Some Kind of Magic

Everyone was happy to see Dylan return to school on Monday, but even happier upon discovering that Mackenzie would never return to school. They quite admired his black eye, and saw it as some sort of tough-guy symbol or war scar, and complimented him as he walked down the hall. I couldn’t count on all of my fingers or toes how many times I had heard someone ask to hear the “epic story of heroism” that had led to his large facial bruise, or how many variations of the real story were being spread around the school. This morning, Dylan had gotten in a tiny brawl with a guy for running his mouth about me, but by the end of the day, Dylan and Robbie had taken on a mob, and one of them had been beaten up so badly that they were in a coma in the hospital.

Oh, the power of story-telling.

The week before our New York music trip, I was lying on my bed around midnight, studying for my French test when my cell phone began ringing and when I picked up, Robbie’s charming, enthusiastic voice filled my ears.

“What’s up, superstar?” I asked.

“I’m bored, want to bang?” he asked.

I blinked. “What?”

“I have the house to myself. Come spend the night.” His tone was oddly suggestive. It made me nervous.

“Robbie—”

“Oh relax, I’m just kidding. But seriously, come over. I’m dying.”

“Have you looked at the time lately? It’s too late to hang out. And I’m studying. I have a test tomorrow.”

“Isabelle, my lips hurt. Come kiss them better,” he said.

A noise somewhere between a laugh and a scoff escaped my mouth. “Not on your life. God, you are so socially awkward. Do you not get out a lot?”

“What are you talking about? Half of my life is spent with you.”

“Well I can’t take responsibility for that kind of pick-up line. That was dreadfully awful, Robbie. I could cry.”

“Come over, really. Otherwise, I will come to you and carry you out.”

I sighed and pushed myself off of my stomach. I wouldn’t hear the end of it if I didn’t give in, and there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that he would definitely come over, even if he had to sneak in through my bedroom window. “Give me ten minutes.”

“Well hurry up then,” he said demandingly. “I don’t want to wait so long that I die just because you felt like taking your time.”



I had mentioned to Robbie when I met up with him halfway between his house and mine that I was hungry, and while I just meant that to suggest possibly stopping by a convenience store and picking up a chocolate bar or a bag of chips, he took that as an invitation to go out for pizza at half past twelve in the morning. I wasn’t a fan of early eating, but my stomach seemed to disagree, considering the minute he started describing a pepperoni pizza, it began to growl with desire. And so we sat in the pizza parlour by the lakeshore, sharing a pepperoni pizza that I knew I would regret when I woke up in the morning but for now, I was enjoying it far too much for my own good.

“So a little bird told me you were upset with me,” Robbie said, tilting his head to the side with a look of sadness that was so adorable, it was so hard for me to not pinch his cheeks. I looked up at him, a string of unbreakable cheese attached to my lips and my pizza. I blushed and pulled it away with my napkin, wiped my mouth.

“Who said that?”

“Who do you think?” he said, his mouth dropping sarcastically. “Emma, of course. She said you don’t like when I tell you I think Dylan has a crush on you, that it gets on your nerves and makes you all anxious.”

Emma. She was dead meat.

His face transformed again, this time apologetic. “Iz, why didn’t you tell me the first time? I never would have brought it up again.”

“I did,” I said, trying to avoid my voice taking a tone that fished for an argument. “I just wanted the topic to be dropped. I’m always worried that if Dylan really does have feelings for me, it’ll cause conflict with Ryan. I’m in a good place with both of them right now, and I don’t want that to change, especially if my own nervousness for what could happen actually causes something to happen.” Robbie looked confused and I bit my lip. “That doesn’t really make sense, does it?”

“No, it does. So you’re saying that you think that when others tell you their assumptions of Dylan’s feelings for you, it might change how you act around him or Ryan, and something will happen because of it,” he said for clarification and I nodded. “Honestly, Iz, I didn’t mean to make you feel that way. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I mean, the first time I just took as a warning, like you were trying to make me aware of it in case there could be a problem, and I did appreciate it. Really. But after that . . . I don’t know, it just felt like everyone wanted us to be together, and no one was happy for Ryan and I.”

