Page 116 of Your Every Wish
And then he does the damnedest thing and kisses me.
* * *
“Can I talk to you for a second?” Emma pulls me away mid-conversation with Trapper Bing, who has come to the potluck as a bird watcher. Big shocker.
She drags me past the punch table into the bathroom with the leaky toilets where we can at least hear each other over the loud music.
“What’s going on?” She looks ashen and I fear she may have eaten some of that guacamole, which tasted a little off to me, like the avocados were too ripe. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t want to live with him.” Emma’s eyes well up.
“Him” is Dex. She doesn’t have to say his name for me to know that, because of course she doesn’t want to live with him. He’s a million times wrong for her. The fact that she’s only coming around to this news now is the astounding part.
“Even though I can’t afford to move back to San Francisco unless I move in with him, I’m good with that. I want to stay here. ”
“Okay.” I’m silently applauding. “Have you told him yet?”
“No. Whether you believe it or not, he loves me. I don’t think he did before I moved away, before Misty. But now I do, and I don’t want to hurt him.”
“I believe it. Of course I believe it. Never mind Misty. Who wouldn’t love you, Emma? You’re the most loveable person I’ve ever met. I’ve never liked the way Dex treats you but that doesn’t mean I don’t think he loves you. The thing is, do you love him?”
“I thought I did.” She tips her head back to keep the tears from rolling down her face. “But I don’t think so anymore. And now I’m stuck. Because of Misty’s stupid hex or whatever it is I’m stuck.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Misty didn’t make Dex love you.” Someone tries to come in, but I quickly bar the door and lock it.
“She found the money,” Emma says. “If it wasn’t for her, we never would’ve . . . well, I guess Liam eventually would’ve come clean. But the point is she made both our wishes come true and now we’re stuck with them.”
I grab some toilet paper from one of the stalls and hand it to her. “Wipe your nose. I definitely believe Misty has some sort of extrasensory perception. But this whole wish thing . . . it was a joke, Emma. It’s not real. Just tell Dex you don’t want to move in with him, that you need space.”
“It’ll crush him. I need him to not love me anymore. But even Misty said it’s for life.”
“Come on!” I throw my arms up in the air. “Even if Misty did her woo-woo thing, I can come up with a million ways you can crush the love right out of him. Believe me, it’s not that hard.”
“No, I need Misty to undo it, to make things go back to the way they used to be between us.”
“You mean back when you were a puddle of need and would take any bone he was willing to throw you? Look, I’m not trying to be cruel. But isn’t it better this way? Why do you have to be the needy one? Let it be him.”
“I don’t want either of us to be needy. I want it to be equal. And the truth is I don’t think he’s the one anymore. Now I feel guilty that I did this to him, that I sicced Misty on him . . . that according to her, his feelings for me will never go away. He’ll always love me because of the wish. I need her to make it right.”
It’s all I can do to tell her how ridiculous that sounds. With time, Dex will get over her. But if it’ll make Emma feel better to have Misty erase the “hex,” then we’ll have her do a counterspell . . . or whatever.
“Fine, we’ll go to Misty’s first thing tomorrow and tell her to undo whatever she did.”
“Really?” Emma sniffles. “You promise?”
“Of course. I’ll always have your back, Emma, just like you have mine.”
* * *
“Why can’t you just undo it?” I say to Misty, who’s insisting on making us breakfast.
“It doesn’t work like that.”
I want to sayCut the bullshit and at least go through the motions. Hocus pocus or whatever she needs to say or do to appease Emma, so my sister can dump Dex without guilt. I have no idea why she’d feel guilty in the first place. It’s not as if Dex is a prince. He treated her like crap in the past. But there you have it. Dex is a tool and Emma isn’t.
“How does it work, then?” Emma asks.
“A wish is a wish,” Misty says as she cracks eggs into a pan. “What’s done is done.”
