As You Wish (9 page)

I CRINGE.

I can't watch this. I don't mean the abysmal movie that's playing—I mean Aaron practically on top of Viola. He brushes her hair aside and nuzzles her neck like they're in some sort of love hideaway instead of a half-full theater. I grit my teeth and touch the lock of hair by my temple, the single curl that's shorter from where Viola cut it.
Stop it,
I command myself.
They're just kissing. If you keep this up, she's going to realize you're here.

Someone behind me tosses ice at them; it grazes across Viola's cheek, causing her to jerk back from Aaron's lips. She
gives an apologetic glance to the guy who threw the ice, looking right through me as I sit invisible in the row behind her. Even though I know she can't see me, I freeze, afraid to be caught; not so much because this breaks the first protocol about respecting her, but rather because I know she'll be furious with me. But I couldn't stand the thought of her and Aaron here alone, especially not after the wishes I saw in Aaron's eyes when he picked her up…wishes that mostly involve scenes straight out of Playboy. I shiver.
She's not yours to protect,
I chant to myself. It doesn't help.

The wishes in Viola's eyes are nothing like Aaron's—she wishes to be watching a comedy, to be cuddling with Aaron on her living room couch, to be painting. She doesn't want to be here. And the public makeout session in the middle of a gory movie in a sticky-floored theater? Can't Aaron read her wishes at
all
? I should've included that ability when I made him love her.

I sigh.
Tell him no, Viola. This isn't what you want.

Viola doesn't speak. Aaron smiles, then kisses her again.

Tell him no!

Viola kisses Aaron back, and I clench my fists.
Don't give in like this just because he loves you!
Aaron's hand slips down and runs up Viola's thigh.

I should leave. I shouldn't be here. I'm just a wish granter! I shouldn't have any other relationship with my master.

But then I see Viola's face, which is overwhelmed in wishes for
everything
about the situation to be different. Hot anger floods through my body, and I lunge over the seats, forgetting to be invisible to Viola.

I grab the collar of Aaron's shirt and yank him off her with more force than necessary, thrusting him back into his seat. Aaron stares at Viola, confused and unable to see me.

“What just happened?” Aaron says, rubbing his head where it rebounded off the red velvet seat.

I could ask you the same thing,
I think, breathing hard in anger. But I know what happened, what
really
just happened:

I'm…jealous.

Wait. No. I can't be jealous. My fingers tense and I can feel my pulse throbbing under my skin. My heart pounds in my chest and my mind races. The image of Viola and Aaron
collides with the realization that I'm
jealous
. Jealousy is a mortal emotion. One that means I feel I have something to lose—something that, if gone, will tear away a part of me. Jealousy is not for my kind. And yet there it is: I'm jealous. Aaron gets to touch her, gets to be seen with her….

I look at Viola, whose eyes are wide in a combination of shock and anger—making it tricky to read any wishes beneath them. She's staring at me with flames in her eyes, but then lets her gaze fall back to Aaron.

“Candy. I want some candy. I'll be right back,” she says icily, nearly shaking. Someone in the back of the theater shushes her, but she grits her teeth and looks at me. Fury invades her eyes, casting aside her wishes. She snatches her purse from the adjacent seat, and I follow her as she storms down the lighted stairs to the dark hallway. When we're right beside the exit, she wheels around to face me, her face sharp and shadowed by the light pouring through the door's tiny window.

“What do you think you're doing?” she demands in a harsh whisper.

I wince at the pull of her direct questions—she wants
answers so badly that it hurts me, twisting my stomach around and seizing my muscles. “I'm pulling a guy off you when you clearly don't want to make out while eyeballs are melting right in front of you. You don't want to be here, Viola, I see it—”

“That doesn't matter!” Viola hisses, taking a step closer to me. “It's not your job to pull my boyfriend off me! And you don't get to choose who I make out with! Just because you can read my wishes doesn't mean you get to call the shots!” She leans back against the wall as a teenage stranger with “I wish there was a closer bathroom” written all over his face runs down the dark hall and slams through the exit.

Viola's face whirls back to anger as soon as he's passed. “What makes you think you can chaperone me like that?” she says with an uncharacteristic snarl.

