When We Were Magic by Sarah Gailey (best books to read non fiction TXT) 📕

anymore,” Marcelina whispers. “My head is so full. I’m learning how to deal with it, but … it’s so much, you know?”

My fault, all my fault.

“I can’t cry,” Roya says. She says it casually as she’s finishing my burrito, but she won’t make eye contact with anyone. “I went back to the reservoir like we talked about, and I dove down and got the bag with the arm, and I got rid of it for real. With my magic. And then afterward, I was fighting with my mom because I got home after curfew, and I felt like crying, and I wanted to cry, and I couldn’t. So I went online and found one of those videos that always makes me cry? And I couldn’t. I felt all the feelings, but I couldn’t cry.” Her voice breaks and I wonder if she wants to cry now. “This sounds stupid. It sounds like it’s not a big deal, but it feels like a big deal.”

“I mean, if anything sounds like not a big deal, it’s fucking freckles,” Iris says, and everyone laughs, but Marcelina and Maryam both shake their heads at the same time.

“It’s a big deal,” Maryam says. “It’s all a big deal. You all lost things.” She looks at me. “What about you, Alexis?”

I shake my head. “It’s not important.”

“It’s important,” Roya says, and when I look at her, she’s staring at me with eyes that would be crying.

“I think, um. I think I can’t dream.” I say it to everyone, but I’m looking at Roya. She closes her eyes for a second, and when she opens them again, they’re still dry, and she looks stricken by it. “I go to sleep and it’s like I close my eyes for a few seconds and then open them again and it’s morning. And I can’t tell if I’m tired or not? I don’t know,” I finish awkwardly. “I—I don’t know.”

We sit under the weight of all the things we’ve lost. We look at our hands and we look at our food and we look at the scratched surface of the table. We look at those little things, because it’s too much to look at each other and see the magnitude of what’s happening to us.

“This is so fucked up,” Paulie whispers. “This is really bad.”

My fault, my fault, my fault.

“So what do we do?” Marcelina asks.

I straighten my back like Iris does before she says hard things. I clench my jaw like Roya does when she’s being brave. I summon the certainty that Marcelina brings to every word she says. I imagine that I have even a tenth of Paulie’s courage and confidence. I will myself to speak with Maryam’s quiet authority. If I can be anything like my friends, I can do this.

I can do this.

“Here’s what you do,” I say. “You give it all back to me. I know that I can’t fix what you’ve all already lost, but I swear to god I wouldn’t have let any of you help me if I’d known this would happen, and I can stop it from happening more, so. Give it all back to me, and I’ll get rid of all the … pieces. On my own.” I look each of them in the eye, making sure that they’re listening. “I’ll deal with whatever happens as a result. It’s my mess, and I really appreciate you guys trying to help me clean it up, but it’s hurting you. And I’m not going to let it hurt you any more than it already has.”

They look at each other, then back at me. Maryam’s got her hands folded in front of her on the table, neutral but still present, ready to be here for us. Her fingernails are silver today, and so is her eyeliner, and I know she must have been up late perfecting her technique to make them match so perfectly. It’s comforting to see something beautiful that she did with her magic, just because she loves it.

That’s what I think, instead of thinking about the thing I just committed to doing. I think of Maryam’s fingernails. I can’t be scared as long as I’m thinking of her fingernails.

Paulie clears her throat. “No.”

“ ‘No’ what?” I ask, still watching the light play over the shining silver of Maryam’s nails. There are little sparkles in the polish that I didn’t notice before.

“No, I’m not giving you my piece,” Paulie says. Behind her, someone drops their lunch tray. People laugh and do the whole sarcastic-clapping thing, but none of us look. “It’s mine. I took it and I don’t have to give it back just because you say so.”

“Me either,” Roya says sharply. I look up to find her glaring at me.

“Same,” Marcelina says. She pops a french fry into her mouth and levels a challenging stare at me.

“Yeah,” Iris says. “I mean … I already did mine, but I wouldn’t give them back if I still had them.”

“You guys, come on.” I try to make my voice sound like Pop’s voice does when he’s being lawyer-y, but it doesn’t quite work. “This is hurting you. It’s hurting you all so much, and it’s not going to hurt you anymore. It’s time for me to handle my mistake on my own.”

“Fuck that,” Paulie spits. “We aren’t going to let you kill yourself to protect us.”

“I don’t think—”

“Yeah, and screw you for thinking we would,” Roya says, and she sounds just as mad as Paulie.

“You idiot,” Marcelina says. She gets up and stands behind my chair, wrapping her arms around me. She feels soft and strong and furious. “You big stupid jerk, why the hell would you even say something like that?”

I awkwardly squeeze her elbows, then extricate myself. “I don’t think it’ll be that bad,” I say, and they look at each other like I’m being willfully ignorant.

“It would probably be that bad,” Maryam says. “I mean, look at the combined effects so far. Imagine if just one person lost what you’ve all