Chapter Fourteen Soraya
Chapter Fourteen
Soraya
Sometimes a witch needs some hot hex.
—Rules for Witches
She had been sitting in the mostly dark, empty room for longer than she would ever want to admit to anyone.
Aggie had taken her upstairs after work to show her the apartment space, and Soraya had asked her permission to linger.
She hadn’t left yet. She was afraid that if she did, she would have to face that all this was really happening.
But as long as she sat upstairs, on the floor in front of an old coffee table—the only piece of furniture in the room—with a few candles set on top and a matchbook to their side, then she wouldn’t have to face this.
David was really throwing her out. Levi and Jaden weren’t speaking to her.
She squeezed her eyes shut, tears pushing against them.
Her kids were too old for her to make them engage.
She texted them, and they didn’t respond.
Because he’d done it. He had succeeded in making everyone think she was the one who was bad.
She was helpless. Screaming into a void she’d once called friends.
But they’d closed ranks. They didn’t listen.
She knew exactly why. They’d been warned about her.
She might lead them astray! She might make them dissatisfied with their marriages or grind their bones to make her new sourdough starter.
She could remember, years ago, a man at their church had been coming without his wife, and when asked where she was, he’d said, “She’s just kind of doing her own thing right now.”
He hadn’t vilified her in so many words, but it had been a powerfully cutting statement in the right crowd. A crowd where they’d been taught that their own thing was only ever wicked and sinful. Her own thing wasn’t at church, and he was.
Was that what David would say?
She’s doing her own thing.
Like he’d had nothing to do with it. Like she’d just decided to go off in a fit of selfishness because she’d woken up one morning and gotten tired of her life, and not like he’d betrayed their vows or anything.
She hadn’t questioned it when that man had said those words to her. No one would question it about her either. No one would demand accountability from David. She, Soraya Nichols, was a cautionary tale because she’d pushed back against her husband’s infidelity, and she just felt . . .
She had never felt so powerless.
Her phone screen lit up. It was the Discarded Witches Club chat.
He *is* cheating on me.
Soraya unlocked the screen and stared at the message. There were three dots at the bottom, and she waited for Nora to continue.
I found pictures of him on Instagram, this other woman’s Instagram.
He’s touching her.
A screenshot came through, and Soraya grimaced. There he was, clinging to a mostly naked woman. Soraya would have lost it if it were her husband. But there was some plausible deniability, she supposed. It could be . . . friendly.
She took a breath, then started to type. It’s not his penis. It could be worse.
It can’t be worse.
A message from Daisy popped up next. What is happening tonight? Is it a full moon?
Are full moons significant? Soraya typed out.
Sweet baby. That was from Nora.
Jonnathan tojld me he’s marrying her. Ambgerly.
Soraya imagined Daisy typing that with unsteady fingers.
Soraya let out a hard breath, the back of her head hitting the wall. The truth was, she had only ever casually been friends with Daisy, and Nora never had been her friend. But she hurt for them. Really. Genuinely.
I don’t suppose you guys want to come over to my sad, empty apartment.
Daisy’s response was quick. My mother-in-law said she would watch my kids.
Why are you sitting in a sad, empty apartment? That was from Nora.
Because I came up here to look and I can’t bring myself to leave.
I’ll be there in five minutes, said Nora.
I’ll be there in ten.
Soraya scrubbed at her eyes and set her phone down. Then she stood up and paced the length of the room. This old place should give her the creeps.
Being above Lady’s Mantle, first of all, when the store seemed evil to her initially, should have set off a lot of spiritual alarm bells.
But by the end of the day today, the store hadn’t given her the creeps.
Not after everything that had happened. Not after she had done the spell.
She had waited for guilt to hit her about that.
But it hadn’t. She didn’t feel bad, because he deserved to have his sin find him out.
She walked out of the living room for the first time, traipsing all the way down the hall and into a bedroom.
There was a bed in there, and a nightstand.
The dark, empty room did make her feel just a tiny bit creeped out.
She flicked a light on and touched the bedspread, then walked to the side and looked at the end table.
She opened the drawer and saw a deck of cards inside.
Tarot cards.
Goose bumps rose on her arm, a strange prickling sensation on the back of her neck. She touched the top of the box. Then she drew her hand away.
Suddenly, she just felt tired of herself.
