Chapter 7
BLOWUP. MELTDOWN. FALLOUT
The Willowbrook Farmers Market was, under normal circumstances, one of Cassie’s favorite places.
Fresh produce. Homemade pies. That one booth with the honey guy who always gave her extra samples because she’d helped his daughter with a resume once.
It was wholesome and predictable and exactly the kind of low-stakes outing that shouldn’t have made her want to crawl under her bed and never emerge.
But that was before the “incident.”
Before Marjorie’s Facebook post that somehow made “medical leave” sound like “committed to an asylum.” Before the neighborhood group chat that Cassie wasn’t part of but Diane screenshotted religiously started buzzing with speculation about “what really happened at her office.” Before her carefully constructed invisibility shattered into a thousand glittering, floating, impossible-to-explain pieces.
“You don’t have to do this,” Liam said from beside her, scanning the crowd like a bodyguard assessing threats. They’d barely spoken since she walked home from the car three days ago, but he’d insisted on coming. “We can go back. Stock up at the grocery store like normal people.”
“I’m not hiding.” She adjusted her sunglasses—ridiculous, given the overcast sky, but they made her feel marginally less exposed. “I refuse to let Marjorie’s poison pen make me a hermit.”
“There’s a difference between hiding and strategic retreat.”
“I’m getting tomatoes. And pie. And I’m going to smile at everyone like I didn’t turn Dana’s phone into a satellite a week ago.”
The market was crowded with Saturday morning enthusiasm. Families with strollers. Couples holding hands over organic kale. Dogs in bandanas being very good boys near the treat booth. It should have been charming.
Instead, Cassie felt every sidelong glance like a physical touch.
There she is. The one who had the breakdown. The one who made things float.
She grabbed a basket and marched toward the vegetable stands with the grim determination of a woman who would buy produce or die trying.
“Cassie! Oh my goodness, Cassie!”
She froze. That voice. That particular pitch of weaponized concern.
Marjorie descended upon her like a cashmere-wrapped vulture, all sympathetic head tilts and performative worry. “How are you, dear? We’ve all been so worried. Susan started a prayer chain. Linda dropped off a casserole, but I told her you probably weren’t up for visitors.”
“I’m fine, Marjorie.”
“Of course you are. Of course you are.” The head tilt intensified.
“It’s just that we heard about your little…
episode. At work. The floating things.” She whispered the last part like it was a communicable disease.
“Is it stress? Linda thinks it’s stress.
I told her, that poor woman, divorced, living alone with just a cat and a strange man—”
“Liam is my contractor.”
“Mmm.” Marjorie’s eyes slid to Liam, who was standing close enough to intervene but far enough to pretend he wasn’t listening. “Very dedicated contractor. Lives with you. Doesn’t seem to leave.”
“He’s renovating the kitchen.”
“For three weeks?”
“It’s a big kitchen.”
Marjorie smiled the smile of a woman who was absolutely going to post about this conversation the second she got home. “Well. We’re just glad you’re okay. You know where to find us if you need anything. Anything at all.”
She drifted away, probably to spread the good news that Cassie Morgan was alive, at the farmers market, and still lying about her live-in “contractor.”
Cassie’s hands were shaking. Just slightly. Just enough that she shoved them in her pockets before anyone could notice.
“Strategic retreat is still on the table,” Liam murmured.
“Tomatoes,” she said through gritted teeth. “Pie. Smiling.”
She made it to the honey booth before the next disaster struck.
“Cassie? Oh wow, Cassie!”
That voice. Different from Marjorie’s. Worse.
She turned slowly, like a woman facing a firing squad, and found herself looking at Derek and Brittany.
Derek looked exactly like he always looked—expensive haircut, golf tan, the particular smugness of a man who’d traded his midlife crisis for a younger model and considered it a win. He was wearing one of those quarter-zip pullovers that cost more than her car payment.
Brittany was… Brittany. Twenty-eight. Yoga-toned. Blonde in a way that suggested significant salon investment. She was holding a green juice and looking at Cassie with an expression of such aggressive compassion that it almost came back around to being threatening.
“We heard about your work thing,” Derek said, in the tone he used to use when explaining why she couldn’t be trusted with the financial planning. “Linda told us. It sounds like it was really… intense.”
“I’m fine.”
“Of course you are.” He didn’t believe her. He’d never believed her. “It’s just, you know, these things can escalate. Maybe you should talk to someone? A professional?”
“I have a therapist.”
