15. Callum #3
“I think right now…” I start. “It’s that I’m gonna spend the rest of my life carrying this massive pit of grief inside me because of Rory.
I just wish I could skip to the part where I’m finally okay.
Where it doesn’t feel like this huge, suffocating…
thing…just sitting on my chest every morning when I wake up.
I want to move past it, but…I don’t know if I ever actually will. ”
Winifred nods, her gaze softening. There’s no sarcasm in her expression now, no playful smirk. Just empathy.
“I can feel it,” she says softly.
I frown a little. “Really?”
She nods again, her eyes staying locked on mine. “Whenever my magic reaches out toward you, that’s what it feels. It feels like this deep, overwhelming sadness.”
I swallow hard. “Yeah. Makes sense, I guess.” I clear my throat, adjusting the pillow behind my head.
“I lost my parents when I was young, and back then, I thought I’d never survive it.
But I had to, you know? I had Rory and Isla looking at me.
I had to get my shit together. But then Rory vanished, and it’s like…
going through that exact same nightmare all over again. ”
A small, tired smile finds its way to my mouth as I use her own words against her from earlier. “Anyway. I guess I’m a little tragically fucked up, huh?”
Winifred smiles back, her eyes glittering in the dark.
“We all are, Callum,” she murmurs. “We all are.”
The quiet settles over us after that, but it doesn’t feel uncomfortable.
Usually, I need quiet to be just that—empty, no noise, no people, just me in my own head.
But with Winifred sitting five inches away, the silence actually feels full.
It’s strange how fast she went from an annoying disruption in my life to someone who’s just easy to exist around.
It’s like she stepped into my space and I forgot I ever wanted her out of it.
She breaks the quiet, running a fingernail along the seam of the pillow. “My dad told me something once when I was spiraling as a teenager.”
“Yeah?”
“He said winter isn’t what hurts people. It’s their insistence on summer.”
I cock an eyebrow at her. “Your dad a philosopher or something?”
She starts talking with her hands, the blanket dipping slightly as she moves her arms. “Obviously he wasn’t talking about the weather.
He meant people drive themselves crazy trying to force themselves into the next season of their lives.
They can’t just sit in the cold and feel what they’re feeling today.
They keep trying to skip ahead to the warm part where everything’s fine and dandy.
” She pulls the sheet up tighter over her chest, looking at me.
“Maybe you just need to sit in the cold for a bit. Maybe Rory and your parents being gone means you’ll never be one hundred percent okay, and there’s nothing wrong with that. ”
I stare at her for a second, letting the words sink into the back of my brain where I usually keep the deep stuff locked up. “Okay, Socrates. When did you get all prophetic and shit?”
She grins, her teeth flashing in the dark. “I’ve always been prophetic and shit.”
Right. Obviously.” I shift on my side, resting my head on my arm. “What about you then? What’s your deepest, darkest fear?”
Her grin fades, and her throat works as she swallows. “Oh.”
“Oh?” I mimic. “You don’t get to grill me about my grief and then plead the Fifth, Fred. Spill.”
“Honestly?” She tucks some of her hair behind her ear.
“It’s being a failure, I guess. Not in small, stupid ways, but…
in the stuff that actually matters. My magic.
My future.” She looks down at the white cotton sheet.
“I’m terrified that when it counts, when someone actually needs me to pull it off, I won’t be able to do it, to use my magic.
I’m scared I’m just…fundamentally incapable. ”
“Freddie—”
“No, look at everyone around me,” she interrupts, her words tumbling out faster now.
“Stella’s running the paper, setting up her whole career.
Alden’s practically a prodigy with his alchemy, already teaching kids at the university.
My parents have their whole lives figured out.
And I’m just floating around, throwing spellwork at the wall to see what sticks.
I’m terrified I’m never actually gonna get there. ”
She lets out a short, self-deprecating breath. “My mom used to say I was just someone who needed to learn on my own time. That I had to find my own path.” She glances up at me, her eyes wide and vulnerable. “Sounds like a nice way of saying I’m behind, right?”
“You’ll find your way,” I say without hesitation.
Her eyes search my face, checking for sarcasm. “You don’t know that, Cal.”
“I do, actually.” I hold her gaze until she knows I’m not bullshit-ing her.
“I’ve watched you ever since I’ve been here.
You’re stubborn as hell, you don’t back down when things get messy, and even when everything went to shit with that pepper oil, you tried your best until you couldn’t anymore.
You handled it. You think you’re floating, but you’re tougher than you give yourself credit for.
You’ll figure it out because you don’t know how to give up. ”
She blinks, completely speechless for once, her mouth parting just a fraction as she takes me in. “Thank you,” she whispers.
“Don’t thank me,” I say. “You deserve to hear it.”
She nods slowly, her gaze dropping to the space between us. Her fingers lift to twirl a loose strand of dark hair around her index finger, twisting it tight, then letting it spring free. A habit she probably doesn’t even realize she has when her brain is moving too fast.
“You deserve to hear it too, you know,” she says, looking back up at me through her lashes. “One day it’ll be summer, Callum. The sun always comes out again. Maybe it isn’t as far away as you think.”
The honesty in her voice stirs something up in me that I haven’t felt in a long time. I swallow around another lump in my throat, staring at her through the darkness. “I hope so,” I say softly.
“Me too.” She gives me a sleepy nod, then rolls back onto her side of the mattress, pulling the duvet up over her shoulders and scooched all the way toward the edge.
I lie back, pulling the thick comforter up to my chest and tucking myself into the cool sheets, then stare up at the ceiling. “Hey, Fred?” I ask into the nothingness.
“Yeah?” her voice comes back muffled from the pillows.
“You still think I’d be good to have at sleepovers?”
She snorts, a chuckle buried in her bedsheets. “To be determined, loverboy.”
I shake my head, turning my face toward the wall. And for the first time in a long, long time, I fall asleep with a smile on my face.