I hesitate. The real answer is: because I'm jealous. But I can't be, I shouldn't be, so instead of saying it, I avoid it.

“You know what? Fine,” I snap back at her. “I shouldn't have broken protocol,
master
.”

“It has nothing to do with me being your master!” she yells. “You shouldn't have done it because you're my friend!”

“We aren't supposed to
be
friends!” I erupt in frustration. “We aren't supposed to be like this! I'm supposed to grant your wishes and leave, and in two wishes I can do that. I stop breaking protocol, you get your life back, and I get back to Caliban and start acting like a jinn instead of some stupid mortal. It's better for everyone.”

“Fine then, I'll wish!” she shouts.

But I disappear before she can.

I HOLD IN
a sigh of relief when I realize Jinn is gone. I don't really have a wish, and I'm not sure I would've been able to wish on the spot like that. Anger rushing through me, I storm into the brightly lit theater lobby, which is flooded with the smell of burnt popcorn. I want to go home, right now, but Aaron drove. I yank my cell phone from my purse and call Lawrence—I think Aaron would leave the movie for me, but I hate to make him go before the last teen gets eviscerated.

“Can you come get me?” I say flatly when he answers the phone.

“I thought you were with Aaron,” he says in alarm.

“I am, but…I've got to get out of here.”

“What happened? Did Aaron try anything? Where is Jinn?”

“He's the problem, not Aaron. Look, please, I just want to go home instead of trying to stomach the rest of this awful horror thing we're seeing.”

“Be there in fifteen minutes,” Lawrence replies nervously, and I hear his car growl to a start. I snap the phone shut and dip back into the theater. Aaron welcomes me by wrapping an arm around my waist and pulling me into him, all without turning away from the movie.

“No,” I whisper, trying to resist sinking into his side. “I have to go.”

“Huh?” Aaron says, yanking his stare away from the screen. Someone shushes us again.

“It's a…family thing, sort of,” I mutter, trying to hide the surge of frustration that arises when I think about Jinn spying on me. “I called Lawrence, though. Go ahead and stay.”

“Well…I should take you home,” Aaron says, looking longingly at the screen.

“No, really, it'll be fine.”

“Okay,” Aaron replies, looking a little relieved. He pulls me forward and kisses me, but I dart back, hyperaware now that Jinn very well could be lingering nearby. How am I supposed to know if he's gone or not? I hurry back to the lobby, trying to avoid the confused glances of the staff as I wait for Lawrence to arrive. When his car pulls up outside, I practically run to it and slide down in the passenger seat, slinging my purse into the back.

I stare straight ahead as Lawrence pulls out of the parking lot, and wait until the silence is thick before I finally vent. “Jinn was there, spying on me. He was invisible.”

“Ouch,” Lawrence says, but his voice has a strange sense of relief.

Words flood my mouth. “He pulled Aaron off me! Like some sort of big brother or babysitter! I can't believe him!” I growl. I can feel my cheeks turning an even deeper scarlet as I remember seeing Jinn lurking behind us, and then the expression on Aaron's face when he thought
I
shoved him away.

“He was just looking out for you, probably,” Lawrence says.
His calm only enrages me more.

“Looking out for me? If I want to make out with my new boyfriend in a theater—”

“Make out? You hate PDA,” Lawrence says, raising an eyebrow.

“Whatever, Lawrence. That's not the point. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. Not that it lasted long, thanks to Jinn. I've finally started feeling…I don't know, like I'm in control of my life, but then big brother genie decides to make all my choices for me.”

Lawrence turns to me as we roll to a stop at a red light. “Invisible spying, okay, that crosses the line. But I can't exactly hate him for watching out for my best friend. Especially if Aaron was getting you to act like…well, to act like someone you aren't.”

He says the words like they're supposed to be sweet or endearing. But my jaw clamps shut, and my mind races. Are Lawrence and Jinn in on this together? They both think I need a guy to babysit me on dates, like some sort of 1890s society girl? I fight the tension in my throat.

“It's not Jinn's job to save me—or yours! What, do you think I need a babysitter? That you have to take care of me?” I snap.

