Despite her brother’s absence, Mira made it a point to continue passing by the house on her way to school. Her knocks were always met with silence, a bone-chilling one that sat heavily on her stomach and made her regret having breakfast each morning for fear of throwing it up. And, as per her conversation with Amelia, she wasn’t expecting to receive answers until Thursday of the coming week.

So when Magic was standing in the doorway waiting for her, Mabel cradled in his arms, Mira stopped short a few feet from the house.

Crisp December wind whistled between them, the distance from her feet to the porch steps an uncomfortable length. What the hell was he doing up this early?

Mira forced herself to approach. She was glad to see him, but that relief withered the closer she got. Magic had the gaunt, hollowed out face that suggested he’d been ill for a while and his sharp cheekbones that had given him an odd maturity to his appearance were unnaturally noticeable. On his bowed head, neatly resting against his ears were the reassuring metallic blue headphones that Mira assumed were his spares. They’d had little luck tracking down the originals.

When Benji told her that Magic looked a little thinner, Mira expected him to still look healthy. Not like he was barely holding himself together.

Mabel was throwing a fit in Magic’s arms; he didn’t seem to pick up on the tabby’s squirming and loud, distressed yowls, the latter of which she could excuse him for because of his headphones.

Mira propped a foot on the lowest step of the porch, hesitating. She should be glad to see him on his feet. But it felt wrong. “What are you doing?”

Her brother didn’t respond, only loosened his grip on the animal in his arms, to which Mabel paused and mewed curiously. Mira climbed further up the steps and it wasn’t until she got closer that she realized Magic had fallen asleep. While standing up.

She shook his shoulder and he roused, though he didn’t react as harshly as Mira assumed he would have. His head jerked up and he stood there, looking dazed and confused. She double checked that his headphones were on before placing a heavy hand on his shoulder and forcing herself into his line of sight. “Mags,” she said, “what are you doing?”

“What does it look like?” he replied. “Waiting for you.”

“Why?”

“School.”

“Amelia said you had until Thursday. It’s Monday.”

Magic frowned, lifting his head and pushing hair out of his face with a free hand. He adjusted his glasses for good measure. “Ignore her. I can manage myself.”

Mira gave an exasperated sigh. “Does she know? That you’re down here?”

His eyes went straight to the ground. “No.”

“Do you want me to tell her—?”

“No,” he said again. “I left a note.”

“Magic, you really should—”

“Stop. I’m okay, Mira. I’m just tired, that’s all.”

“Sleepy tired?” Mira asked, waving for him to follow. “Or sad tired?”

He considered the question, door clicking shut behind him as he fell into step three paces behind Mira. “Bit of both, I guess.”

“Would you like to talk about why you’re sad tired, then?”

Her brother’s silence made her turn around. Still several feet behind, Magic kept his head down, tucking Mabel towards his chest. “I don’t have the words for it … But can I sleep a little? When we get there?”

“By the alleyway? In that dump?”

He only shrugged, no other words to accompany his request.

And for the entire walk, Mira said nothing.

Which was a very difficult thing to do when all she wanted was to pester him with questions. Why was he doing this? Why was he so insistent on pushing himself before he was ready? But Mira knew those answers already. Magic was stubborn. Stubborn and so, so desperate to please.

The sluggish pace they kept from Magic’s house to the school building impacted their arrival time by ten minutes; Mira could hear the other students making their way towards the school, so she corralled her brother into the alley, sitting with him against the wall while Mabel lay cradled in his arms. As Magic leaned against her, asleep on her shoulder, Mira gently removed the cat from his arms and held the tabby close, pressing her lips between Mabel’s ears.

All of this was wrong.

Magic hated having his personal space invaded. Even after the incident in the bathroom stall, he moved away from and ahead of her the minute he was able to. Mira closed her eyes. She pushed away the images of Magic as he was seven years ago that raged against her eyelids.

As the chatter came and died away in waves, she nudged him with her foot. Magic mumbled something uselessly against the fabric of her coat.

“Mags,” said Mira, “you need to get up soon.”

