Seth
Scarlet is impossible to reach.
Rowan doesn’t have her number, and Scarlet doesn’t answer any of my calls anymore. There’s even a chance she blocked me by now. So, when Rowan meets up with me to get started on our next task—our last task—I grimace at her.
“No luck?” she asks evenly.
“She won’t answer me. She hasn’t for a while now.”
Scarlet and I used to try staying friends between breakups… and that always ended with us falling right back together. It’s good that she won’t talk to me now. She’s moving on. I am too, and I would happily respect her boundaries if that were an option.
The situation has me torn. If there’s one of my exes who would hex me, most people would think it’s her… but I don’t want to believe that.
There’s nowhere else to look. This is my last shot before I have to give up and wait it out. That’s always been hard for me. Patience.
Rowan doesn’t look as exhausted anymore, but I know she’s been tired, and it’s my fault.
Either it’s because she’s working so hard to get rid of this hex, or my hex is rubbing off on her.
Rowan would probably deny it, and maybe I’m letting my ideas run wild, but it feels true.
The more time we spend together, even though we’re just friends, the worse her luck is going to get. I have to put an end to it.
Which means doing the thing I most want to avoid: talking to Scarlet.
Rowan sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Then I guess we’ll have to resort to desperate measures?”
“What? What’s that?”
It turns out desperate measures mean visiting Scarlet at her workplace: the only, lonely mechanic shop in all of Starbrook. I used to visit her here, back when she wanted me around, and it feels like I’m tainting those memories now.
“This is a bad idea,” I mutter, more to myself than Rowan.
“What else are we supposed to do?” Her tone is clipped. “She won’t answer your calls, and we have to talk to her.”
Rowan is… right. I wish she weren’t. I don’t want to talk to Scarlet at all, and I definitely don’t want to do it here, but Rowan pushes ahead, and all I can do is follow.
I know it’s Scarlet under a car before she says anything.
Her shoes peek at me from under the car—black, chunky combat boots, the quality kind that will last for years.
If memory serves me, I bought this pair for her, and seeing her in them now makes my chest squeeze—not with longing but with guilt.
Music blares from the speaker, some indie rock song she used to dance to in her kitchen when she was making us breakfast. Thick, fluffy pancakes, never waffles.
I clear my throat, but it’s not loud enough. Rowan gives me a dry look.
“Scarlet?” she says, loud and even.
Scarlet slides out from under the car. There’s already a sour look on her face—pinched, despite how pretty she is.
Her long blonde hair is in a messy bun on top of her head, and her gloved hands are covered in grease.
She rises with fluid confidence, and her hands rest on her wide hips, her fingers pushing in the same way mine used to.
Tense.
Whatever feelings I have for her are gone, ruined by our messy last conversation, but the way she glares at me still makes me hot under the collar. “The fuck do you want?”
She’s not talking to Rowan, I don’t think, but I still feel weirdly defensive of my friend. Scarlet has every right to talk to me like that, but someone else? Come on.
Rowan answers before I can say anything. “This won’t take long. It’s witch business.”
That’s probably the best way to approach Scarlet. All business. She grunts and walks away from the car, ripping off her gloves. “What kind of business? You need my help with something?”
“Yes,” Rowan says.
“I don’t do shit unpaid.”
Rowan closes her eyes, and I have a feeling she’s trying not to roll them. “This isn’t that sort of favor. How much do you know about hexes?”
Scarlet turns to us. It’s like she’s giving us her attention for the first time since we arrived. A slow, cunning smile uncurls on her lips. “What? Being a good witch isn’t working anymore, so you had to seek the big, bad witch?”
I know Scarlet has studied up a lot on the kind of magic Rowan doesn’t practice. Hexes. Curses. Jinxes. Demonic summoning. She scared me at first, but after getting to know her, it became clear she was using her magic for justice.
It’s hard to believe she’d use it against me.
Rowan sighs. “That is not—”
“Like I said, I won’t do it for free.”
“Scarlet.” I butt my way into the conversation, even though it seems like they’re perfectly content to go on without me. “Did you hex me? Be honest. That’s all we’re here to ask.”
Her smile drops.
There was once a time when she saved her smiles for me.
First, when we were friends, and then… when we were more.
Everything has changed now. She looks at me like she hates me, and she probably does.
I can’t blame her. I know her better than I know most people, and though others around Starbrook look down on her, I understand Scarlet.
We had a lot in common. Maybe too much. Life made her bitter, but I know there’s someone nice under all of that.
