22
Tristan
A few days ago, I told Demi that the last thing I wanted was to have anything to do with the Spells for Sending chapter in her aunts’ spell book. I told her I didn’t want to be sent, that I was perfectly happy here, on this plane of existence, with her. Now, I’m not so sure how true that is.
Nick, from some town an hour away, is taking Demi out on a date tonight, and I’m in agony.
After he interrupted our slow dancing to Fleetwood Mac in the living room with his phone call, Demi told me about him.
She seemed shy about it, guilty, even. Like she knew her words would hurt me.
And it did. It took every last shred of self-control, decency, and stoicism for me to listen to her talk about the way they met without completely losing my goddamn mind.
“I don’t have to go,” she’d said.
Of course, there’s no way I’d deny her an opportunity at happiness.
No matter how badly I want to be the one to take her out, it isn’t possible for us.
I will never be the man that she needs. She needs someone with a heartbeat.
Someone she can touch for real. I’m a ghost. I will only ever be able to give her the imagining of a relationship.
She needs a man with a shoulder she can rest her head on .
“You should go,” I’d said as my heart broke.
Now she’s upstairs getting ready, and I’m in the living room with a book, trying not to spiral.
I’ve been on the same page of this book for an hour.
Haven’t read a single word. I can’t focus.
If I still needed air in my lungs, I wouldn’t be able to breathe.
Everything inside me is tight and coiled and sick with jealousy.
In all my years, I’ve never felt envy like this.
He’s going to open doors for her. Pay for her meal. Make her laugh. Jesus, he’ll probably hold her hand, kiss her goodnight. If they hit it off, maybe she’ll invite him in. To her bed. Where he’ll touch her in ways I can’t. Make her moan his name and not mine.
Fuck.
What, then? What if he’s the one, and I have to sit here in this house with her and watch her fall in love with him? Listen to him have the privilege of being inside her every night, watch him hold her in his arms. Watch them get married. Watch her have his children.
I’d rather disappear. I’d rather cease to exist. What did it say in the spell book? To oblivion. ?I’d gladly take oblivion over watching the woman I love build a happily ever after with someone else.
On top of the maddening jealousy, I’m helpless.
There’s nothing I can do about any of it.
I can’t show Demi how much all this hurts, because I don’t want her to cancel her plans for my sake.
She doesn’t need to make sacrifices for me.
It’s not like I can swoop in and magically have a corporeal form, come back to life. However, I’d do anything if I could.
I’d do anything, give anything up, for the opportunity to be the man Demi needs. To touch her. To be with her. To belong to her .
She’s listening to music upstairs while she’s getting ready.
Something after my time. A woman who sings about witches and mermaids and vampires.
Florence something. But Demi is singing along to the lyrics with such passion that her voice momentarily pulls me out of my head.
Her confidence to sing at the top of her lungs like that, not caring if anyone hears, brings a smile to my face.
Demi has a beautiful voice, but for someone who knows so much about music, she’s surprisingly off-key. Can’t hold a tune to save her life. And I love it. Her imperfections make her more perfect to me; her humanity makes me fall even deeper for her.
I check the time—a quarter to seven. Nick, who literally ran into her and bought her a pastry, will be here to pick Demi up in fifteen minutes.
I’ll have to watch him come to the door, have to watch the way he looks at her.
His eyes will rake over her body, and he’ll undress her with them. And there’s nothing I can do about it.
Restless with the tragedy of it all, I get up from the couch and step outside onto the front porch.
The night is dark and crisp, but Demi has done a great job decorating, so it feels warm and inviting out here now.
She and Blue installed a swing that Blue made.
It’s beautiful, swaying in the light breeze, draped in a red-and-white plaid blanket.
There are pumpkins all along the balustrade—white, orange, and pale green.
Demi hung amber-bulbed string lights from the ceiling in a drapey way that feels both easygoing and stylish.
Something scurries across the lawn. An opossum. It turns its weird little face toward me, pauses, then continues on. I wonder if it’s the same creature Demi saved from the upturned planter when she first moved in. It seems likely. Once you’ve met Demi St. James, it’s hard to stray too far from her.
