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i.
On the first day, he decided not to push it. She was hurt, and though the whole ordeal had ended the day before with no thanks to him, it had been entirely his fault. Truth be told, leaving the spell on her really had been an accident, but it did nothing to change the fact that even when he realized the mistake he’d done nothing to help.
He tried to apologize for it that morning over breakfast, and even though the sincerity in his voice was more than genuine, it was met with a glare of indifference and not so much as a single word. He’d known better than to expect her outright forgiveness, and he knew better than to believe he deserved it.
So he let it be.
She left for school alone without waiting for Max and himself, and he tried to not let it hurt as much as it did. The commute to school felt hollow even as Max droned on about his most recent endeavors, but the feeling passed when they’d arrived and he allowed himself to be swept up in the casual, mindless chatter of his friends and his incessant focus on his classes.
He caught glimpses of her throughout the day, but never approached her. He watched from afar as she walked through the halls making conversation with friends from her art class, and as she ate lunch with Harper in the cafeteria. It was the first time she’d shown her face there in a week, and the first time that people didn’t avoid her like the plague.
Maybe it was what she needed, he thought. Maybe she just needed to be sure that the worst had passed and once everyone else had forgiven her, she could forgive him. He could hardly blame her for that.
She’d come around eventually—of that he was sure. It was them, after all, how could she not.
He didn’t mind when he realized that once again, she’d left school and returned home without him and Max. He didn’t try to make conversation or get her particular attention over dinner. And he most certainly did not spend the entire night tossing and turning, wondering if things would be different in the morning.
ii.
They weren’t.
It was a Saturday, and as usual, she’d slept in late enough that their parents had already retreated downstairs to open the Sub Station and Max had left to meet some friends in the park.
“Morning, Alex,” he said cheerily from his spot on the couch as she trudged her way into the kitchen.
Nothing. Which, to be entirely fair, wasn’t that unusual for Alex. She usually woke up groggy and unresponsive, but she’d also usually at least grunt out some kind of semblance of an acknowledgment.
She reheated a short stack of pancakes that Theresa had saved for her, but as soon as she deemed them warm enough for her liking, she took the plate up to her bedroom without so much as a glance in the direction of the living room.
His face fell—not that there was anyone around to see it. He sat in the empty silence of the loft for a moment as he turned the ordeal over in his mind. When exactly he made the decision to confront her about it, he couldn’t have said, but he was already halfway up the stairs by the time he realized where he was going.
He opened her bedroom door without hesitation or restraint and his eyes fell on her sitting up in her bed, a pancake halfway to her mouth as they met each other’s gaze.
“Good morning, Alex!” The smile on his face was strained, and his voice dripped with the sarcasm to match. She said nothing and instead returned her attention to the pancake.
“Alex, I said I was sorry. You can’t just ignore me forever!”
He was shouting at her now, and he knew it wasn’t exactly helping his case, but he figured making her angry enough to shout back would be better than their current state. She didn’t shout back though, or get mad, or even acknowledge that he was standing in front of her bed and shouting at all. He left and the moment ended as he slammed the door to her room shut behind him.
If that was the game she’d decided to play, he could play too.
He didn’t make any more attempts at speaking to her throughout the rest of the day. She saved him the effort of avoiding her in not leaving her bedroom until the stalemate came to an end at dinner. He didn’t spare her so much as a glance of acknowledgment throughout the whole ordeal. Though they sat side by side as always, he pointedly avoided her touch, dodging almost brushes of their arms against one another as they reached across the table. His body remained tense and rigid even after their retreats.
From the moment dinner was over, he returned back to his bedroom with the harsh sound of his chair scraping against the floor and his heavy footfalls petulantly stomping up the staircase.
iii.
On Sunday, he had hope.
With the new day had come clarity and he’d decided that maybe he just hadn’t tried hard enough. She had been ridiculed and ignored by every person she knew for an entire week, and all he’d done was say sorry and then get upset when she’d refused the apology. It was no wonder she was still ignoring him, so he tried again.
He woke up early—or at least early by Alex’s standards—and left before anyone could catch him slipping out. The streets had yet to fill as he walked the two blocks to Alex’s favorite art supply store, where they were just flipping the open sign as he approached the entrance.
She had mentioned to the whole family one night over dinner that she was planning to use the profits she was earning from the t-shirt sales to buy new art supplies. Of course that had been before he’d made her donate it to the school. Now, he figured if maybe his words hadn’t been enough of an apology, buying her those art supplies to make up for at least some of the losses he’d caused would be.
When he got back home, his arms desperately clutching at the overflowing bags he’d carried home, Alex was still asleep. Unlike Saturdays, their mother never made a big breakfast for the whole family on Sunday mornings, so he decided to take matters into his own hands.