It’s just really, really hard to find now that she’s hiding it from me.
“You don’t get to speak to me,” she snaps. “Don’t look at me. If you need to say something, go through her.”
Rowan crosses her arms, her hip popping out. “This is unnecessary.”
Scarlet turns to Rowan, all sweet smiles once again. “Did you need something?”
If I needed confirmation that Scarlet is still pissed at me, this would be it.
“Yes,” Rowan says. “Did you hex Seth?”
“Gods.” Scarlet lets out a bitter laugh. “That would be the easy answer, wouldn’t it? But no, I didn’t fucking hex him. Maybe I should. Add to the pile. Hex on top of hex. Kind of sounds fun, doesn’t it?”
Can I really trust her? She says she didn’t hex me, but her hatred—it’s more than David’s annoyance. It’s more than whatever the hell is going on with Victoria. I know how Scarlet is, and she’s hurt.
I get it. I was hurting for a long time, too.
“We’re leaving,” I say. “If you—if you ever want to talk about this… about us—”
“You never gave a fuck about talking.” Finally, she addresses me directly, and her voice breaks. “You always used your poor fucking mother as a shield. How would she feel about that?”
I wince. “Don’t.”
My family has always been off-limits, and Scarlet knows it, respected it…
up until our last conversation, when she told me how she really felt.
Neglected. Unimportant. Like she gave me years, and I couldn’t even give her a minute.
She knows better than to bring my mom up now, but I crossed her boundaries by calling her and coming here, and it seems like she’s doing the same.
She pushes closer, her fingernail—painted in chipped black polish—pushes into the center of my chest. “I loved you, you fuck. Why would I ever want to hurt you like that?”
Rowan takes a step away and ducks her head.
“I know,” I whisper hoarsely. “I’m sorry.”
It’s not the first time I’ve said those words to her.
If there’s one person from my past I could have loved, it would have been her. And I know she would still love me too, but that time has passed. It passed again and again, every time we went from friends to more, until I finally had to call it off.
She turns away, and I still know her well enough to know that she’s crying. “Fucking leave.”
Even though Rowan looks unsure, we do.
“Do you think it was her?” Rowan asks. “She seems really upset with you.”
“No. She wouldn’t. We shouldn’t have come here.”
I should have known Scarlet better, should have given her more credit.
When it comes to the people she cares about, she’s all bark and no bite—something most people wouldn’t guess about her.
She wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. But all of her bitterness bubbles up in me now as if it belongs to me, and maybe that’s a curse all on its own.
When I slide into Rowan’s car, I close my eyes.
Breathe… breathe…
“Seth,” she says. “I didn’t know you and Scarlet were serious.”
“We were. On and off for years. The closest I ever had to a relationship.”
“And what happened?”
“Mom got sick, and I… well, Scarlet was patient at first—as patient as she’s ever been—but I was a bad boyfriend. Stopped answering her calls. Stopped letting her in, or at least that’s what she said.”
As much as I messed up, I was trying. I didn’t realize how bad it was until it was too late.
I continue. “It became easier to… move on, I guess. But I still had my distractions.”
Everyone I dated after Scarlet was a distraction. It was impossible to see until now, with my past haunting me and Rowan lecturing me. I wasn’t looking for love. But was I really having fun, or was I losing myself? Parties. Sex. Anything that kept me out late.
It’s all gone, and now I’m left with just… me. And it isn’t enough.
“Why?” she asks. “You weren’t always like this. I remember.”
“Because I can’t take it, Ro.” My eyes fly open, and everything—all the things I’ve been hiding, been running from—flows out.
“I’m already losing the person I care about most. My sisters are gone, and I doubt they’re coming back to Starbrook after they graduate.
It’s just Mom and me. Your mom—close enough that she was practically family—she’s gone.
I can’t keep signing up for more people to leave me. More people to lose.”
“So, you did it yourself? Pushed everyone away?”
I nod, swallowing the lump in my throat. It burns on the way down.
“Do you still love Scarlet?”
“No.” I let out a choked sound. “But I know she’ll always love me. She’s stubborn like that. She wouldn’t hex me, no matter what anyone else thinks about her. And dammit, we shouldn’t have come here like this. It’s not fair to her.”
I’ve never felt like a worse person than I do now. Deserving of this hex. Probably deserving of a lot more.
“I… trust your judgment.” She leans in closer, her eyes boring into mine—I can feel it even with my eyes closed. I still can’t look. “And I understand.”