“Have you given any more thought to the camping trip?” Emmi asks. “We need to confirm numbers.”

Seriously? This still. “Um, I’m not sure.” Truth is, spending a long weekend away from school doing unmagical things with unmagical people doesn’t sound half bad. The only problem is that the annual camping trip intended as “a break from the magical and a return to the natural” will be yet another example of why Taika the Talentless doesn’t and will never belong at Myrskyjärvi.

“This year we’ll be joining a local school from Helsinki. It might be good for you to meet students more like yourself.” Emmi’s words are a knife through my chest. It hurts far more than any magical sucker punch could.

“More like me?” I wonder which aspect of me she’s referring to.

I feel Aysha looking at me with her laser beam stare, and I don’t even have to turn around to imagine the smug expression on her face. The tips of my ears burn. There’s a nasty, sour taste rising at the back of my throat as Emmi stumbles over her answer.

“Um, students like…er, the less magically inclined. But there might be other LGBT-plus students there too.” Her smile doesn’t make me feel any less awkward or embarrassed.

“I’ll think about it,” I mumble.

“Let me know as soon as possible,” Emmi says before sweeping into the school, escaping all the awkward.

How nice. Wish I could escape it too, but kind of hard to do that when it’s who I am.

“I hope you do go,” Aysha says. “And never come back.”

Gods, how I wish that too. There’s nothing I want more than to be free of Myrskyjärvi, free of the disappointment in my parents’ faces every time they look at me, free of asswipes like Ekaterina and Aysha, free of Natalie and the hole she’s left in my heart, free of the constant failure.

A deep exhale rattles the tears off my eyelashes, and I swat them away before forcing my feet across the threshold and back into the school. Just five more periods to go. It couldn’t possibly get any worse.

2

It’s gotten worse.

And it’s not only the unappetizing contents of my lunch tray. Can’t believe they’re still serving this stuff. I wrote a whole article about it last month giving pretty specific suggestions on how to overhaul the menu, and yet here I am with lukewarm boiled potatoes, mushy casserole with questionable meat content, and the saddest sludge of vegetables. This shouldn’t be legal.