Isla and the Happily Ever After

I’m thrown. He remembers Gen, and he remembers that we’re related. He knows something about me. I shake my head. “My younger sister, Hattie. It’s her first day.”

He winces. “That makes more sense.”

I can actually see Josh beating himself up in his head. The role reversal is fascinating. Somehow, I’ve made him nervous.

“So…how are your teeth?” he asks. “Everything heal?”

I smile, more to ease his discomfort than my own. “No problems.”

“Good. Glad to hear it.”

But I look away, down at the rug, unable to hold his gaze. The sketchbook. It’s right there. Poking out of his bag. It’s black and it has the blue sticker and it’s definitely the same one. I should ask to see the drawing. I should just…open my mouth and ask. One question. It’s one frigging question!

“You can see your sister now,” the receptionist says.

I startle. “Merci.” I stand hastily and grab my bag. “Good luck,” I tell Josh, but then I’m flustered all over again. Just because it’s him. I scramble down the hall before he can reply. The nurse’s door is open, and Hattie watches me enter from a paper-sheet-covered cot. She tucks her bobbed, choppy hair behind her ears as if preparing for battle.

I tuck my long, wavy hair behind mine. “How do you feel?”

“What are you doing here?” Her question is accusatory.

“I wanted to make sure you’re okay. Are you breathing all right?”

“No, I’m dying, and I only have fifteen minutes to live. I want a pony.”

The nurse enters from an adjacent room. She’s tiny like me but stronger and rounder. “Isla! It’s nice to see you, dearie. Your sister gave us quite the scare. But we shot her with epinephrine, and she’s been resting all day. The swelling in her throat is gone, and her breathing is back to normal.”

“I told you I was fine,” Hattie says.

I want to scream. I ask calmly, “Do Maman and Dad know?”

“They’re on an airplane back to New York, duh.”

My jaw tightens. “Are you going to call them later?”

“Why would I do that when I know you will?”

The nurse steps in. “The school will call your parents tonight.” She glances uneasily between us, no doubt wondering how three sisters who look so alike can be so different. We have the same pale white skin and bright red hair, but Gen is ambitious, Hattie is contrary, and I’m…the quiet one. Who never causes trouble.

“Is she allowed to go back to her room?” I ask.

Hattie fumes. “God, Isla.”

“What?”

“Stop being such a freaking mom!”

Her favourite accusation strikes with unexpected force. The shout reverberates around the room. I’m blinking back tears as I turn to the nurse. “I— I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.” But her eyes remain wary. “Hattie, I’m almost done with your paperwork. You’ll be able to leave in just a minute.”

It’s a dismissal for me, too. I rush towards the exit, head ducked, straight past Josh in the waiting room. There’s no doubt that he overheard everything. I’m barrelling through the door when he says in a loud and clear voice, “Your sister’s kind of a bitch, huh?”

I stop.

My love for him quadruples.

When I turn around, he grimaces. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No!” I say it too quickly. “I mean, she is. Thank you,” I add for good measure.

Josh grins. It’s wide and relieved and reveals a rarely seen pair of dimples. I could live inside those dimples for the rest of my life. “Do you, uh…” he says. But I don’t think he had a question to begin with.

I tilt my head.

The head of school’s door opens, and we both jump. She leans out. “Monsieur Wasserstein. Has it already been three months? It’s as if you never left.” But her voice is droll, almost amused. “Come in.”

Josh’s expression falls back into that familiar blankness. He stands slowly and hefts his bag over his shoulder. As he disappears into her office, he gives me one last glance. His face is unreadable. The head of school follows his gaze and discovers me by the exit.

“Isla.” She’s surprised. “Is your sister feeling any better?”

I nod.

“Good. Good,” she says again.

She’s delaying, searching my face for something, but I don’t know what. I hope Josh will be okay. I glance at her office door. When I look back, she’s frowning as if she’s just found trouble.

Chapter five

The next few days are unsettling.

Josh is aware of me.

Whenever he enters a room, an unmistakable mass of chaotic energy enters with him. It rattles the air between us. It buzzes and hums. And every time we surrender – every time our eyes meet in a flash of nerve – a shock wave jolts throughout my entire system. I feel frayed. Excited. Unravelled.

And then…I’ll lose the transmission. His signal will go cold.

I don’t understand what’s happening.

In calculus and physics, we’re separated by alphabetical order. In English, we’re stuck where we sat on the first day, on opposite sides of that circle. But our government teacher waited until today, Thursday, to pass out his seating chart. Josh arrived late, saw it being handed around¸ and sat down beside me. Just like that.

He still hasn’t said a word.

Professeur Hansen paces the front of the classroom, lecturing with wild gestures about the US Declaration of Independence and the French Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen. Josh and I are in the back. He opens his bag, and I catch a glimpse of his sketchbook. He removes a cheap spiral notebook instead. In the past, I’ve watched him create elaborate illustrations related to our lesson plans, but today his work is abstract. Dense patterns and clusters and whorls and—

I let out a quiet – and involuntary – gasp of recognition.

His head jerks up.

My instinct is to pretend that something else caused the exclamation. I fight it. “Kind of conceited, don’t you think?” I whisper, and I’m delirious that a good line escapes me.

His eyes widen. But he smiles as he neatly prints the word CAUGHT! underneath his sketch of a gnarled, spiny Joshua tree. I let out a snort of laughter that I turn into a cough. Professeur Hansen glances at me, but he doesn’t give it another thought. Phew.