When Barbie Takes Over

49- Voodoo vs. Psychic

Chapter Forty Nine:

Voodoo vs. Psychic:

When I made my way downstairs in the morning, I was immediately blanketed with the stares of both my parents.

They tried to be subtle about it, by watching me out of the corner of their eyes. But it didn’t work. They still turned their bodies to face me every time I moved, and every time I did something, they both glanced up at me to make sure I was still doing alright.

It was like they were waiting for something bad to happen. They were waiting for me to faint, freak out, breakdown. They expected me to.

But I was fine. Not completely fine, but fine enough that I wasn’t throwing my bowl of cheerios at the wall and allowing my head to connect with the tiled floor. Considering I could be a lot worse off, I was just fine.

“Morning Pigtails,” Garrett said, his arms wrapping around my waist from behind me, even though there were crutches in the way.

“Morning Gare,” I said with a tired sigh as I leaned back into him.

“Gare- Gare!” Alice cried from the table. I had forgotten that she hadn’t seen him yet since he got back. When he came over last night she had already been asleep.

“Hey Alice!” Garrett greeted her. He removed his arms from my waist so he could duck down and hug my little sister instead.

“You’re not hurt?” she asked.

“Nope,” Garrett said. “See?” He pushed up the sleeves of his sweater and held his arms out for inspection.

“Gare, we gotta get going,” I told him.

He glanced at the clock and nodded. “Yeah, okay. I’ll talk to you later, alright Alice?” Garrett said, ruffling her hair slightly.

I crutched past him with my backpack over my shoulder and he followed behind me.

“Bye Rob, Penny!” Garrett called. My parents were both still standing in the kitchen attempting to not watch me.

“Bye,” Mom said through a tight lipped smile.

“Bye,” I mumbled out as I slipped on my shoes.

Garrett opened the door for me and I stepped out into the chilly November morning.

We started to walk in silence to school. I could feel Garrett looking at me every couple of seconds, but I ignored it, like I had with my parents earlier. I was fine.

“Gare,” I said finally after a couple of minutes. “I’m fine really.”

Garrett gave me a soft smile. “Right now I know you are. But I don’t know what goes on inside that pretty little head of yours when I’m not watching. I don’t want to think you’re fine, and then for you to suddenly blow up on me later. Or maybe you’ll be alone and you won’t tell me about it.”

“I’m fine,” I repeated.

“I know you are, but please just let me know if you’re not. Even if its only for a little bit, I want to know if you start to feel anything less than fine.”

I nodded.

“Gare, what about last night? What if it wasn’t-”

“Let’s talk about that later,” Garrett said, cutting me off, “when we’re not tired and worried about the make-up science test we may or may not have second block.”

“You have a make-up test?” I asked.

Garrett nodded. “Yup, and I don’t want to be distracted by…whatever happened last night.”