Lawrence puts a hand to his forehead. “Not like that—”

“Apparently,
just
like that! I'd rather both of you just leave me alone!”

Lawrence's eyes glitter angrily in a way I rarely see, and I realize I've crossed some sort of line I didn't know existed. “Leave you alone?” Lawrence begins quietly. Something in his voice is more serious, more severe than a response to my anger at him and Jinn for breaking my trust. Some deeper issue is bubbling underneath, ready to rise to the surface. “Do you really want that?” he continues. “I do everything for you, Viola. I drive you around, I listen when you cry, I cancel plans if you're lonely. Without fail, if you need something, I'm
always
there. So now, when you're making out with
Aaron Moor
, acting like someone I don't know, I'm suddenly supposed to leave you alone?” By the time he finishes, he's just short of shouting. Someone behind us lays on the car horn, and Lawrence jerks the car forward when he realizes the light has turned green.

“It doesn't matter!” I snap back as Lawrence takes a sharper turn than normal. “Being my friend and spying on me—”

“Your friend? You don't treat me like a friend, Viola. You've never stopped treating me like your boyfriend!”

My mouth drops open, and I choke on my words as a few tears of anger finally slip down my cheeks. That was low. “I'm so sorry that after
two years together
, it's hard to revert back to friendship, especially when you're trying to control my relationships with other guys!”

“Relationships? Plural? So far Aaron is the only relationship you've had, and you don't even really love him!”

“You
know
that wish was an accident—”

“No, it wasn't! Maybe you didn't really want Aaron specifically, but you've spent the last seven months feeling sorry for yourself, and suddenly here comes this jinn who can fix your problems.”

“That's not how it was! I didn't even mean to say it—”

“But you
wanted
it the whole time! You wanted to stop feeling invisible, I get that—but you could've made that happen on your own. Couldn't you have tried to talk to people,
tried to move on, tried to be
yourself
instead of almost letting your entire existence end with our relationship? You didn't have to drag Aaron or Ollie or me into this. I mean, did it ever occur to you, Viola, why I suddenly came out, yet you don't see me dating? Haven't you ever wondered?”

“I didn't ask for Aaron—” I protest.

“Because of you!” Lawrence cuts me off, slamming on the brakes at a stop sign in my neighborhood. He shoves the gear shift into park and turns toward me. “Every time I'm interested in a guy, I know that if I tell the one person I
want
to tell about it—my best friend—she'll feel more ‘invisible' than before!” A car speeds by, horn blasting at us for stopping in the middle of the street. Lawrence ignores it and continues, quieter this time. “And it's going to happen again, Viola. You don't love Aaron. You'll split with him, and until
you can make yourself happy
, no amount of wishing is going to stop you from feeling invisible in the long run. You've got to let go of the past and stop beating yourself down.”

“Let go? I
loved
you, Lawrence, you know that! You
let
me love you—” I argue.

“What was I supposed to do, hold off telling you I'm gay until you fell
out
of love with me—”

“You should have told me sooner!”

“I didn't know—”

“
I
knew!” Tears spring to life in my eyes, and I don't even know what I'm crying about—Jinn spying, Lawrence agreeing with him, or
this
. I continue, “I knew, Lawrence, even if I didn't say it! And if I knew, you knew! You didn't say anything, you let me go on believing—”

“Then you should have gotten out!” Lawrence returns, but his voice has softened. “You had the choice. You just waited for me to make it for you. Just like you waited for wishes to stop being invisible.” He looks back to the road, puts the car in drive, and eases forward.

“Don't put this on me,” I say through my tears. “I may need you for a lot of things, Lawrence, but you still should have told me. And if it hurts you to see me happy with Aaron, then fine. You hurt me first. You deserve it.
Leave me alone.
”

I look at Lawrence for a long time, but he doesn't turn to me or even appear to take a breath. In just moments, we're
pulling into my driveway. Lawrence's jaw flexes, and I realize he's gritting his teeth. He stops the car abruptly but continues to stare through the car windshield, like I'm not even there. I search my mind for something else to say, something to continue the fight, but instead I grab my purse from the backseat and throw the door open. I slam it behind me and watch as Lawrence pulls out of my driveway and speeds off without so much as a glance in my direction.