here, framing him for drugs will be a piece of cake,” she explained. “Getting rid of Elsie’s assignments was the easy part; she forgot her laptop in the classroom all of the time so all I had to do was delete them. You’d think she’s use her brain and just go to her garbage folder. They’d all be there. Anyway, now I just have to get past that idiot secretary of Sinclair’s and all I’ll need to do is plant the drugs in his drawer. Problem solved; he’ll be out of a job, Elsie will fail, and Bishop will get the spot for principal, since he’s the only other guy who wants it. Plus, maybe this will get Robbie’s attention that you do not fuck with me.”

My eyes grew wide and I had to slap my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming at her or clawing her eyes out. So this was all about revenge because Robbie didn’t want her; she was trying to get him back for turning her down, and was slowly ruining all of his relationships. It made sense why she was trying to get Elsie to fail English, and if Elsie were to suspect anything and tell Robbie, of course he wouldn’t believe her because a story like this was ridiculous to just hear about. And if their father was fired, Robbie and Dylan would lose their school credit and popularity, even if they did still have the looks but not as many people would depend on them, and they would be humiliated to find out their father wasn’t just fired, but also arrested, for harboring illegal drugs in a school.
She really was the devil.

“But what about Isabelle?” Brittany asked. “You haven’t done anything about her and she’s made your life a living hell lately.”

I resisted the urge to scoff. As if!

Mackenzie sighed dramatically. “Unfortunately, she’s the one person who has anything on me. If she spills the beans about Mr. Bishop and me, we’re both toast. I’m still trying to figure how to take her down too.”

My God, she sounded like she had stepped out of a fourties gangster flick.

“So what about Owen? Is he going to get in trouble if they find out?” Brittany asked. Who the hell was Owen?

“Probably. If I go down, I’m taking him with me. He’s not really guilty of all that much but he certainly isn’t a saint,” she muttered. “I’m done here. Do you want to go back to class or would you rather skip for the rest of the period?”

“I need to get back. I’ve been out for long enough as it is and I have an essay to finish,” Brittany replied, then smirked at Mackenzie. “Unless you already deleted that off of my laptop.”

And they both walked out laughing. I stepped off the toilet and rushed to the sink, a feeling of nausea rising in my throat.

She was going to destroy us, but not if we destroyed her first.