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B flat.
She climbs into bed, and holds me until I fall asleep.
And when I dream, it’s of piano keys and flickering swirls of brown and gold and red.
CHAPTER TEN
Sometimes, I wish I could disappear.
That I could slip on a magic cloak.
Or a ring.
Or I could touch the wall, and melt into it.
I wish I was like Susan Storm, mutated by radiation, able to create force fields, keeping me and everything and everyone I care about inside it invisible and untouchable.
AGE 11, MARCH
“Happy birthday to JJ, happy birthday to you-UUUU.”
Izzy and Mason sing out the final you as loud as they can, their voices carrying, echoing loudly across the blue and red-streamered dining room.
My sister, as always, sounds like a dying cat.
Mason sounds like….
Well, he sounds good, and I don’t even think he notices or cares that he can hit pretty much any note he wants, and he’s only ten. Or at least that’s what Dad said once, after Mom scolded me for not doing the dishes, and Mason belted out perfectly from the dining room, “Jeremy the Wicked!”
Everyone burst into laughter at that, the whole dishes thing forgotten. Even I couldn’t help but smile, though my cheeks were on fire and I kind of wanted to hide.
“Make a wish, JJ,” Mom says now, grinning behind the digital camera.
My lips purse and I duck my head, blond hair swinging over my eyes.
I wish…
Inhaling, I close my eyes, and blow out my candles all in one go. Everyone cheers, and my face burns as I slink down in my seat.
I peek a glance over at Mason, then down at my Avengers cake, smoke from the candles curling up toward the chandelier. It’s small and round with blue icing—chocolate inside—made just for the group of us.
Izzy’s—which is a marble sheet cake and decorated black and white with red roses and the mask from Phantom of the Opera painted on it, her newest obsession—is a lot bigger because she has a bunch of kids from her class coming over later.
Her party’s taking place in the garage, because there’s more room. She spent all day yesterday decorating it with Mom.
I don’t have anyone else but who’s here—friends my age, that is—and I’m okay with that. I’m homeschooled now. Have been since the start of fourth grade, this year.
After that day in transition years ago, when Mason shoved Clay, the bullying stopped for a while, at least for the most part. Teachers were watching more closely. I was never alone before school anymore. Either I had Mason and Waylon to hang out with, or I’d go wait in the classroom instead.
Other than some mumbled teasing when passing by each other in the hallways or cafeteria, Clay and his friends left me alone.
And then I got to third grade, and I don’t know what happened.
Everything changed.
It was no longer just Clay and Mikey and Ethan, but everyone, it felt like. There were all these rumors, probably ones Clay and his friends started—they were the cool kids after all; everyone listened to them. Things said about me that made all the boys keep a distance from me, and give me disgusted looks like I smelled or something. Things that made girls giggle and point and whisper about…
And it all seemed to come down to the way I spoke.
