The Writer’s Corner features poetry, essays, short stories, satire and various fiction and non-fiction from SCAD Atlanta students. To submit your own work for the Writer’s Corner, email features@scadconnector.com.
“Try Me” by Tiara Robinson
Emily rang the doorbell. I was staring out the window of my study and could see she had on her pink crop top and her jean shorts. I thought she looked cute, even though she had just been yelling at me over the phone before I hung up.
“I’m coming over,” a text message read one minute later. I didn’t text her back.
Emily rang the doorbell again. Then proceeded to bang on the door.
“I know you’re in there Dylan!” she yelled.
I couldn’t ignore her now. When I opened the door, her hand was raised in a fist to bang again. I gestured her inside, into my study. Emily sat down on the sofa near the door, and I sat in the chair across from her.
Emily crossed her legs but didn’t look directly at me. Her aggression had settled, and she looked more like the girl I was in love with. When she did finally look at me it was for just two seconds before she began speaking directly to the wall.
“Well, I think it’s best if we break up. We’re different people now and I have different needs,” Emily said. She twisted her thumb and bit her lip.
I stared at her blankly for a while.
“You haven’t changed that much. You’re the same to me,” I said.
“Dylan, I am not. Neither are you. We’re stringing each other along at this point. I want you to find a girl that will make you happy and will be able to love you in ways I just can’t.”
“You just need to cool down. Go to the mall or something.”
“The mall can’t fix this. I want to break up,” she said. “Whether you like it or not we are no longer together. I declare us broken up.”
Emily picked up her purse and swung it over her shoulder. She headed to the door, but stopped short and turned to look me dead in my eyes. Emily didn’t cry or yell or say anything at all. Instead, she left, and I could hear her loud stomping through the house until she slammed the door. That’s when I knew she was gone. I pulled my wand from my left sleeve and waved it while whispering the spell.
I went to the window to see if she had made it to her car. She didn’t. Emily was standing in the yard, her keys in her hands, frozen. I stared at her for a few minutes to see if it had worked.
“Come back,” I whispered.
Emily walked back into the house and marched to my study. Her eyes looked glazed over, and her skin was pale. I didn’t think it would change her physically, but it had. My spell seemed to have worked.
“Emily,” I said, brushing two fingers across her face. “I never told you my secrets. I was scared you would judge me, and I was right. You met those other girls and you began to judge me. All of you began to judge me. You began to think you were too good for me and that I was lower than dirt. So, to keep you pure, I’m going to make sure that you are under my protection. I am going to wake you up, but you won’t be the same. You will be better.”
I pushed her hair behind her ear before going over to my desk and grabbing the spell book. Licking one finger, I flipped through a few hundred pages until I found the correct page. Emily looked dazed, but she was in a euphoric place within her mind.
For this spell to take full effect, I was going to need some of her hair. I didn’t want to cut it because was long and beautiful. The other suggestion to make the spell work was to use blood—but that would make it permanent. I didn’t want her to be permanently under my control, just wanted to fix her for now.
A bluebird flew through the window and landed on Emily’s shoulder. The creature inspected her for a minute, then hopped onto the desk and transformed into Derrick.
“You didn’t?” Derrick gawked.
“It’s only temporary. The bigger question–why are you a bird?” I asked my friend.
“It’s easier to travel that way. Besides, I don’t have anything else I can to do with my magic. The rules are no fun. I just get so tired of using it only to help people or to find things,” he groaned. “But you Dylan—you just broke twenty of those rules. How long is she going to stay like this?”
“Just for a few days.”
“For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve never used dark magic. Do you think you can handle it?”
“Yes.”
Derrick sighed. He grabbed the scissors out of a large mug and walked to Emily. Cut off a few strands of her hair, then handed the hair to me.
“Use this carefully,” Derrick said. He shifted back into a bird.
“Come here, Emily,” I said. She took a few steps towards me and collapsed in my arms. I waved my wand again.