“Oh good. Good. That’s healthy.” He nodded like he’d achieved something. “Self-care is so important. Brittany’s really into self-care. Aren’t you, babe?”
“Totally.” Brittany beamed. “I do a gratitude practice every morning. And manifestation work. Have you tried manifestation, Cassie? It’s literally life-changing.”
Cassie’s eye twitched. “I’ve been manifesting some things lately, actually.”
“See? That’s amazing! The universe really does respond when you put out positive energy.”
“Speaking of positive energy.” Derek’s expression shifted to something almost genuine, which was somehow worse than the smugness.
“I should mention—my car had this weird thing happen? It turned pink. Like, bright pink. The dealership has no idea what caused it. Some kind of chemical reaction, they think. Had to get it completely repainted.”
Cassie bit the inside of her cheek so hard she tasted blood. “That’s so strange.”
“Right? Anyway, no big deal. It’s already fixed. I actually kind of liked the attention.” He laughed his golf-laugh, the one that used to make her want to throw things. “But I just wanted to mention it, since… you know. Weird things seem to be happening around you lately.”
The implication hung in the air like poison gas.
“Are you accusing me of something?”
“What? No. God, no. I’m just saying—” He held up his hands in that gesture she’d hated for twenty years, the one that meant calm down, you’re being crazy. “—maybe you should focus on getting better. For your sake. We’re worried about you, Cass. Genuinely.”
“We’re sending you so many good vibes,” Brittany added, pressing her hands together like she was about to start chanting. “Healing energy. Light and love.”
Cassie’s skin prickled. The magic was there, just under the surface, responding to her fury. She breathed through it. Counted to ten. Imagined roots into the earth.
“I appreciate your concern,” she managed. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to buy tomatoes.”
She turned and walked away before she set anything on fire.
Behind her, she heard Brittany whisper: “Do you think she’s okay? She seemed really tense.”
And Derek’s response: “She’s always been intense. It’s why we didn’t work out.”
The magic surged. A nearby basket of apples trembled.
Cassie walked faster.
She found Liam by the pie booth, holding two slices like peace offerings.
“I saw,” he said, before she could speak. “You handled it well.”
“I didn’t set him on fire.”
“Hence ‘well.’”
She took the pie—apple, her favorite—and stared at it like it might hold answers. Her hands were still shaking. The magic was still too close to the surface, crackling under her skin like static before a storm.
“You don’t have to babysit me,” she said. “I know this isn’t how you wanted to spend your Saturday.”
“I’m not babysitting. I’m providing tactical support.”
“You’re hovering because you think I’m going to explode.”
“I’m here because I wanted to be here. There’s a difference.”
She laughed—a bitter, broken sound. “Right. You wanted to spend your morning watching my ex-husband psychoanalyze me and my neighbors treat me like a sideshow attraction. That’s exactly the Saturday anyone would choose.”
“Cassie—”
“You don’t have to pretend, Liam.” The words were coming out sharp now, sharpened by days of silence and humiliation and the constant, gnawing fear that she’d ruined everything. “I know why you’re here. The binding. You can’t leave. That’s the only reason—”
“I’ve been free to leave for days.”
She stopped. The pie plate tilted in her suddenly nerveless fingers.
“What?”
“The binding loosened after your training with Margaret. Almost a week ago now.” His voice was careful.
Measured. Like he’d been waiting for the right moment and this definitely wasn’t it, but he was tired of waiting.
“I’m not tethered to your property anymore.
Haven’t been for days. I could walk out of this market right now and keep walking and nothing magical would stop me. ”
The world tilted. She felt dizzy, wrong-footed, like the ground had shifted without warning.
“That’s not… Margaret said…”
“Margaret knows. She thought you should hear it from me when you were ready.” His jaw tightened. “But you’ve spent the last week pushing me away and assuming the worst, so here it is: I’m not trapped. I’m here because I want to be. That’s a choice, Cassie. My choice.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“When? When you were crying in my car and then walking home in the rain? When you spent three days pretending I didn’t exist? When you flinched every time I walked into a room?” The words came faster now, rougher. “You didn’t want to hear it. You still don’t.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Neither is being treated like a prisoner when I’m choosing to stay.
” He set down his pie plate with more force than necessary.
“I’ve been trying to give you space. Trying to let you process.
But you’re not processing, Cassie. You’re building walls.
Higher every day. And I’m tired of pretending I don’t see it. ”
“I’m not—”