The Magic Chooses Us

The curtain rose. The band played. And the legend we'd all come to see shuffled his old bones up to the microphone.

When the spotlight lit up the figure in the white leather jumpsuit, Tim wasn't the only person in the audience who squealed like a schoolgirl. But he was the loudest. Or maybe I just thought that because he was sitting right beside me.

"This is your kind of magic, Holly?" He glared at me like I'd just killed his childhood puppy. Did he understand that what I could do to his childhood puppy was the exact opposite of kill?

Yeah, he understood. That was the problem.

"Um, yes?"

"No wonder you wouldn't tell me what you did for a... living."

Just once, I wanted to meet a boy who still liked me when he found out I did... this.

"Tim, you know we don't choose the magic, right? The magic chooses us." I wasn't sure how much of that was because I liked him enough to try, or because I hate being blamed for something that's not my fault. Maybe sixty/forty?

"I know that. I just... I can't deal with this."

Make that forty/sixty.

Boys! They all want a girl who isn't like other girls. Until they actually find one. Then they just walk away.

Or run.

I couldn't run. Once the magic chooses you, you're stuck with it.

"You can. You could when I asked you out tonight," I said.

"You said we were going to see Elvis!"

"Did I lie?"

"I thought you meant an Elvis impersonator!"

Onstage, spotlights shone down on his old bones, as the King sang his heart out.