That Witch! (2 page)

Or wait, did she?

Ugh!

The bell rang just as Brynn hit the second floor. Doors opened. Chatter filled the halls. People came barreling by as they went to their lockers. Brynn dropped her backpack off at hers. She tucked everything away in the cramped metal locker, then slammed the door and twisted the knob to lock it back into place. Just as she spun on her two-inch platform heels, she came face-to-face with the one person in the entire school she’d done a real good job of avoiding.

Cassidy Rivers.

“Why were you staring at me, freak?” Cassidy all but spat at Brynn—manicured brows arched, arms crossed over her chest, perfect pink nails tapping against her upper arms.

“I… um…,” Brynn stuttered, hugging herself a little tighter.

“‘I… um…’ what? Did you see something you like?”

“Your necklace,” Brynn blurted for God only knew what reason.

Cassidy laid her palm over the golden knot, but she didn’t look away from Brynn, didn’t look any less put off by Brynn’s presence. Her pink lips pursed, but she didn’t say a word. In fact, neither of them said anything. They just kept staring at each other because apparently, neither of them knew how to speak anymore.

“Well,” Cassidy finally said, nostrils flaring, upper lip curling in disgust, “maybe you should find something else to ogle, because I don’t appreciate being the object of your affection.”

And with those last biting words, Cassidy pushed by Brynn with so much force it made her stumble to the side. Brynn swung back around, glaring at the back of Cassidy’s body as she sauntered over toward her clique.

“You don’t have to be so mean,” Brynn yelled across the way. “I mean, I was going to tell you the necklace was neat… that’s all, but really, it looks ridiculous on you.”

Cassidy twirled around again. The kids surrounding her all laughed. She kicked out one booted foot and cocked her hip to the side, one hand resting at her waist while the other arm held her pink purse.

“Jealous, Nightmare On My Street?”

“What?”
What the hell did that mean?

“Are. You. Jealous. Of. Me. Brynn?” she asked slowly, enunciating every word.

“No, as a matter of fact, I’m not. I pity you.”
What a lie.

“You”—Cassidy pointed to Brynn, then thumbed back at herself—“pity me? You
have
to be kidding. I have what everyone wants. What do you have?”

Well, as a matter of fact, Brynn had brains, and she was cute but not vain. She had the best friend anyone could ask for and two very loving parents. She had good grades and a ticket out of suburban California. She had everything she wanted… except the one person she’d been most fascinated with her entire high school career.

Instead of some biting, snarky comeback, Brynn hugged her book tighter and looked away. She absolutely refused to play this game with Cassidy, especially in front of all Cassidy’s friends. She would only be laughed at, and right now, she had more important things to worry about.

She pushed through the group of popular kids as they laughed and teased her. Despite their bullying, she didn’t let them get to her. She ignored them as she continued down the hall to her calculus class, and she sat down at her desk as if none of that had ever happened. Brynn painted a smile on her face—as fake as it was—pulled out her pencil and her book, and readied herself for that stupid exam. Soon enough, the day would be over, and she could drown her miseries in a little music, maybe even a Tim Burton classic.

Yes, she really was
that
stereotypical.

“U
GH
,
the nerve of that spaz,” Cassidy muttered under her breath, more to herself than to Jenna, one of her friends who’d caught up to her.

She hiked her pink Juicy Couture purse up onto her shoulder and stopped at the locker where she kept the textbooks for her second-floor classes. Some ugly, no-name, nerdy kid with a crush had offered his locker to her at the beginning of the year so she wouldn’t have to carry her books up and down the stairs. Who was going to argue with that?

“What spaz?” Jenna asked, leaning one sun-kissed, bare shoulder against the locker beside Cassidy’s. She had an inquisitive look in her eyes, the one she got right before she went all Judge Judy and started with her 977 questions.

Cassidy wasn’t going to take the bait. Her lunch was still digesting. The apple and raspberry salad she’d brought from home would surely come up if she had to admit to speaking to that Frankenbride, Brynn. Gah, what had she been thinking? Why did she approach her like that? She would be the social outcast of the century if anyone saw her talking to the creepy emo girl from Loserville with that wannabe friend of hers, Laura or Laurie or something.

“What spaz?” Jenna pressed again.

This time, she tapped her French-manicured acrylic nails against the metal locker door as a show of impatience.
Really? Who did she think she was?
Cassidy Rivers didn’t answer to anyone until she was good and ready, and she wasn’t anywhere near good or ready to talk about Brynn.

“Some loser who bumped into me. Forget it,” she replied in a tone that told Jenna to call off her inquisition.

It worked. Jenna pushed off the locker and shrugged her shoulders in indifference, causing the spaghetti straps of her tank top to slide down. She was impossibly thin and bony, and sometimes Cassidy swore the chick took the finger-to-the-throat approach after eating. Whenever she did eat, that was.

“Whatevs. I’m gonna head to Government and Economics. See you at practice after school.” It wasn’t even a question.

Cassidy almost replied with her systematic “yeah.”

She had been on the cheerleading squad since her freshman year and never missed a single practice. She was the captain of the squad and had a regional cheer competition to train for, but her mom had pleaded with her to come straight home after school because her grandmother, aka Nana, was coming into town for a while, and they were supposed to pick her up from the airport.

