Chapter 19 #2
I’m not used to her getting riled up. It’s so rare that I don’t know what to do, so I do nothing. I just stand in place, trying to blink away the tears slipping over my cheeks. I know I should have told them I’m not Hayden’s enbyfriend. I know! But I couldn’t! I didn’t. I messed up. I know.
“I’m sorry, Schatzi,” Mom says, sinking her lips in and back out before gulping. “I don’t mean to be angry. I just don’t understand.”
“I know. Me too,” I huff. But I think I do now.
If I hadn’t told Regina he was my boyfriend, I could have avoided it all.
But I did, and when it bit me in the ass, I didn’t know which was worse: to break the trust of my friend or a little white lie.
A white lie. Gods, it’s not a white lie.
It’s horrible. It was the most absurd thing I could have said.
If not for one choice, I wouldn’t be here right now, but here I am. “It’s pointless, but I’m stuck.”
“Why are you stuck?” she asks.
I think about it. There is only one explanation. Me. It all comes back to me, but it’s still not easy. Nothing about it is easy.
“I just am,” is what I say though.
“Kenzie,” she finally says my name the way I’m accustomed. “It never just is. There’s always a reason, Schatzi. What happened?”
I dip my head. Can’t it just be this time? I don’t want to answer. I’ve already ruined the night enough, but how can I not? I roll my head back and sigh.
“You remember the night Hayden fell at the shop? And I went to the hospital with him, right?” I start.
“Yes.” Mom nods.
“When I got there, I might have done something foolish.” I wince.
“What did you do?” she asks.
“Well, first, I sort of cast a love spell. A few, actually. I know I can’t make him love me, but I wanted to give it a push, you know?
Put my intent out into the universe.” She grins when I tell her, and I’m not sure why, but right now I’ll take it.
“I think maybe I did something wrong. I don’t know what, but I must have. Maybe my vibe was just off.”
“Schatzi.” Mom closes the distance between us and cups my face, but before she can say anything else I ramble on.
“But yeah, when I got to the hospital, I sort of told Regina that I was dating him just to try to see him. Then when…uh…when his…” I stumble over myself and take a quick breather. “When his family got there, she sort of…uh…told them I was…you know…”
I squint, hoping Mom will fill in the rest, but she seems determined to hear it from me.
“Like…I was…” I try again and finally just blurt it out in one big word vomit. “That I was his enbyfriend, and I didn’t say no.”
“And you what?” She leans in and cups her ears. I know her hearing isn’t bad, so it’s theatrics. I huff.
“I didn’t say no,” I repeat slower.
“Oh.” Mom’s lips pooch under an understanding glint in her eye.
“Yeah.” I grin stupidly. “I couldn’t get myself to. So I sort of became his enbyfriend, and well, that’s it.”
“And you’ve never told them?” Mom asks.
“It’s only been two weeks.” I bounce my shoulders, hoping it’ll make the horrible seem a little less horrible. It doesn’t.
She stares me down a moment, patting my shoulder. Seconds pass and her serious gaze transforms into something softer and more understanding.
“Mein Schatz, you have to tell them the truth. You do know that, right?” Mom says expectantly, but with a heaping of understanding in her voice. “Especially now that he’s awake.”
Her head twitches in realization, and I see a bulb light up.
“Hold on, if he woke up, how do they not know yet?” Mom asks.
I smile. It’s one of those big shit-eating grins. I hate me for it, but you know how they say things can’t get worse? Well, they do.
“Mackenzie?” Mom says again.
“I was going to tell them! I swear!” I tell her. “But the doctor said he could be experiencing amnesia.”
“How does that change anything?” Mom asks.
“It doesn’t…but she told his family he might not recall recent memories. That he probably lost those memories of us. And now he thinks he just doesn’t remember us dating,” I say, chewing on my sucked-in lips when I stop talking.
Mom dips her head again and sighs. “Kenzie, you can’t keep this up. You shouldn’t. It’s not right.”
“I know.” I dip my head too.
Who knew the shame already overflowing in my gut could somehow intensify in a matter of minutes.
“You have to tell them the truth,” Mom says.
“I will, but…” I’m about to confess more, but I stop.
“But what?” Mom asks. “You need to tell them the truth. It’s not going to be easy, but you can’t go on trying to hold up a lie, especially like this. Hayden is a person too.”
I nod and remember what Eliza had said.
“His aunt knows!” I blurt.
“But they haven’t said anything?” Mom asks.
“No. She said she’d break the news to them though, she just hasn’t yet,” I explain. I know I shouldn’t, but it’s nice not to feel like all the blame is on me.
“You should still make it right, Shatzi.” Mom smiles sadly at me, then steps up and puts her arms around me. “You’re a good one. Stubborn and strong-willed for such a little package, but you have a good heart. I know you do.”
She ruffles my hair like I’m ten, and I roll my eyes so she can see.
Do I though? My heart, that is. Do I have a good one? If I’m honest, it feels shrunken and wrinkly. It feels foreign.
“You’re growing up, becoming a ma—” She stops herself and grins at me. “A great person. Things are changing. It’s how growing up works. But you do have a good heart. I know you do.”
“Are you sure?” I can’t look at her.
“Yes. Yes, I am.” She pats my cheek. “You’re figuring things out.
You’re learning, adjusting, growing. I definitely don’t want to imagine what all goes through that head of yours, but it doesn’t make you bad.
Only what you do with those feelings and thoughts can do that.
But even that can be made right.” Mom pauses and looks me hard in the eyes.
“It’s not too late to do what you should have done. And I know you will.”
I smile and nod. It must be enough because she squeezes me and tells me good night again. When she turns around, I say, “Gute Nacht,” and make off down the hall to my bedroom. I shut the door behind me and fall face-first on my bed’s thick gray weighted comforter.
“Ahhhh!” I scream into the blanket to muffle the sound.
Semi-satisfied with the release, I flip over and throw my arms out like limp wings. “Why?”
I scan the motionless brown blades of my ceiling fan like they’re filled with sigils and unknown mythologies to be decrypted.
I try to focus on them, looking for an easy way out of all this, if for no other reason than for Mom.
She’s right. I need to say something. I have to.
I can’t let Hayden think he’s just forgotten me. It’s wrong, on so many levels.
But how?
I know how I’m going to start, at least. I get up and head over to my altar, where I write on a new slip of parchment.
May I have the strength to tell Hayden and his family the truth.
I’m about to write it a second time below the first sentence, but instead I continue it with one more statement.
I will not fall for Zachary Marcus.
I can’t do all this. I can’t tell them the truth and expect Zachary to want anything to do with me. How could he? I have to be ready for that. I have to accept it.
After writing it down another two times, and ripping the paper into three pieces, I fold them each three times. I pull the tall slender black candle closer and light it.
“You can do this,” I say, but underneath the words and flicker of flame and smell of smoke, there are things running through my head that I can’t seem to stop. A feeling. An idea.
Maybe I can fix this. Maybe.
I drop the parchment before finishing the second repetition.
Making a spell with mixed intentions, with a conflicted heart, is dangerous.
Instead, I kill the flame with a quick breath and move my ocean-blue pillar candle front and center before lighting it.
I don’t bother writing my intention down.
I simply watch the flame flicker and beg Freyja for clearness of mind and peace, because I can’t imagine that even being possible on my own.
I feel it deep in my gut. A deep hole, sloshing over the edges with guilt and greed.
It’s a version of me I didn’t know I could be, something foreign and burdensome. Oh gods, please don’t let this be me.