One Wish Away
Authors: Kelley Lynn
To Katie and Jen
Without that trip to Maine (which included three flights, one eight hour bus ride and hiking up the same mountain twice) this book would not exist.
Because I wouldn't have been looking up at the stars, wishing our short time together would never end.
This book is a work of fiction. All characters in this novel are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Wish
- Public Definition
verb
To feel or express a strong desire or hope for something that is not easily attainable; want something that cannot or probably will not happen.
"we
wished for
peace"
synonyms:
desire
,
want
, hope for,
covet
, dream of, long for, yearn for,
crave
, hunger for, lust after;
Wish
â SEAD's Definition
verb
The brain's translation of want into a physical act; a certainty of change
"we
wished for
peace"
synonyms: To alter reality
Chapter One
Why do I do this to myself?
Darren's hand comes down on my jittery knee, holding it in place.
“Lyra,” he says through his smile, “we all did our best. Whatever happens, happens.”
“What did you put for the eighth question for the economics part?”
He laughs and takes his hand off my knee, running it through his dark, messy hair.
“I don't know. Remind me of the question again?”
“In the year 1962, what wasâ”
“There they are!” Darren's mom skitters through the crowd of students, her arms wide. She scoops me into a hug. I return it as best I can, but I'm out of practice. And in shock. And nervous for the results of the State Academic Decathlon competition.
June and Abby, Darren's younger sisters, sandwich Darren between them, then he moves to his mother.
“Where's your dad, sweetie?” Darren's mom's eyes skirt the parents in the room.
“Oh, he had to work.” I wave it off. “It's really no big deal.”
“No big deal?” she asks. She looks like she's going to say something else but instead plasters on a smile. “Well, I'll be right back there cheering when you guys take first place.”
“Okay, Mom.” Darren looks past her shoulder and waves the rest of our team over.
“Come on girls. Let's let these guys hang out with their friends.” Darren's mom shuffles the girls toward the back.
Friends is a rather loose term. Teammates, yes. Friends, wellâ¦
Every guy in the room watches as Tiffany Snow walks over to us with the rest of our six-person team.
“There you guys are.” She smiles and flicks her blonde hair over her shoulder. All the guys staring quickly look away. “So,” she glances at me, “how'd you think it went?”
“Do
you
know what the eighth question was on the economics part?” Darren asks, holding back a laugh.
“No.” Tiffany giggles. “Why?”
“Lyra doesn't think she got it right.”
“You're like a true, blue genius. I'm sure you did,” Tiffany says rather quickly. She pulls out her cell. “So when do we find out the results? I've got practice in an hour.”
It shouldn't make me mad that this is the
state
competition and she's worried about cheerleading
practice
. She's only on the Acadec team because we needed another person with a GPA between 0.00 and 2.99 and Mr. Kroeger said he'd raise her grade in math if she participated.
“Hello, guys?” Tiffany smiles and waves her hand in front of us to get our attention. “When do we find out?”
“When we find out,” I snap. That sounded meaner than I wanted it to.
Shut your mouth, Lyra.
“Sorry I asked.” Tiffany tucks her phone back in her pocket and crosses her arms over her chest.
“We can tell you what happens if you have to go,” Darren offers. Totally what I should have said if I was half as nice as he is.
Tiffany's arms come down. “No. I want to be here to see how we did. I was just curious.”
I look at Tiffany through my eyelashes, and I open my mouth to apologize as the microphone squeals.
“Attention. Everyone attention,” the proctor says from the stage. “We have the results and are ready to announce the winners.”
The awards ceremony takes forever. I should relax and celebrate in the little wins, like Darren's mom and our team are doing, but the only thing that really matters is whether our team took first and we're going to Nationals. That's success. That's what we've worked all year for.
I'm completely surprised when Tiffany wins gold for her GPA level in both the Music and Science portions. She must have studied harder than I thought. And she looks a lot happier about it than I would have expected.
Calculating how many individual medals we won, including a number contributed by Darren and myself, we've got a shot at first place. When a hush comes over the crowd, my knee finally stops moving. Everything stops moving, including my breathing.
“And now for the overall team scores.”
When Sullivan High takes third with 43,510 and St. Catherine's grabs the silver with 49,428, my heart sinks a little. Those are great scores. All the hours I spent studying. The times I told Darren I couldn't come over to hang out. All that will be for nothing if we don't move on to represent Arizona at Nationals.