“That’s not it.” Robbie pulled his chair closer to mine and put his hand on my knee. “I’m just worried about both of you. I mean, he’s my brother and all but you’re still the new girl, and I think your naivety makes you especially susceptible to everything that’s going on.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not the type of person that seeks out conflict. Now, Dylan, on the other hand . . . I can’t exactly say the same.”

“Is he trying to cause trouble?”

“You’ve seen how he acts around you whenever you talk about your boyfriend. You can’t say that’s not suspicious. If he didn’t want you to notice that something was off, he wouldn’t make it so obvious,” he explained. “And if everyone at the table can see it as well, clearly it’s because he wants them to. I’m certain he’d leave you alone if he were more like you. You don’t exactly search for him in the halls and make suggestive gestures that, in some way, would lead him to believe you were interested.”

I nodded my head. “I see.”

“Iz, just be careful around him, okay? He’s a good guy but when it comes to girls, his head is never in the right place. He doesn’t know what he’s doing,” he said.

“I just want things to go back to when we were just friends, and there was no suspicion whatsoever about whether he liked me or not,” I groaned, putting my elbows down on the table and pushing my hands through my hair. “Do you think that that’s possible?”

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

“I hope so.”

He removed his hand from my leg and tore himself another piece of pizza. “And who knows; he might decide to back off. He never admitted to me that he likes you but I know how he acts around girls he’s interested in. It might suddenly hit him on the head that what he’s doing isn’t right, that he needs to just respect your relationship and be happy for you—be happy that you’re happy. That’s what a true friend would do.”

I snickered. “Hit him on the head, eh? That wouldn’t happen to be a reflection of what you would do, would it?”

He smirked. “You’ll never know.”

“Baseball bat?”

He laughed. “Hockey stick.”

I smiled. “Figures.”

He patted me on the head. “Bad things really do happen to good people.”

Feeling equally sarcastic, I laid a hand on my chest and feigned astonishment. “I’m moved by your wisdom.”

“As you should be.” He pulled a pepperoni off of his pizza and popped it into his mouth. “You see, the thing is, you deserve to be happy, Isabelle. You haven’t even been at Westwood that long and already you’ve made a name for yourself; a good name. You’ve defended all of us in one way or another and overall, you’re just a fantastic friend. But I’ve always felt like you and I are the most distant of anyone in our group, which sucks for me because . . . well, you’re really hot.”

I broke out into laughter, which caused the lady behind the counter to look over at me and scowl, before she disappeared to the back room. Robbie smiled and leaned closer to me with a finger to his lips.

“No, but seriously, we need to work on us. You got that, bro?”

I nodded. “Got it, homie.”

Behind all of his jokes and quips, his constant masking of his flaws with humour, I saw the truth of his nature; Robbie’s weakness was his overbearing tendency to care too much for others. I didn’t know what it was that made him so susceptible to the people he held close being hurt, but it was strangely charming.

Robbie had always been the humour, admirable, carefree guy everyone always wanted to be around. In fact, he was so admirable that he seemed almost too good to be true, but it was nice to see a little more humanity in him, more sensitivity, something to sympathize with him over. Now when I looked at him, my eyes would see a completely different person.

Now, they would see someone who was perfectly imperfect.



A loud banging against my bedroom door awoke me at half past four on Monday morning two weeks later and I answered it with a loud groan, then rolled over onto my stomach, buried my head in my pillow and covered my entire body with all of my blankets.

“Iz, let’s go! Have your shower and grab your suitcase! I’m taking you to the airport,” Blade called. He gave me five seconds but when I neither said, nor did anything to respond to him, he knocked again and growled, “Don’t make me come in there and sit on you.”

