Fate had also decided that Anya couldn’t control how to exit a portal, Anya realised flying across the small office in the shack and thumping into the wall next to the door. She groaned, squinting at the fading colour show that was the portal. Her head hurt again, but that was most likely from it slamming into a wall.

She got up slowly, noting that several parts of her body were most likely going to be bruised. She shivered, turning her attention to the jacket she had left on the desk earlier that morning. Pulling it on as fast as she could, Anya patted down the pockets to find that she had in fact taken her phone and keys with her. She started walking towards the stairs and out of the shack, checking her phone in the meanwhile.

Her phone screen read 9 am, meaning no one expected her to be awake. She swiped away the few Tumblr notifications she had gotten and marked messages from the previous night as read. She wasn’t terribly interested in what her class had to say anyway. Anya then focused on the Snap she had gotten from Lily only an hour prior. An idea formed in her head as she vaguely registered the picture of a sleepy Sam trying to shove their cat Hades out of the way of the bathroom door.

Taking a picture of her face, down from where she was holding the phone, Anya cringed at the state of her face before typing the text “hey can I come to ur place?”. As expected, Lily answered within a few seconds. The picture was a very zoomed in picture of Lily’s face, with the text “you better.” Anya laughed, and started trekking through the forest to get to the bus. She hoped it wouldn’t take too long.

She especially hoped it wouldn’t be the same busdriver from the morning.

---

The bus came 15 minutes later, and it wasn’t the same driver. Anya did get a few strange looks, probably because of her pyjama clad self and bruised face. Her phone had gone into energy saving mode a few minutes prior, so it was safely tucked into her pocket. This had the side effect of stimming.

Her leg was jumping, making a thumping sound that most definitely was disturbing some of the people on the bus. Try as she might, Anya couldn’t stop her fingers from picking at the skin around her nails. She could have tried to focus on not pulling too hard to try and not get injured, but she was focusing too hard on staying focused and as such couldn’t. Once in a while she would shake her head to try to get the strange feeling in her spine to go away. It didn’t work.

If it hadn’t been for the one other teenager getting out at the same stop as her, Anya would definitely have missed where she needed to get off. Luckily, the ding that sounded from the teen pressing the button to make the bus stop was enough to snap Anya out of it and actually look up to where they were. Seeing the suburban houses and carefully planted trees of Lily and Sam’s neighbourhood, she shot up from her seat and all but ran to the bus door. It turned out to be a useless feat, as it took around a minute for the bus to even get to it’s stop, but better safe than sorry.

Anya very pointedly did not look at the other teen, even if they had cool blue hair. She moved forward with the determination of a person who really just wanted to get to their friend’s house without talking to anyone thank you very much.

She all but ran the last few meters up the Averton’s driveway to get away from a family walking towards her. She was fully aware this only made her look more suspicious but she didn’t want people’s concern on screaming children. Small victories, Anya thought, arriving at the door.

Somehow the thought that one of Lily and Sam’s mom’s would open the door had completely escaped Anya. So her shock as Mrs. Averton opened the door, still in a dressing gown, was immense. So was Mrs. Averton’s for that matter.

“Oh! Hello, Anya, I didn’t know you were coming.” Maria Averton, “best lawyer mom”, looked up and down at Anya, who was now very conscious about the fact that she was in pyjamas. “Are you alright?”

“I’m okay! Totally fine. It doesn’t really even hurt. Uh, Lily invited me?” Anya moved past Maria at her invitation to come inside from the chilly November weather.

“Lily is up in her room, Lena had a concert last night so she is sleeping.” Maria’s face got a very soft look when talking about her wife, like she was thinking of last night’s performance. Anya generally thought romance was kind of disgusting but she would always make an exception for the Averton moms.

“Please be mindful of that when you go up there. If Lily knows you’re on your way I assume she has already prepared a first aid kit.” Maria waved Anya goodbye and went to the kitchen, presumably to make coffee for her caffeine addicted family.

Anya quietly walked up the stairs, hearing Lena’s soft snores from the room right to the left of the stairs. Moving past the giant family bathroom she got to Lily’s room, the door painted to look like a cherry tree. Anya remembered when Lily had just come out and insisted that having a cherry tree on her door was a perfectly sane thing to do. Somehow, Lily still thought that way.

Without bothering to knock, Anya opened the door.

The only way that Anya could describe Lily’s room was that it was very beige, save for the few tickets and drawings pinned on the frankly too large cork board above her desk. It looked like a perfect Pinterest bedroom, with the bed made and white furniture and neutral tones everywhere. It was still Lily’s room though, so Anya could forgive the absolute boringness of it. Lily clearly didn’t need a bunch of decoration to focus on like she did.

Lily was under a fluffy grey blanket, scrolling through something on her phone as Anya closed the door. She immediately looked up and threw her phone onto the other side of the bed. As Maria had guessed, Lily indeed had a first aid kit ready. Anya suspected she might always have it at hand, as this wasn’t the first time Anya had done something stupid and injured herself. Although this was the first time she was magically compelled to do it.

Lily patted the bed space next to her, “Sit down.”

Anya only nodded and did as she was told. Lily immediately sprayed antiseptic spray on a cotton ball and started cleaning Anya’s face, which was less skin toned and more blue and purple at this point. Anya hissed.

“So why are you at my house at 9am, looking like you got mugged in a shady alleyway somewhere?”