“First place, with 51,755 points goes to⦔
Darren's fingers grip my knee. I must have been shaking it again.
“Harrison High!”
A roar flies through the crowd as my team jumps into the air. I throw myself into Darren's outstretched arms. I have no idea what I'm saying. I'm just screaming and shaking and trying to remember how to breathe again.
All that work. All that work!
And we won State.
Darren lets me go and I twirl around to find Tiffany's arms spread wide. Caught up in the magic of the moment I fly into her arms too.
“Great job, Lyra!” I hear her yell over Ginger, our screaming teammate. My eyes meet her sapphire blue ones.
“Thanks.” I manage. Tiffany's smile flickers and she turns to calm down Ginger.
“You did well too,” I say before she's fully turned away. I'm not sure if she heard me, though. I reach out for her shoulder but Darren wraps his arms around me again and then we're jumping, his hair flopping over his eyes.
The team rushes on stage to get our medals. The next few minutes we smile and turn and smile again. Parents wave for our attention. Reporters wave for our attention. I follow my teammate's lead when the professional photographer asks for a âgoofy' picture. Basically, I open my mouth wide and put bunny ears on top of Craig's head.
After that's all done, Darren's hands wrap around my shoulders. He shakes me and smiles. “We did it, Lyra! We did it.”
“I know.” I search his eyes, feeling completely happy. His smile gets wider and he pulls me in for another hug.
“You did good. Four medals,” he says into my ear.
“You did really good too,” I say back. Though to be honest, I don't know how many medals he won. I'll find out later.
Darren turns me around so we can follow our team off the stage.
“Lyra Altair, can we ask you a few questions?” the reporter asks as my foot hits the bottom. I reach out for Darren's hand but he slips through my fingers and disappears into the crowd.
“Uhâ¦sure.” I shrug and look for any one of my teammates. They've all disappeared. Probably to talk to their parents.
“Let's go over here where it's a little quieter.”
He smiles. I'm sure it's to make me feel more comfortable, but I'm not particularly comfortable in any situation where I have to talk. I get nightmares about the speech portion of this competition before every event.
Once we're in a hallway, the man stops me. “All right. Stand right there. The camera guy is going to stand right here. And just talk to me, okay?”
I glance at the camera guy. “He's really close.”
“It doesn't look that way on TV.” He smiles again. “Ready?”
Deep breath. I nod.
“Lyra, your team just won the Arizona State Academic Decathlon Competition, how does that feel?”
“Good.” I rub the sweat from my hands on my pants.
The reporter tilts his head. “Can you walk us through the moments after your win was announced?”
“Uhâ¦what do you mean?”
He glances at his cameraman and then fixes his eyes back on me. This is not going well. I knew I should have gotten Darren or Tiffany to do this.
“I'd imagine you are incredibly excited to be representing Arizona at the National Competition.”
“Yes. It's very exciting.” How much lamer can I sound? I clench my fingers to try and get myself to stop shaking. Can they see that on TV?
“Lyra, as a sophomore, you are the youngest team leader in this competition. That's quite the feat, and a lot of pressure. How did you prepare for this competition?”
Okay. That's a question I can answer.
“I started back in March, when we first got the topic for this year. I studied really hard. Every night for a few hours, after I did my homework. I held practices four times a week where I lead the team through exercises to make sure they studied.” My shoulders lift as I take a deep breath. “That's pretty much what I did.”
I can see the man swallow. That's how close I am to him. He clears his throat.
“That's great, Lyra. Anything else you want to say?”
I can't get my brain to put anything coherent together. My stomach is queasy from the camera and the two guys focused on me. I just want to get out of here.
“No. I think that's it.”
“Well, congratulations to you and your team.”
My team. Shoot.
That's what I should have talked about.
*
I inhale the dry night air as if I could pull the stars from the sky and feel their fire in my chest. My loud exhale makes Darren raise his head from the telescope. His sympathetic brown eyes meet mine. “Okay, so maybe it wasn't the best interview in the history of interviews. But give yourself a break. It was your first one.”
I let him have the telescope. I'm too busy wallowing. Now, thanks to the nightly news, all of Arizona has seen that interview.
Don't they do editing for things like that? Couldn't they have made me look a little less like a stuck-up, know-it-all? Even
I
hate myself after watching that interview.