Is Natalie even in the same room this year? Would she still have the same posters of our favorite anime on her wall? Did she keep the framed photo of the two of us at our seventh-grade Kekri dance? I’d cried getting dressed that night, not wanting to wear the dress my mom had bought me and not really understanding exactly why yet.
It was only when Natalie spelled real flames along the hem that I didn’t hate it and had managed to go. The magic lasted barely long enough to make a grand entrance, but it was awesome and it left holes charred in the fabric, which meant I never had to wear the thing again. Actually, I think that’s the last time I wore a skirt at all.
“Going up?” Morgan shatters the memories misting up my thoughts.
“I don’t know. Maybe this is silly. We’re not friends anymore. Maybe that thing at the lake was all some sort of joke.”
“You don’t actually believe that,” he says.
With a sigh, I summon the elevator and we ride it to the fourth floor, still reserved for Fajro members.
Nothing here has changed, all rosy-pink wallpaper and worn wooden floorboards with the Fajro crest stenciled onto the wall graffiti-style. Room 422 still has Natalie’s name tacked above the number, the letters curly and individually laminated. I knock, but there’s no reply.
“Maybe she went to school.” I’m desperate and grasping because the alternative means admitting the contents of my pocket really are the signs of a struggle.
“She wasn’t in math.”
“Maybe her schedule changed.”
“I can open it.” Morgan waggles his fingers.
“Maybe she’s sleeping?”
He raises his eyebrows at me.
“Okay, fine. Do it,” I bite out.
Morgan carves the fire rune kaunaz across the wood with his fingers and mutters the spell to activate the more destructive aspect of the rune. The spell works instantly, and I’d be impressed if I wasn’t suddenly battling freezing nose hairs and rime-coated eyelashes as his magic sucks energy from the air. The door pops open, old hinges creaking.
Her room doesn’t look any different: same lilac bedspread and matching curtains, same posters of Sailor Moon and Death Note on the walls, and fairy lights strung around the headboard. Natalie’s desk is a mess of social studies papers, and above it on the wall is a large collage in the shape of a butterfly made up of photos. Mostly selfies of Natalie and her BFFs.
There, right in the middle of the butterfly’s body, is the Kekri photo of the two of us. A fist squeezes tight around my heart and I can feel the blood vessels bursting between those clenched knuckles. I’m not sure why seeing it hurts so much. We’re standing with our arms around each other, both smiling. What we had was so good until I destroyed it.