Free Bittersweet Sixteen (A Dodie Jenks Novel) by Lexi Witcher

canopy that matched the pristine white downy comforter I lay on. I closed my eyes and allowed my mind to drift aimlessly. It felt good to relax and take a few moments for myself.
    Sometime later I heard knocking at my bedroom door and then the jiggling of the doorknob before knocking began again. “Hey Dodie, are you alive in there?”
    Brody!
    I jumped up and ran over to unlock the door before my brother decided I needed saving and rammed his weight against it, breaking it down. “What is it?” I yawned.
    “Dinner is almost ready. Grandma is serving cocktails in the living room if you care to join us.”
    “Cocktails? Who’s us?”
    “Grandma, me, Anson and that weird dude, Leopold.”
    “Anson is still here?”
    “Yeah. So fix your face. You got black smeared under your eyes. And do something with your hair or you’ll scare him away.”
    “Okay. I’ll be down in a few.” I shut the door back and went into the bathroom to see how bad I really looked. I did have mascara smudges under my eyes, but I fixed that easily enough and I brushed my hair, putting it back in place before I went to change clothes.
    I pulled out a pair of straight leg black pants, a black tank and a cute soft coral long-sleeve sweater. For accessories I put on my floating pearl necklace I had brought from home and the same black sling back flats I had worn to church last Sunday.
    When I entered the living room Grandma was handing out drinks. She gave me a martini glass with a few cherries floating in it. “And a Shirley Temple for you.”
    “Thanks.” I sat down on the loveseat. It looked like Brody and Anson were having root beer. Grandma was having a mint julep and so was Leopold, who stood off to the side staring into the fireplace. He looked so out of place. I went to him. “Hi.”
    He looked at me and smiled. “You changed.”
    “Yeah. I have a closet full of clothes upstairs that may never get worn if I don’t take advantage of them.”
    “Sounds like you don’t have much hope that I’ll break the curse.”
    I shrugged. “It’s not really that as much as I keep thinking what if?  You know?”
    “No. I don’t. I need you to believe in me, Dodie. I need you to see yourself living through your sixteenth birthday.”
    “Okay. I will.”
    “You need to not just say it. You need to feel it deep inside.” He laid his hand on my chest, beneath my collar bone. “That’s why it’s so important that we spend so much time together. Why there shouldn’t be these interruptions.”
    He glanced over where my brother and Anson sat talking with Grandma.
    “Are you saying I can’t have contact with my family?”
    “No. I don’t want to disrupt your lives any more than necessary, but I wasn’t expecting to be entertaining this evening either.”
    “You mean Anson?”
    He nodded. “I get a bad vibe from him.”
    “Really?” I half turned and looked at the boy from next door. I didn’t know much about him other than he made me feel very comfortable last Sunday during the social hour after service. He was polite and he got along good with Brody. “Do you read auras?”
    Leopold grinned and that dimple appeared. I sucked in my breath. “No, but I get feelings about people.”
    “Ambrielle says I have a shroud of death following me. That my aura is black.”
    “Who’s Ambrielle?”
    “The seer that Professor Simons put Grandma in touch with before she contacted you. Ambrielle warned us not to try to break the curse, that the outcome would not be good. She even referred to you as a soothsayer.”
    “I see.” Leopold gripped his glass tight, so tight that his knuckles turned white and the glass shattered in his hand. Blood began to gush from his palm from where a thick shard of glass stuck in it.
    “Leopold!” I cried.
    He calmly pulled the glass out and tossed it into the fire before he stooped low and ran his hand over the flames. I saw his lips moving, but couldn’t make out what he was saying; all I knew was that time