Late September in New England is like a held breath. Waiting, waiting, waiting for Autumn to arrive in her full glory. The air gradually cools, the leaves slowly begin to change, the days get shorter, and the nights get darker. But inevitably, fall will come and go much too quickly.
Time moves on, and I don’t.
I left the front door open behind me, and Mittens trots out. She meows and does a couple of soft figure-eights around my legs. Then she looks up at me and meows again, this time louder.
“What’s up, Mittens?” I ask.
She looks in the house through the open door, then back up at me. Meows again.
“You want me to go inside?”
Another meow. This one sounds a little bossy.
“All right, all right,” I say, and step back inside, shutting the door behind me.
I glance up the staircase and immediately understand what Mittens wanted me to see. At the top of the stairs stands Demi, looking more beautiful than anyone on Earth has ever looked.
She’s curled her golden hair and piled it on top of her head, with a few tendrils hanging down to frame her face. Her dress is deep burgundy, with long bell sleeves and a low, square neckline that hugs the swells of her breasts in a way that makes me hungry. It’s also short as sin.
“Fuck,” I whisper.
Demi’s eyes meet mine, and she starts walking down the stairs. I try to focus on her face, because my attention is drawn to the soft skin of her upper thighs, exposed as the hem of her dress flutters across them. And those knee-high black leather boots, my god.
Her face, man, eyes on her face.
She’s so gorgeous, I don’t know how to behave, standing here and watching her. I don’t know what to do with my body or where to put my hands. I realize my mouth is hanging open, so I close it with considerable effort. I’m malfunctioning.
When she reaches the main floor, she stands a few feet from me. The expression on her face is one I haven’t seen before. There’s a hint of timidity in it—and guilt— hidden under a mask of hopeful excitement. It makes her, a woman eternally sure of herself, look a little uncertain for once.
“Do you like my dress?” she asks.
“I love your dress.”
I want to be your dress, so close to your skin.
“You think I look okay?” Her eyes are glittering.
“You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.”
“Tristan…” There’s a warning in her tone. Something that hints at all the things left unsaid between us.
I hold my palms up in surrender. The last thing I want to do is make Demi feel bad about going on a date or ruin her night with my melancholy. This isn’t about me.
“I’m just saying, your date is a lucky guy,” I say, giving her a smile that I hope looks sincere and not like I’m in pain.
“I mean…” she says with a wicked smirk that dissolves her previous shyness entirely. “You’re not wrong. ”
Taking a step back from her, I make a twirling motion with my hand.
With a grin that makes the whole Manor light up, Demi spins in a slow circle for me.
I drink her in and bring my fist to my mouth, biting my knuckle to keep myself from telling her all the things I wish I could do to her.
When she turns back to face me, her gaze lands right on my fist. The exposed skin on her chest flushes a pretty pink.
The old grandfather clock in the foyer chimes—seven o’clock.
Demi’s date will be here any minute. I try not to let my face fall, but I realize that I can’t bear to stand here and watch her leave with him.
Just thinking about her with another man is breaking me.
I don’t think I’m strong enough to see ?it.
“I’m gonna head upstairs so you don’t have to awkwardly introduce him to your ghost roommate,” I say, by way of an excuse.
“Could he even see you?” ????????I shrug. “Pretty sure you’re the only one who can see me, but I don’t want to risk being wrong and making things weird for you.”
Demi chuckles. “I appreciate that.”
I want to hug her, hold her, kiss her. Feel the velvet of her dress on my fingers, the warm curves of her body beneath.
And the way she’s looking at me now, her blue eyes bright and searching, her teeth scraping across her plush bottom lip, tells me she wants the same thing.
Or some version of it. The possibility feels so real that I almost reach for her, almost pull her into my arms.
Instead, I say, “Have fun tonight, Demi.”
For a moment, she looks like she might say something, like she might even reconsider going altogether.
Then a shadow passes over her features, and I can only imagine that it’s another reminder that I’m not really here, that there’s no future with me.
She takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly.
Gives me a smile that I know isn’t true.
“Thank you, Tristan,” she says.