“It was a forest first of all and - ow fuck that stings - it wasn’t a mugging.” Lily didn’t look impressed in the slightest.

“So you went to the forest before 9 am on a Saturday? I must say, props to you for waking up before 12.” Lily clearly did not quite believe what was up. Still, she continued with her work, putting bandaids on the small cuts all over Anya’s face so she wouldn’t get dirt in them and get them infected. Which had happened before. More than once.

“Technically it was at 5:20 am, and I wasn’t exactly awake.” Anya answered, letting Lily check the rest of her.

“You’re sure you didn’t take any drugs accidentally? You never know what the time is and if you do, you’re at least awake.” Lily bent Anya forward to look at the back of her head, which had a sizeable bump. Anya hissed as Lily poked it, swatting her hands away from her head.

“No, I didn’t take drugs, that I would at least remember.”

“Then what do you remember?” Lily asked, deeming Anya as good as she could get and packing away the first aid supplies.

Anya started fiddling with the hem of her pyjama shirt. What did she remember? Actually, what didn’t she remember? She couldn’t exactly say “oh well, surprise, I have another cousin from another realm, also my parents were in charge there and oh, did you know magic exists and the dreams that landed me in the psychiatrist office more than once were actually memories I was made to forget?” That wasn’t a thing you just went and said to people.

Unfortunately, Anya had no filter and she told Lily exactly that. Lily looked… well, Lily looked less than impressed and more like she was about to call the doctor about a concussion right this second.

“I know it sounds crazy but-“

“Does it? Does it really Anya?” Lily crossed her arms. She had a disbelieving look on her face, as if she couldn't accept a word Anya was saying.

“Yes! Yes it does, but Lily, you’re my best friends and you need to believe me.” Anya was almost begging. How could she word this correctly? It made no sense whatsoever.

“Anya, magic doesn’t exist. Your dreams are just that, dreams, and judging by the back of your head it got hit pretty bad. Are you sure your imagination didn’t just go wild?” Lily held Anya’s face tenderly. She didn’t want this to come between them.

“I know, I know, but… It wasn’t my imagination. I felt it. I could smell it, I could feel it I-“ Anya choked on a sob that escaped her, “Lily, please. At least let me try to prove it.”

Lily looked at the absolutely ruined state of her best friend. Nervous, she bit her lip, but ultimately took a deep breath. If Anya had proof, then would it hurt to see it?

“Alright. If you can prove it right here and now, I’ll get the gang and we’ll figure this whole mess out. But if you can’t, Anya, I am so sorry but I have to call the psychiatric ward.” Lily could almost feel Anya’s anxiety spike up at the mention of the ward. Lily hated bringing it up and she really didn’t want to have to call them, but what other choice did she have here? But Anya seemed to have agreed to Lily’s terms, as she was already looking around in her pant pockets.

Anya held on to the small crystal like it was her lifeline. It did hurt her hand a little bit as it was still extremely warm, but that wasn’t important. Knowing the truth was important. Getting Lily on her side was important.

Taking a deep breath, she opened her palm to show Lily the stone, which was glowing like a fire was raging inside of it. It was getting a bit hard to breathe, for both of the girls.

“Anya, that’s just a stone.”

“Touch it,” Anya insisted.

“Why? What will that do?”

“Just touch it!”

Lily did, and immediately pulled her finger away from it to her mouth.

“Okay, so it’s a hot rock. How does that change anything?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t think this through really, but it’s all I have.” Anya was looking down at the crystal. She knew it had been used to make the portal that got her back home. She knew it was getting hotter and hotter every second. But Anya had no idea how this would prove anything to Lily.

“Anya, I want to believe you, I really do, but that just isn’t proof.” Lily started scooting backwards on her bed, trying to get to her phone. Anya noticed this and started to panic. Her heart started beating faster and both her hands felt clammy.

Lily didn’t believe her.

“Please don’t.” Anya looked right at her friend, pleading.

“I don’t know what else to do!” Lily threw her hands in the air in frustration. It only served to make Anya more annoyed. Why didn’t Lily believe her? It was true!

All of it was true.

And Lily didn’t believe her.

“Don’t call anyone.” Anya stared at her friend, determined to break whatever phone call she was planning on making.

“I’m so sorry, Anya.” Lily unlocked her phone, and Anya felt something beside her overwhelming anxiety.

“NO!” She screamed, closing her eyes as tears spilled out.

Something else spilled out too.

The two girls watched in shock as a twenty inch flame emitted from the stone in Anya’s hand, making Anya immediately drop the stone and escape backwards, falling off the bed onto the ground. Lily seemed to have the same idea as she jumped off her bed to stand beside it, staring at the glowing stone on the bedsheet.

Both of them were panting, not taking their eyes off the stone. Anya looked up at Lily, and she knew the face Lily was making. With her mouth slightly open, her eyebrows furrowed.

Lily believed her.

Eventually, she looked back up at Anya, and nodded. Slowly she went to her phone, typing for a few seconds before a ding was heard in Anya’s pocket and in the room beside Lily’s.

On her screen Anya could see a single text from Lily in their group chat.

“Guys, meeting in my room right now. Our whole lives are about to be flipped around.”

Anya felt the last of her tears slip out of her eyes. She looked from her phone at Lily.

“Thank you,” she simply said.