If I’d Known (Cursed 1)

Allie takes my hand and leads me up the stairs to the mezzanine level. Looking down from here, I can see how big this place truly is. It's crazy-huge. The space is lined with black curtains, making it feel more private and ... sinister. I watch a girl in a metallic dress disappear into the dark with a bottle and glasses on her tray. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust before I see the groups of people on lush couches concealed within the shadows. I can only imagine what they're doing back there.

"So there's this office or something hidden up here with a bathroom in it. Another girl showed me earlier," Allie tells me.

She pulls back a section of the heavy curtain next to a black door, casting light into the dark space. I quickly duck through the opening and she follows, concealing us behind the fabric wall.

Light shines through a window-lined office where four girls wait to use the bathroom. When we enter, the first thing I notice is an oversized ornate mirror propped on a metal desk. A girl's leaning in close to it, lining her eyes. When I approach it, I immediately cringe at my reflection. No wonder Joey hasn't kissed me.

I slide my headband off and let my hair down, shaking out the sweat-soaked strands. I rake my fingers through the length that extends to my lower back before sweeping it up into a large twisted bun and securing it on top of my head, sliding the crystal headband back in place. That's a little better.

"Is your hair white?" Allie asks.

I turn with a start, unaware she was hovering.

"It's blond. It's just really light."

She's not the first to mistake my hair for being white. Although it's usually little kids I'm correcting.

"You should totally color it white," she says to my reflection, stepping closer to the mirror without blinking her eyes. "You would look like a frost princess. But you really do look like a princess." She reaches out to touch me, the reflected me, running a finger along my headband. "It's so sparkly."

"Uh, thanks. My mother gave it to me." I watch her curiously. She's definitely ... unique.

Allie spins around to face me, the real me, and throws her arms around my neck. "You're so beautiful," she says, hugging me tight. She steps back, holding me at arm's length, and just stares at me like she's trying to decide if I'm real. "I'm so high."

I nod. Really? I mean, the wide, unblinking eyes pretty much gave that away. And for the first time, I recognize I'm feeling pretty floaty myself--but definitely not lost in the stratosphere like Allie.

"You gotta go?" a thin brunette in boy shorts and a bikini top asks, motioning toward the bathroom that just opened up.

"I do," I answer. And I also need the sink to clean off the black streaks running down my face. I look like I've been crying mud.

I ease out of Allie's grip and enter the bathroom.

When I come back out, Allie's still there. I'm not sure why. Maybe she thinks we're friends now. Except ... we're not.

I inspect the sweat marks on my top in the mirror. Pulling the fabric away from my skin, I flap it gently, hoping it'll dry.

"Want to go outside?" Allie asks. "It's so hot in here." She plops down on the desk, like she's too weak to stand. "I need some air."

She doesn't look so good. I'm worried she may pass out, and there's no way I can hold her up.

"Where can we go?"

"This way," she says, crisscrossing her long legs as she weaves toward the door. "Why am I so hot? This is so not good, my princess."

"It's okay," I assure her, taking her by the elbow to steer her through the curtain so that she doesn't grab on to it and pull it down. "Which way?"

"That way." Allie points right.

I direct us through the black door, entering a stairwell.

"That way again." Her finger indicates a blue door with Exit lit above it.

I push through and find a small group of people smoking on a fire escape spanning the alley between two buildings.

Allie stumbles out of my grasp and trots down a few feet before collapsing on a grated metal step. "Omigod. My skin needed this so bad." She flops her arms over the railing in blissful relief.

"Water?" some guy asks, offering her a bottle.

"You are so super sweet," she says, looking up at him with her big blue eyes and thousand-watt smile.