Tired of everything. Why was she so afraid?
All this fear hadn’t served her at all. It hadn’t guided her toward anything.
She didn’t blame God. She didn’t blame faith, the church, or the steeple.
It was all the people. They made her afraid to stand up for herself.
To have any of her own opinions. She didn’t know who she was.
All these people were trying to tell her who that was supposed to be, but she knew they were wrong.
She picked up the deck of cards and walked slowly back into the living room.
Shortly after, there was a knock at the door.
She let out a breath, walked over, and opened it.
It was Nora. She had never seen Nora look sad.
Angry, yes. Like she wanted to get into a fistfight with the world, sure.
But sad? Not like this. Not like she had been crying until she couldn’t breathe.
With the tarot card deck still in her hands, she folded Nora in for a hug. “I’m sorry.”
She had always felt like she was better than Nora. Truthfully. Here they were in the exact same place. All of Soraya’s good decisions hadn’t protected her. All of Nora’s realism hadn’t spared her. They had both been betrayed by the men who were supposed to love them.
“You’re not going to tell me there’s a godly reason for all this, are you?”
Soraya barked a watery laugh, wiping at the tears that had fallen down onto her cheeks. “I surely am not.”
“Good.”
Nora stepped inside, and Soraya heard more footsteps in the hallway. “I’m here,” called Daisy, who came into view.
She hadn’t been crying, but she looked wrung out.
“I was just telling my mother-in-law that her son is a coward who doesn’t want to tell her we are getting divorced.
I just realized that I did that for him too.
I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t doing it to do him a favor, I just thought she needed to know. ”
“Oh, Daisy,” Nora said, dragging her inside.
Nora’s phone rang, and she pulled it out of her purse, the cheerful, mustached face of her husband clearly visible on the screen. Nora looked at the phone like it might bite her, and then clicked the answer button, and a shaky, darkened video and the sound of sex filled the room.
A look of horror crossed Nora’s face. “Oh my God,” she said. “Oh my . . .” She held the phone out toward Soraya and Daisy. “Is this . . . is this happening to me right now?”
Soraya felt like she was back in that church bathroom, getting a misdirected picture of her husband’s dick. She hated this for Nora.
The camera wasn’t showing anything, but the sounds were unambiguous.
“Yes, Dr. Ben!”
“Jesus!” Nora dropped the phone onto the floor with a clatter, and Soraya wasn’t even mad about the blasphemy.
“Oh no,” Daisy said, covering her mouth. “Oh . . . oh no.”
The absolute worst-sounding porn dialogue continued to come through the phone speaker. “Examine meeeee.”
“I’m dead.” Nora put her hands over her face. “I’m dead, and this is hell. You were right all along, Soraya, I was hell bound and this is it.”
There were moans and grunts, and Soraya scrambled for the phone to end the call like she was performing a lifesaving procedure.
“Thank you.” Nora’s breathing was sharp and short. “Thank you. I knew . . . I knew it. Because Sam showed me his Instagram tonight, but this . . . He ass-dialed me while he was having sex with her.”
The digital age made it so much easier for men to cheat, but also so much harder, and they just . . . did it anyway. Flinging their penises around cyberspace.
Nora wiped her hand over her cheeks and looked surprised that her hand came away dry.
She wasn’t crying. She just looked defeated.
“You know, I used to make fun of him for how careless he is. He butt-dials, he leaves receipts for presents lying around. He’s just not sneaky.
He’s sloppy. It’s insulting. He . . . he didn’t even bother to make sure his phone wasn’t in his pocket so this couldn’t happen. ”
“Well, if he looks at his phone after he’s done, he’ll know there was an outgoing call,” Daisy pointed out.
Nora huffed. “I mean, that would again require observation. Thought. He . . . he only thinks about himself. They all only think about themselves.”
The defeat began to turn to anger, Soraya could see it, while her own anger turned quivery in her stomach, her hands shaking.
Soraya gestured around them, absurdity guiding the moment. “Welcome to my home.”
Then she burst into tears.
None of them spoke for a few minutes while Soraya gathered herself—great, gulping sobs interspersed with laughing.
Nora was the one who’d just gotten the horrible confirmation her husband was just like Jonathan and David.
That she was in the same place as Daisy and Soraya, so why was Soraya having a breakdown?