He’d just finished setting the table when she finally came downstairs. She’d already gotten dressed, obviously having plans outside of the house for the day, but she paused on the bottom step of the stairs as she took in the sight before her. He’d laid out all of the art supplies he’d bought right onto the table—blank canvases, bottles of paint in as many colors as he could imagine she’d want, drawing pencils, a few brushes, and even a new sketchbook. Sat in front of all of it, was the food—plates filled with sizzling bacon and scrambled eggs, pancakes drenched in sweet syrup just as she liked them.
“I know that this is all my fault, and I know that you have every right to still be mad at me for it, but I’m trying to make it up to you in any way I know how.
“I’m sorry that I made you donate the money, and I’m sorry that I got jealous when you won the award, and I’m sorry that you had to pay the price for it and I didn’t even try to help you. I’m even sorry for yelling at you yesterday. I’m trying to be better, Alex.
“I promise I’ll be better.”
She didn’t say anything after that—only met his desperate, raw gaze with her empty stare. Despite that though, she sat down at the table with him and ate the food in silence. When she was done, she gathered the art supplies and took them up to her room before she and Harper left the house for the day.
It wasn’t quite forgiveness yet, but it was something, and that was enough for him.
iv.
Foolishly, he’d thought that maybe they’d turned a new leaf. That the breakfast and the art supplies had been enough to melt the ice that had casted over them and things would return to normal again. Evidently he’d been wrong.
Just as she’d done on Friday, she left for school without him and Max, and though he’d since grown used to the distance, he couldn’t shake the ache of her absence the way he had previously.
He no longer had the energy for false pretenses. He couldn’t be bothered with trying to keep up with what Max was saying as they rode the subway, or with the new idea Zeke was trying to pitch for the Alien Language League. He could hardly even be bothered with paying attention during his classes.
She walked through the halls with the kind of confidence he’d only ever known her to possess. He watched her across the hallway through the corner of his eye as she and Harper laughed about something by her locker. He openly stared as she walked to her history class with a guy who four days ago, was pretending he hadn’t even known her.
After school, he offered to cover her shift for her. The closer, which he knew she particularly hated to work on week nights. When the last customers of the night finally filed out and it was just him and their dad wiping down tables and counting the till, he decided he wanted to talk about it.
“I just don’t know how much longer I can take the silent treatment from her. I mean it’s one thing when she’s mad at me and being condescending or sarcastic, but at least she’d still talk to me. Now it’s like I don’t even exist.”
“Well son,” Jerry sighed as he scrubbed clean a glass. “Have you thought that maybe Alex is trying to give you a taste of what she must’ve felt when nobody was talking to her regardless of how hard she tried to apologize? Maybe you’ve just gotta wait this one out.”
He was right, of course, but it didn’t make it hurt any less.
v.
It was, he decided, what it was. He couldn’t make her forgive him, and he couldn’t force her to talk to him. He’d said his piece and he’d just have to accept that she’d say hers when she was ready.
He left for school without so much as a word to anyone—not even Max. Just because he’d accepted his fate for the meantime, didn’t particularly mean he was ready to put on a smile for everyone else’s sake and pretend her silence wasn’t gnawing away at him from the inside out.
He’d tucked himself away when he wasn’t forced to be in class in the one place he was sure he wouldn’t run into her—the library. His plan had worked as well as he’d expected it to until it was time for his expected appearance in the cafeteria during lunch. Not that anyone would have actually cared whether the Student Body President was there or not. Least of all Alex.
The halls were fairly empty and he was halfway to the cafeteria when he felt something snake around his arm from behind and pull him into an empty classroom. He could smell the vanilla on her skin and feel the magic pulsing through her veins before he saw her face.
“Where’ve you been all day? I had to listen to Max go on and on about his new idea to sell coffee but brewed without the coffee for people who think it tastes too bitter”
He couldn’t help the smile that took over his face as he was not only being gifted the honor of hearing her whining complaint, but hearing it directed at him.
“You’re talking—” he started, but his mind caught up with him before he could finish. “Wait, coffee without coffee is just hot water. Why would he—?”
“Exactly. So you can see why I’m annoyed.” His smile returned.
“You’re talking to me again.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” her voice was laced with her feigned nonchalance, but he could hear the affection hiding behind it. “Don’t get all weird with your feelings about it.”
“I’m sorry, Alex,” his tone dropped into something genuine, and serious. Solemn, almost. “I’m really, really sorry.”
“I know, I heard you the first 20 times,” she tried for indifference, but it didn’t feel quite right. Not even to her.
“I’m not saying it’s okay,” she started again. “But we’re okay. I forgive you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.”
They both smiled that time, but then she spoke again.
“Okay, but now it’s going to be your turn to be mad at me.”
“What did you do?” his smile fell almost as quickly as it had risen.
“I may or may not have accidentally used magic to get out of a history test, and I may or may not have accidentally made my teacher forget everything she’s ever learned about history.”
“Alex!”
But really it didn’t matter. Her face was scrunched in that adorably desperate way it always was when she had to ask for help, and even though he stuttered over his words and shouted in frustration just like their dad, he was going to help her. He was being given the privilege to help her—and how could he have ever taken that for granted?