Just as I had thought, it was another hour of no progress with my magic.

My head was hanging low. Dog was in my arms and looked as if he were trying to get my attention. Though I didn’t notice. As soon as I stepped outside the room, my eyes were drawn to my right, where Lydia was bouncing up to me.

“Wow that was great!” she said, dripping in water “I really let myself go in there! How did you do?”

To be honest, I felt myself getting a little jealous. Here she was, being able to master her magic in such little time while I’ve had four years to practice mine and still had nothing to show for it. But the big, dumb smile that Lydia had was intoxicating. It’s hard to feel jealous of someone that looks that pure and happy about something.

“Oh it went about as I expected. Looks like you had fun though.”

A light appeared in her widening eyes “I did! All I’ve ever done before today was move some water around a little! But just now I was picking up the water and throwing it around like crazy! I was even able create my first bit of ice!”

Her mood actually gave me a bit of energy “That sounds really great. You may even end up graduating this class early if you keep this pace up.”

She became a little coy “Aw you’re too kind. But I still have a long way to go. I was really just throwing around the water without any sort of control. There’s still a lot I have to do before I get as good as other witches my age.”

Her familiar then bounced up to the two of us, also covered in water. Lydia turned her attention to her for a moment “Oh, sorry about that Cordelia!” then turned back to me “Sorry, but I should probably go home now so I can change out of these clothes. I’ll see you Wednesday!”

“Yeah, see you then.” I then watched her childishly run out of the schoolhouse.

That whole day was really a mixed bag of emotions.

My usual routine after a magic class in high school was to go back home and sulk for the rest of the evening. But that day, I didn’t really feel like sulking. I don’t know if it was Lydia’s cheery attitude after being able to use her magic that got to me, or if I was just growing out of my sulking. But when I got back to my room, I felt like I was actually in a good mood.

Surely this feeling wouldn’t last though, right? That’s what I always told myself if I was ever in the slightest bit of a good mood. I was sure it would be the same case that day. Yet when I woke up the next morning, I was still feeling just as energetic.

Though I was still being stubborn. Yes, I felt good for the rest of my day off from class, but it’s not like this feeling would last for long. I would go back to class the next day and my failure at using magic would disappoint me just like it did in the past.

I went to bed that night and wasn’t able to sleep. Not out of nervousness or anxiousness though, but out of excitement. That had never happened to me before. Why was I so excited to go back to school when I never had that feeling before? There was nothing at that class except for disappointment, right?

Wednesday’s class came, and I got there early.

It was such a strange feeling to be in class before everyone else. Even Dog was wondering what we were doing there that early. He sat in the desks familiar area and stared at me, so I reached into my bag and gave him a treat to chew on.

At first he didn’t flinch when I put the treat at his paws. But eventually his bluff ended and he laid down so he could devour the treat. He secured it between his two little front paws and began chewing it. Whenever he eats his treats, I can’t help but giggle about how cute he is.

While I was watching him eat, Lydia walked into the class just as excited as she had on Monday. It was almost impossible to not match her energy. The conversation before class was a pretty light conversation where we didn’t talk about anything too serious. But for some reason, it still made me really happy.

Then, as I had anticipated, the physical magic portion of the class came and really dampened my mood.

It was more or less the same as when I was in the room on Monday. Using all of the methods that I had been taught and still failing. Whenever I was in that room, I would question why I was ever in a good mood in the first place.

But as soon as I left the room and talked with Lydia again, my mood immediately improve. Her smile and excitement were just so infectious that it was almost impossible to feel down after talking to her. What was it that was so easily burying my negativity? It wasn’t just because a cute girl was talking to me. It felt like there was something more to it.

On the Thursday afternoon after my second class, I finally realized it. Lydia was the first person to be friendly to me since my summoning ceremony four years ago.

After that day, all of the friends abandoned me. When I had summoned Dog as my familiar, people began to see me as a joke. Never had anyone summoned such a small dog like a Pomeranian before and ended up as a serious witch. And my inability to talk to him only further cemented my status as a joke.

It was really hard for me to be ostracized just because of who I summoned. There was even a good amount of time where I let peoples opinions affect how I felt about my familiar and I ended up completely shutting out Dog for a year… I still feel bad about that and will apologize to him from time to time, though I’m not even sure if that apology gets to him.

People always avoided me after that day. I would eat all of my lunches alone and spend every weekend by myself, trying to improve my magic. And though no one ever bullied me, the complete isolation from everyone still felt just as bad.

Now here was Lydia, having the longest conversations I had with anyone for years.

There was still a bit of suspicion about whether or not she was being genuine with me. After all, we never talked even once when we were in high school. Yeah sure, we were in different classes and she had her own friend group, but the school was still small enough to where everyone knew each other.

I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. I didn’t want to get my hopes up that I could possibly be making a friend. Because if this whole thing turned out to be a big misunderstanding, I would feel even more crushed than if I were to have never talked to her at all.

So when it came time for Friday’s class, I was having an internal struggle with my thoughts about Lydia.