“Five more minutes,” he moaned.

“I can give you that, but I don’t want you missing too much of your first class. What’s up with you?”

“I told you. I’m tired.”

Mira frowned. “I know you are—I can tell because I make such a wonderful pillow for someone who hates being touched. Have you been sleeping well? Amelia said you were having issues again.”

Magic nestled his head into her shoulder, face nearly smothered by her jacket.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Deflection in its purest form.

“Magic,” she said, as though she were scolding a child, “are you sleeping at night?”

“How much longer can I sleep?” he asked, and Mira had half a mind to shake him by the shoulders. She stopped herself after several long, deep breaths. December was rough for him as it was. She did not need to make him suffer more than he was already going to.

She opted for a side hug. Again, he didn’t flinch or move her arm away and Mira felt the wrongness of it all in the pit of her stomach like a heavy rock. “A few more minutes. Once the coast is clear, though, we gotta go. You’re not the only one missing a class, y’know.”

Magic nodded and resumed his nap while Mira played with Mabel, craving some form of a distraction. She turned off her brother’s headphones once the crowds died down, anticipating the period one bell. The headphones turned back on immediately after and she waved the tabby away to rouse her brother, who was still less than pleased about his early awakening.

“Try to keep your head up today, Mags,” she said as they entered the building. Now she felt him straighten beside her, posture tight. “I’ll see you for the class changes.”

“Go with me?” he asked, voice a strained whisper. “Philosophy?”

“I’ll go with you to Philosophy, yes. I’ll make sure they leave you alone before I go on my way.”

Magic nodded and gripped onto her jacket as they walked together to his class. She lingered in the doorway and waved to his teacher as he got to his seat. Several of the other kids glanced up in her direction before thinking better and looking elsewhere. They were frightened of her—as they should be, Mira tried to remind herself. But the truth of the matter was that they shouldn’t have to fear her. These kids barely knew her.

If that’s what it took, though, for them to leave her brother alone, then that was the angle she’d play.

Mira spent her next couple of classes worried and distracted. Janie tried tapping her on the shoulder between lectures to ask her questions, but Mira couldn’t figure out a way to answer in the middle of class without feeling the need to hit something.

Like usual, Magic had come to meet her outside her classes and, though her teachers glared at her as she left, they put up no fight and let her leave.

Except her brother wasn’t there by her Physics classroom like she was expecting.

He wasn’t at lunch, either.

And when she left the cafeteria early, roaming the halls for a trace of evidence regarding her brother’s whereabouts, she retreated to Miss Flannise’s art room to find that she was missing, too.

Mira sprinted countless laps around every floor of the building until her lungs gave out and her limbs grew tired, ignoring the questions from teachers and other staff who threatened to call the Headmistress and have her written up for loitering. So many things they could be worrying about and they choose to yell at her, of all people, for running in the hallways.

Go ahead, she thought, bolting up a flight to return to the high school floor. Write me up. See if I care.

When her search proved fruitless and the bell rang to signal the change between lunch and English, Mira detoured, pushing through the crowd of students to arrive at Magic’s own English classroom. To her surprise, there he was, headphones and all, sitting in the back of the room.

Her fists curled, gripping the ends of her shirt sleeves. Mira made sure her microphone was on when she said, “I nearly lost my shit looking for you.”

Magic flinched. Slowly, he turned his head in the direction of the doorway, looked between his teacher in the room—a stout, lively woman—and got up, walking out of the classroom to stand beside her. Oh, how tempted she was to scream.

“I ran up—and down—every. Flight. Of stairs. Looking for you.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled, looking away. “But you didn’t have to.”

The scoff left her mouth, along with the vicious, low laugh, before Mira could stop it. She fought the tremble in her voice and kept her voice quiet. As quiet as possible, that is. “I didn’t have to? I didn’t have to? After what happened the last time you didn’t show up by my classes?”

Magic pressed his lips in a tight, white line. He lifted his head, jaw muscles twitching. “That wasn’t my fault.”

“I never said it was.”

“Sure as hell sounds like it.”

