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“I’d really like to meet your life coach,” the guidance counselor said. “You should have him come in so we can discuss what the school can do to help you get well.”
You know what, Rowan? I think the pyre was more enjoyable than this.
Light yourself on fire, then. That should end the meeting in a hurry.
Lily tried not to laugh out loud and endured the rest of the questions about her treatment. She managed to put most of the lingering questions about her disappearance to rest, but she still didn’t get out of the principal’s office until lunch.
“Lily. Over here,” Tristan called, waving her over. He was sitting at a table with Breakfast and a girl named Una Stone. Lily made her way over to them, ignoring the stares and whispers that shadowed her every move.
“This is nice,” Lily said. “Strange. But nice. When did the three of you start hanging out together?”
Tristan was probably the most popular person at Salem High, and he usually spent lunch surrounded by fawning girls and jealous jock guys. Breakfast was well liked by everyone, but he was a giant geek. Lily barely knew Una, although she’d always admired her cool intelligence and had wanted to make friends with her. Una was the kind of girl who tended to wear a lot of black clothes and bloodred lipstick, and she had at least a dozen tattoos and even more piercings. Add skinny, redheaded, sheer-dress-in-January-wearing Lily and they made just about the weirdest group anyone had ever seen sitting at a lunch table.
“Right about the time you disappeared,” Breakfast said, sliding out a chair for Lily.
“Breakfast and me were the last two to see you, besides your sister,” Tristan said. He huffed in frustration. “And we went through a lot of crap with the police over that, you know.”
“Sorry,” Lily said for what felt like the thousandth time. She looked at Una. “How’d you get dragged into this?”
“I was his alibi,” Una replied, tipping her chin at Breakfast. “I saw him after you took the ice bath.”
“I was really upset by the whole near-death thing,” Breakfast said, blushing and reaching for Una’s hand under the table. “I needed consoling.”
“Then I guess we got used to each other,” Una finished, indulging the handholding for a moment, before reverting to her usual self-contained posture.
“Actually, they were the only ones who were willing to hang out with me anymore,” Tristan said quietly.
“Why?” Lily asked.
“I was the last person with you, Lily. Everyone saw me carry you out of that party half dead and then Juliet heard us get into that fight,” Tristan replied, frustrated, like Lily should have considered that. “I think even she was starting to wonder if I’d killed you.”
“Oh my God,” Lily gasped.
“Now she gets it.” Tristan sat back, shaking his head at Lily. “The FBI started hassling me, you know.”
“Simms,” Lily said under her breath.
She looked around the cafeteria and noticed that the stares and whispers weren’t entirely directed at her. She glared at a few fellow senior girls, who were casting suspicious eyes at Tristan, and made a mental note to ask Rowan if he had a brew that would give them a raging case of acne. When she looked back at Tristan to apologize again, she realized that he was staring intently at her throat.
“What’s that?” he said, reaching out for the willstones hidden beneath her collar.
“Just a necklace,” Lily replied, hastily covering her willstones with a hand.
“May I see?” Una said, leaning forward with keen interest. Breakfast leaned forward, too, trying to peer through Lily’s palm.
“Maybe some other time,” Lily said lightly. “I’m a little superstitious about it.”
They all forced themselves to look away. Lily knew what it meant, and why she had always been interested in Tristan, Breakfast, and Una. They all had some kind of magical talent that was drawing them to her—and maybe to each other, too.
“You promised me gossip, Breakfast,” Lily said, changing the subject. “I want to hear all the nastiest tidbits first.”
After lunch, the new group of friends didn’t go their separate ways. Una and Breakfast walked Tristan and Lily to their next class, and then they all met up again a period later at Lily’s locker. When school was over, the four of them loitered around Tristan’s car in the parking lot. It was as if they didn’t want to be separated from her, and it took Lily a moment to realize that they were expecting her to ask them all back to her house to hang out after school.
Lily made an excuse about her mom still being a little sensitive since she’d come back, and promised that she’d have them over soon to meet Rowan.
“So, who is he anyway?” Una asked, a feline smile pursing her cherry-red lips.
“He’s my life coach,” Lily said awkwardly.
