A quick note:
Thank you so much for reading Wish You Were Here! I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did writing it. Below, I have a sneak peek of the sequel: Wish You Were Here, which is now available here on Penana.
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Megan spent all of Saturday morning doing homework in her room. At lunchtime, she finally went down towards the kitchen. She needed a break, and a sandwich was sounding pretty good to her.
When she went downstairs, her mom was in the living room, reading.
"Hi, Megan." her mom said when she saw her.
"Hi mom." Megan replied, then she headed to the kitchen. Her mom put her book away and came in after her.
"Ready for lunch?" she asked.
"Yeah." Megan nodded. "I was going to make a sandwich."
"Ok." her mom said. "I made a salad about an hour ago if you want some – it's in the fridge."
"Yeah, ok." Megan said. It would be a good addition to her sandwich.
Megan sat down, ready to enjoy her lunch. It was probably going to be close to the only time she had to really relax today – unless she could get Jake to come over. She was about halfway through with her lunch when her mom spoke up.
"Megan, I got something for you." she said.
"Yeah?" Megan looked up from her plate, wondering what it could be. Her mom went into the living room to get it, and when she came back, Megan could barely believe what she was holding. In her hands was an ornately-decorated bottle almost exactly like Jake's. It even had the same gold trim around it. the only difference was the fact that this one was a deep crimson red and it still had that stopper – iron, or maybe steel? – that Megan figured Jake's had lost somewhere along the way. And to think Megan had almost completely forgotten that she'd asked her mom about Jake's bottle in the first place!
"Now, I know it's not exactly like the one you lost, but I hoped it might cheer you up a little anyway."
"Where did you get this?" Megan asked, trying unsuccessfully to hide her shock. It looked so much like Jake's, she could hardly believe it. Of course she knew it wasn't, but it was still weird to see. Besides, now that Jake's bottle was safely over at Jen's, Megan had kind of thought that was the end of this. It had never even occurred to her that her mom would somehow be able to track down a bottle that really was so staggeringly similar to Jake's.
"One of the ladies at work gave it to me." her mom said. "I'd mentioned to her a couple of days ago that you'd recently lost that one of yours, and she thought you might like this."
"She just gave it to you?"
It seemed really nice and all, but something about it struck Megan as being just a little too generous.
"I tried to pay her, but she wouldn't take a dime for it." her mom confirmed, nodding. "But then, she did just win the lottery, so I guess she doesn't really need the money anyway."
"...She just won the lottery?" Megan asked. Suddenly, she was eyeing the bottle suspiciously. But it couldn't be, could it?
"I know – what are the odds, right?" her mom laughed. "But she's been playing for years – I guess she finally got lucky."
"Yeah..." Megan nodded vaguely as her mom just laughed. But Megan was having a hard time believing that her mom's friend had really gotten that lucky.
Megan finished her lunch, trying her best to look casual. What she wanted to do was inhale the rest of her sandwich, grab that bottle and run up the stairs. But she was pretty sure her mom would see that as a definite overreaction. So Megan forced herself to act calm. Besides, what were the odds? It had to be just an amazing coincidence.
When she was finally done with lunch, Megan washed her plate off and put it in the dishwasher. Then, she grabbed the bottle off of the table and headed back up the stairs.
"I need to finish my homework." Megan told her mom.
"On a Saturday?" her mom seemed surprised.
"Well, yeah. I mean, it's better to just get it out of the way today instead of worrying about it tomorrow, right?" Megan said. At least, that had been the plan. She wasn't sure if that was still going to be true in a few minutes.
"I'm proud of you, honey." her mom told her. "You've really stepped it up lately."
"Thanks, mom." Megan said. It was true that she had been trying a lot more lately, but she still knew that most of her success was really down to Jake. "And mom?"
"Yes, honey?"
"Thanks for the bottle." Megan knew it was probably just an ordinary bottle, but it was the thought that counted.
Megan went back to her room and closed the door firmly behind her before turning her attention to that new bottle. It really did look an awful lot like Jake's – except for the red color and the stopper in the top, she really couldn't see a difference. But she was just being silly, wasn't she? How many bottles did she really think had genies in them? Obviously, knowing Jake for as long as she had was warping her mind. Still, how could she really not check? Especially since it wouldn't exactly require a lot of effort to confirm that this was all just in her head.
She felt a little stupid as she pulled the stopper out of the top, but she did it anyway. She waited several seconds, wondering if anything would happen. She was a little embarrassed to realize that she kind of expected something. But after a second or two, when she was still standing there with nothing happening, she began to wonder. Did Jake ever take this long? She didn't think so. So it really was just a strange coincidence then. Just when Megan had decided she really had gotten her hopes up for nothing, a thick, red smoke started pouring out of the bottle.
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and then Add to home screen.