“I’m concerned for you, Mags,” she said, extending her hands slightly, still curled into her sleeves. “I’m worried, Magic.” Her brother rolled his eyes, scoffing. Mira snagged him by the shoulder sleeve as he turned to walk away and held him in place. Magic retaliated by glaring at her from the side. “I don’t know what your problem is or what’s bugging you, but I am trying to help you and make your life easier.”

Something wrathful flashed in his eyes and she’d barely the time to process the yanking on her shirt and the push back until one of her shoulder blades hit a lock. The bell rang to signal the start of class, but Magic was still there with the subtle lip curl of a snarling dog.

“If you wanted to make my life easier,” he said, “you’d leave me the fuck alone.”

Mira bit into her lips to prevent the slow onset of tears and watched in stunned silence as her brother backed away and turned into the room.

When she reached for the microphone on her shirt to call him back, she paused, rubbing the fabrics between her fingers. The place where the tiny bulb was clipped was empty.

It was gone.

Magic did not look for her the rest of the day and the fact that he’d stolen her microphone left Mira reeling with deep-seated anger.

Nothing in her classes made sense and she wasn’t focused enough to remotely care. To her shock, even Callie nudged her in Geography to get her to pay attention but Mira couldn’t bring herself to. Despite her anger, though, she was eager to speak with her brother to resolve their issue—whatever that issue was.

She found him in the depths of the alleyway after school, cuddling with Mabel whose loud purrs could be heard even from the entryway of the corridor. Mira wasn’t entirely pleased with the idea that he was curled up on the ground where animals freely did their business or whatever else during the day, but at least he was safe.

Mira sat in front of him, prodding his arms. Mabel mewed curiously as though shocked to see her, but she continued doing this until Magic took a deep, sharp breath through his nose. He coughed a little—Mira assumed it was the smell—and fought to open his eyes.

“Morning,” she whispered.

“Afternoon,” he corrected, letting go of Mabel to push himself up into a sitting position and lean against the brick wall. Magic rubbed at his eyes from under his glasses. Staring at him from this angle, Mira saw how sickly he was, evident now far more than it was that morning.

Not that it changed anything about how stressed she’d been all day; Mira was inclined to just sit and stare and watch Magic squirm under the commanding glare she used to give him when they were young—the You’ve messed up big time look she’d seen so many of her peers give to their own siblings.

He seemed to be getting the message, though, because he fidgeted more with Mabel in his arms. “What?”

“Is there something you’d like to say to me?” she said.

He frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“I know December is rough for you, but you’ve never snapped at me like that.” She rubbed at her eyes, wiping tears away before they streaked her face. “And you should know better.”

She watched him look up and down the alleyway, as if the answer to her question lay somewhere down the path. There was a restlessness to his movements, squirrely and evasive. The realization settled. “The hallway …”

“What about the hallway?” she pressed, teeth gritted.

“I—I’m sorry. I just—I don’t; I was stressed; I didn’t know what to do, and you were mad at me and I couldn’t—I didn’t mean it, Mira, I—”

“I don’t care what you did or didn’t mean, Magic. That hurt. Especially from you of all people.”

Magic hugged the cat closer to his body, parts of his hand disappearing in the feline’s fluff.

Mira went on. “You never answered my question from this morning. Are you having nightmares?” Instead of directly answering, she watched his hold tighten on the tabby in his arms and Mira waved a hand in front of Magic’s line of sight to redirect his focus to the pressure he was applying. His grip loosened and the cat rolled onto her back, nestled in his arms.

“You know you can ask my dad and I if you need anything, right?”

“Yeah,” he whispered.

“Good. And if you need to stay home tomorrow, I won’t be mad if you don’t answer the door when I knock.”

“Okay.”

One word responses. We’re regressing. Mira allowed a small smile. “Just promise me one thing if you decide to come to school tomorrow.”

“Yeah?”

“Try not to be too snappy with me. I’m used to your sass, I don’t like you pushing me away like that.”

“Okay.”

“Promise me?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “I promise.”