The Last Black Unicorn

Chapter Eight: The Girl In The Mirror

I wonder if I've gone overboard as I gaze outside the bedroom window at a twinkle of light blossoming in a blanket of darkness. I admit I haven't slept a single second on the King-sized mattress pressed against the wall. Tossing and turning all night isn't fun, especially when I kept replaying Brandon's rejection. The knots in my stomach allowed a wave of anxiety to creep over my body in constant tremors. For the past seven hours, he wouldn't stop taunting me. His voice was on repeat and the embarrassment was constant.

I will always like you as a friend.

I can't face him not after our kiss was undone as soon as it started. Then there are the endless reruns, and the more I watch them, the more I uncover little hidden moments where his cerulean blue eyes tell me everything. It wasn't only that I was the girl with a few patches of nappy hair still clinging to her head. After I kissed Brandon, he stared into my dark brown irises, and I saw things the way they really were.

I'm a junior who takes Learning Strategies, a classroom filled with the slowest readers but fastest runners. When school lets out it's like a race with Usain Bolt to blend in with the nearest crowd of teenagers and pretend we rushed from a different direction. Brandon is not only the smartest and sexiest boy in Ravenwood, but he has perfect test scores and only takes advancement placement classes.

And don't forget the million-dollar mansion his parents own that's always riding fate's main side piece, fortune. I'm not the first to state this, but those two are definitely playing favorites. I swear it!

Ugh, I wish I could knee myself in the face right now; it's physically impossible to stop listing all the ways Brandon is perfect. Okay, deep breaths.

I inhale an image of his radiant smile and exhale the sadness aching in my heart as he takes a step back, putting more distance between us. The spell Brandon has over my heart has to end, and I know all the ingredients to break this curse.

Just paint my skin green and call me Wicked because from now on, it will be easier for Roxane to ace a quiz than for Brandon to see my shadow. I have nine months until he ships off to the Army. My disappearing act will be as easy as a guy getting the Atomic Five to make a V with their legs. Brandon Lockwood has no idea he's up against a sly, stone-cold Ninja. He won't even see my shadow because I decided to wake up an hour early every morning to get ready for school and walk to the nearest bus stop.

"I got everything figured out," I say, opening the door to the bathroom for the first time.

"What do you have figured out?" Brandon asks, flossing his teeth as I glance inside the bright room adjacent to mine.

My eyelids expand to the ceiling while my mouth drops to the floor in horror as my attention zeroes in on his well-defined, glistening six-pack. "Shirtless."

I slam the door shut, stretching my arms across the wall, sliding on the ground in astonishment. "Oh, my goshh! Are you serious? How is this far?"

Brandon knocks on the door, calling my name multiple times. As I open the walk-in closet, Evelyn gives me full access to everything until I can afford my own. I whistle at the massive load of clothes stacked a mile high on the shelves, and the other two aisles have items hanging from hundreds of racks. I grab the closest outfit I can reach as he twists the doorknob open like any oblivious boy with a death wish. My head rubbernecks to the left and right side of the dark hall.

I randomly choose the staircase on the left side of my bedroom, and before he can say anything else, I bolt to the first floor. Brandon leans over the balcony, searching in the still darkness while I do the running man glued to the wall pose underneath the balcony.

"Ebony, I won't keep chasing you around," Brandon complains, "look, I promised Jessica I would take you and Alexis shopping for school supplies today."

I open my mouth and instantly close it because I still regret everything that happened to us. It feels like yesterday was a meaningless BLEEP in my past, and it wouldn't hurt so much if I didn't enjoy every minute I spent with Brandon. But here I am, frozen in fear, attached to the wall like an ornament.