“Come in and die,” I snarled groggily.

“Then get up! You have an hour to get ready. Chop chop!” I heard his feet retreat down the stairs and, with a moan, I sat up and pulled my covers off. It took all of my self-restraint to not flop back down, curl into a ball and practically purr with the pleasure of lying in my bed for the last time for a week, but if I stalled for even one more minute, I knew I would get slapped. I dragged myself down the hall with my towels slung over my shoulder and my eyes damp with post-sleep, and nearly fell into the shower.

It didn’t take me too long to wake up after that. It hit me then that as soon as I stepped out of the front door today, I would be one step closer to the Big Apple. I had always dreamed of going to New York, but it hadn’t really settled in that I would be going so soon. After having my shower and getting dressed in my favourite jeans and the thickest, warmest sweater I owned, I ran downstairs and immediately dove headfirst into the fruit bowl.

Blade stared at me, surprised, while I tore into an orange. “You in a rush or something?”

“Fruit always wakes me up,” I said, and realized how contradictory that was when I began to yawn. “And you’re the one who told me to hurry up. Now you’re questioning me for listening to you?”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not but you still have a half an hour, and all you have left is to brush your teeth and bring your suitcase down,” he laughed. “How slow do you expect to be?”

“Or better yet, how big is your suitcase?” my mom asked.

“I have a large one, and a carry-on,” I replied. “It’s not that much.”

“She’s probably just excited to finally get out of her,” Chris said, approaching me from behind and rubbing my shoulders. I offered her a slice of my orange, because I knew I would be safer if I did. She smiled and took it graciously, immediately tossing it into her mouth. “Thanks.”

“Do you have your plane buddy decided yet?” Blade asked, and I went tense just thinking about it. I felt uncomfortable around Dylan lately, but Robbie and Emma would both expect me to sit with him. If I sat with Elsie, then that wouldn’t need to be explained, but if I sat with Robbie, then it would. Oddly enough, he was the only one I could see myself sitting beside and actually enjoying the full plane ride over with, not to say that Emma or Dylan were annoying in the slightest possible way. However, Robbie would keep me occupied while I was awake, and if I fell asleep, he would courteously offer me his shoulder as a pillow.

“I haven’t really thought about it that much,” I answered and stood up from my spot at the kitchen table. I grabbed my apple. “I’ll be upstairs getting my stuff ready. Call me when it’s time to go.”

“Sure,” Blade nodded, and shrugged at Chris when she looked at him oddly. I disappeared to my room to go over my clothes choices one last time, and spent the remainder of my morning at the house simply sitting on my bed, tapping my feet, waiting for the time to come where I could head off to the airport. And when it finally arrived, I moved as fast as I possibly could down the stairs with my suitcase under one arm and my travel case under the other, set them by the door and slipped my feet into my winter boots.

We had received an enormous amount of snow in the past week, to the point where I couldn’t leave the house without my legs disappearing right up to my knees. Abel loved it; it was the only opportunity he had to play Hide and Seek with us where he was the one hiding instead, but it didn’t do him much good because he spent most of his time leaping and prancing around like an antelope, and then vanishing into the white, fluffy mounds once again.

My mom was the first to hug me, which was surprising enough on its own but the fact that she looked like she was about to cry just added to my shock. I didn’t know why she was suddenly so emotional; either because her baby was leaving the nest for the first time, or because she hadn’t gotten her way and she was very upset about it.

Christabelle hugged me afterwards, her stomach squishing my abdomen but I could only imagine how painful it was for her with two humans pressing against her bladder. She didn’t last long though; she ran off to the bathroom right afterwards. I leaned down next to Abel and gave him a hug and a kiss, then helped Blade carry my bags out to his car with him.

“Are you excited?” he asked me, throwing my suitcase in the trunk.

“What?” I couldn’t hear a word he was saying, for the whistling of the wind and the fact that my winter hat was covering my ears had corrupted my hearing. He lifted the hat up and leaned down to my level.