She’d complained and argued, dramatically pointing out that it was going to ruin her life if she lost regionals because her mother was too codependent to make a simple airport run. In the end, however, her mom gave her the sad look she reserved for guilt trips, which were usually followed by the “I’m doing the best I can as a single mother” speech, and Cassidy agreed. Reluctantly and tight-browed, but she’d agreed nonetheless.

“I won’t be at practice today,” Cassidy replied curtly. “Gotta go do this thing with my mom. Lead the squad in the basic formations and get them tighter on their finishing routine.”

Jenna’s toffee-colored eyes grew so wide Cassidy feared they would pop out of their sockets, and the eyeball juice would ruin her Michael Kors cashmere sweater.

Before her friend started in on another round of questions, Cassidy shut her locker door and turned to walk away, leaving Jenna still standing there, mouth agape. Whatever. She was cocaptain. She could deal.

As if she was going to admit to picking up her grandmother.
Puh-leeeease
. Who in the world skipped cheer practice to hang out with old people? Well, secretly, she did, but it wasn’t anyone’s business. As a matter of fact, as she walked down the hall to her fifth-period biology class, she reiterated to herself for the thousandth time that day, none of the people she called her friends really knew much at all about the real her.

She worked hard to maintain her image. Cassidy Rivers was the popular girl. She was the captain of the varsity cheerleading squad, senior class president, and the one with the expensive clothes and brand new car. She only had the coolest friends and was always the determining voice in what, or who, was in or out. She ran the school fundraisers and headed the pep rally coordination, as well as governed over the homecoming dance preparation. She was the girl every other girl wanted to be.

And yet, she wasn’t herself at all.

She walked into the classroom, took her usual seat in the back row of desks, and stared out the large bay window to her left. The bright California sunshine beckoned her, just as nature always did. She always felt compelled to go outside and enjoy the breeze, bask in the warmth of the sun, or appreciate the beauty of the beaches. The trees seemed to whisper her name, dropping leaves in a show of respect as she walked by. When lit, candles flickered a little brighter around her. Water changed to perfect temperature without her having to adjust the knobs. Even the air around her crackled with energy. Energy people thought came from her attitude, but in reality was just her magic.

Yes, the real Cassidy Rivers came from a long line of witches dating back almost two hundred years before the Salem trials. No pointy shoes, though. Ugh. As if. Like the devil, witches wore Prada too. She looked down at her heeled boots to silently affirm that statement.

So she was a witch, but of course, no one knew. Actually, she didn’t want the magic that bugged the heck out of her more and more each day. As a younger girl, it was nothing more than an odd attraction to all things in nature, but as she grew, so did the darn powers. If she wasn’t careful, she could expose herself with something as absentminded as snapping her fingers—which had recently proven to light
all
the candles in her bedroom one evening, scaring the crap out of her cat, Louie, in the process.

She only had the cat because the darn thing had followed her home when he was a kitten and refused to leave. She let him sit outside for three days before finally asking her mom if he could come inside. Her mother agreed all too quickly, which was weird for a woman who didn’t even approve of pet fish, but whatever.

“Good afternoon, class. Please open your textbooks to page eighty-two and silently read the lesson on cellular respiration.” Mrs. Wright’s gritty voice broke her away from her thoughts. She grabbed the book sitting on her desk and flipped the hard cover open, ready to turn to the chapter she needed to read. But when she looked down, the name scribbled across the inside made her huff in exasperation. “Brynn Michaels.”

Ugh, what was it with that chick already? And why was she eyeballing her necklace earlier? The same necklace Nana had given her when she turned thirteen, along with a ridiculously long speech about the responsibilities tied to their heritage, the powers she would be coming into, yada yada yada. Truth be told, she wasn’t really listening then, and she refused to pay any more attention to Brynn today too.

“T
IME
’
S
up,” Mrs. Temple said from behind her desk. Pencils clacked against wooden desktops. Students sat back in their chairs. Some had confident smiles on their faces. Others looked scared to death. Brynn felt good about this exam. There weren’t too many equations that had tripped her up. That last minute studying she’d done during lunch really helped, despite the pause for the Cassidy Rivers show.

“Pass your papers forward.”

Mrs. Temple stood from her chair and walked down the front of each row of desks, peasant skirt elegantly flowing behind her as she strode across the room to collect the finished tests. Her light-brown hair was pulled back in a tight bun as always, brown-eyed stare looking over the class, sizing up each and every student, even though she probably already knew who’d passed and who’d failed.

The bell rang, and most of Brynn’s fellow classmates scattered like rats from a burning building. Brynn hung back to avoid the crowded rush and the lackadaisical bodies meandering through the halls. She quietly gathered her book and pen and the notebook that went everywhere with her. It was filled with all her silly, random musings—from things she loved to things that bothered her, and little notes about songs and bands or books she wanted to remember. The equivalent of a journal, she supposed.

Brynn made her way out to the crowded hall, pushing past all the tragically hip and the devastatingly beautiful, through the nerds huddling around their comic books and the jocks who hit on cheerleaders every chance they got. She navigated through the masses and back toward her locker to grab the book for her next class.