“Are you excited?!” he repeated.

“Oh! Yes!” I laughed, climbing into the front seat. He came around the other side of the car and sat down in his seat, closing the door quickly. He shivered and ran a hand through his thick locks of hair, getting rid of the snowflakes. “You forgot to shave,” I observed and he let out a low growl.

“Shut up. It’s five-thirty in the morning,” he said, pulling out of the driveway.

I snickered. “Well aren’t you a treat this morning,” I joked.

“Sorry. You know what I’m like without my morning coffee.”

I made a mental note then to grab him some from the airport when we got there. It was about an hour’s drive there, but factoring in the early traffic—essentially nonexistent—it was around half that time. Then bringing the weather into play, it was right back to an hour, if not longer. Blade didn’t enjoy driving in the morning, or in the winter for that matter, and I could tell by the way he grumbled every now and again that he was beginning to get irritated, so I put on my mother’s “Relaxation and Rejuvenation” CD that she used for yoga, and had left in his car by accident. Blade's frustrated expression suddenly changed into a look of confusion and disturbance.

“Relax,” I told him, and when he looked at me like I had finally completely lost my mind, I howled with laughter that shook my entire body, and so did he.

“You do have a way to you that is unlike any other. I’ll give you that,” he had said, and continued his drive in peace, humming under his breath in keeping with the beat of the babbling brook.

It was around a quarter to seven by the time that we arrived at Pearson International Airport, and considering our driving conditions, we had made fairly good time, but we were still fifteen minutes late to meet up with the band. It didn’t help that I had never been to an airport in my life, and had no idea where I was going, or where I was supposed to go. Luckily for me, they were standing right next to the doors by the time we got inside, but Blade didn’t waste much time in saying goodbye.

“You better call me when you get to New York, okay?” he said, pulling on my jacket protectively. I laughed.

“Yes, sir,” I replied. “Now get going. Your wife will be getting worried about you.”

He gave me a tight squeeze and kissed me on the top of the head. “You have a good trip. Be sure to pick me up something nice.”

“What do you want?”

“Surprise me.”

He put his jacket hood on and, with a deep breath, ventured back into the cold Canadian winter conditions. It didn’t matter how many times people told us not to complain about the weather, since that was what made us Canadian; telling us to suck it up did not make it any less cold, nor did I feel any more comfortable with it.

Before I had the chance to turn around and head back to the group, my wrist was seized, as was my suitcase, and Robbie began pulling me toward where Emma sat asleep on Dylan’s shoulder, and he with his head on top of hers, equally unconscious.

“You’re sitting with me on the plane,” he said.

“I am?”

“Yes. Now go check in. She’s worried you weren’t going to show up,” he said, and gave me a nudge in the direction of Ms. Giry, whose head moved furiously between her attendance sheet and the people around her. I lifted a hand when she called my name and quickly returned to Robbie on the rows of chairs, hiking my carry-on bag back up my shoulder.

“Jeez, Iz. How much stuff did you put in this thing?” Robbie groaned, letting go of my suitcase. “It’s ridiculously heavy.”

“That’s why it has wheels, genius. You’re not supposed to lift it,” I laughed.

“We’re gone for a week and a half, not two months. Is this how girls pack?” he asked. “What did you do, bring your house?”

“Everything but the kitchen sink,” I joked, and smiled at him when he stuck his tongue out at me. “Why am I sitting with you?”

“You don’t want to? Oh fine,” he said, putting a hand up and turning his face away from me. “Whatever. I’ll sit with Dorothy, and I’ll just leave you to sit with Brandon over there.” He gave a nod to the tuba player from the third row, who sat quietly by himself, picking his nose, inspecting the results, and then hiding it under the bottom of his seat. Robbie and I both scrunched up our noses in disgust.

“Don’t do that to me,” I said.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“But seriously.”

“I’m not going to make you sit next to Dylan when you’re all freaked out that he might like you,” he whispered, looking at me seriously. “It’s a two hour flight in this weather, minimum, and I can guarantee you that you won’t be asleep for all of it. Have you ever ridden a plane before?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know if today is the best first experience for it either. I’m a little nervous.”

He gave my hand a reassuring squeeze. “Dylan and Emma are good company, but Emma will probably spend the entire time calling you a wuss for being nervous, and Dylan will probably laugh. I don’t like to brag, but I am an excellent plane partner.” He grinned at me and gave me a heartening nudge with his shoulder. “It’ll be fun, trust me.”

I smiled. “Thank you.”

“It’s my pleasure.”

“All right, boys and girls! Everyone’s here so grab your things, and get your passports and tickets out,” Ms. Giry called. Emma and Dylan both awoke upon hearing our teacher yelling and Robbie instantly dropped my hand so quickly that I began to wonder if he had even been holding it in the first place. It was as if he were a deer caught in headlights. I looked up at him questionably, wondering why he suddenly seemed so eager to escape but opted not to and just grabbed my things, and followed the group of people to the line-up.

“I want to die,” Emma groaned, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “Why couldn’t we have just gotten a later flight?”

“It’s supposed to be even worse weather out there than it is right now. I’d say be thankful for the earlier flight,” Dylan said. “Unless you want to increase your chances of turbulence, or even worse . . . death.”

“Oh shut up,” she snapped, hitting him on the arm with her New York brochure. He laughed.

“Come on, Em. You’ve ridden a plane plenty of times now. You should be used to it in all kinds of weather,” Robbie jumped in.

“Yes I know, and I am, but that doesn’t make me any less nervous in bad weather,” she said. “A snow storm is a snow storm. You guys are all Canadian. You get shit like this every winter but you still complain about it. It’s the same thing, is it not?”

I couldn’t argue with her there.

“I just want to get to the hotel room,” I moaned, stretching my neck every which way. “I’ve been so excited for this trip that I haven’t been able to sleep well for a while now. I just want to lie down. Hotel beds are always so comfortable.”

Dylan raised his eyebrows at me. “What kinds of hotels have you been staying in? Any one I visit always has uncomfortable pillows. They can never get it just right,” he said.

“And the mattress is either too hard or too soft. There’s no happy medium,” Robbie added.

Emma scoffed. “You guys are filthy rich. Why don’t you just buy your own pillows and bring them with you?”

I let out a long, loud groan. “Why are we arguing about pillows?”

“I think the lack of sleep is getting to all of us,” Dylan said, running a hand down his unshaven face. I had seen Robbie during our many morning outings for breakfast where he had gone out scruffy, and it was the one time I could actually admit they looked completely identical. They didn’t look particularly bad either; the unkempt look suited them both surprisingly well.

“That’s what the plane is for,” Emma said.

“That’s what New York is for,” I answered.

She scoffed. “No way. New York is the city that never sleeps. It’s the Big Apple, the Center of the Universe. You don’t sleep there, you party there!” She flicked me on the forehead and I flinched away from her.

“It’s too early for violence,” I mumbled.

“We get some time to ourselves, don’t we? I’m pretty sure I saw that in the itinerary,” Dylan said, snatching it from Emma’s hands and flipping through it.

“We get two hours every day, then dinner, and we have a little bit of nightlife to enjoy as well,” she replied.

“I don’t think we’re allowed to embrace the nightlife the way you’re thinking, Emma. We’re probably not permitted to underage clubs,” I said.

“Hey, what happens in New York stays in New York,” Robbie said with a wink and a smirk that were decisively Machiavellian. Something about the look in his eyes made me feel very uneasy.

It was not even ten minutes in, and already I was beginning to question how low-key this trip was going to be, because from what I could only assume so early in, it was turning out to be a little less music-oriented, and a lot more reckless.