Lovestuck

Chapter 12

No one—friend or stranger—would call Riya a “happy” person. Happy people, she thought, ran on a carefree optimism she didn’t

possess. Happy people did not keep receipts, did not keep running tallies of their mistakes, did not side-eye a good day.

But being in the Abbersett High School library—surrounded in warmth, the scent of aged pages—Riya could almost forget the

panic scouring her rib cage.

Almost.

She snapped Mythologies of the Fae and Other Creatures. Useless. Just like everything else she’d found so far. Whispers of the Peri: Chronicles of the Enchanted wasn’t promising, either. The only other “records” on peris she could find were fevered speculation written by old white British

men who treated peris like mere myths. Peris were almost too good at blending in, it seemed.

Riya skimmed through the pages describing rituals, each more absurd than the last. One method for undoing curses even recommending

having “the Accursed bite on a sprig of fresh rosemary while dancing naked beneath a gibbous moon.” But as desperate as she was to end the curse, the thought of Kian dancing naked in the moonlight made her want to stab

her eyes out.

Her last hope had been an anonymous message board space meant for those with peri blood.

She hadn’t expected much, but the only response she got was a scolding: I would never do something so irresponsible.

What is wrong with you? Are you an IDIOT?

This is the kind of BS that draws unwanted attention to our kind! You should be

ashamed of yourself!

Riya had slammed her laptop shut.

The frustration inside her whistled and shrieked, like a kettle left too long on the stove.

“I’m going to close up for the night,” Ms. Calloway’s voice called from the stacks.

Ms. Calloway was the head librarian, and one of the first people Riya introduced herself to when she came to Abbersett four

years ago, when Riya was just a gangly freshman. Sometimes she looked at Riya like she could see right through her—perhaps

she was simply the kind of person who noticed things others didn’t. Perhaps it was a librarian thing.

Riya stood and gathered her laptop, her copy of Whispers of the Peri. “All right. I think I’m done for today, anyway. Thanks for all the recommendations, Ms. Calloway.”

Ms. Calloway gave Riya a sympathetic smile. “It’s hard, researching something so elusive.”

“I’ll manage eventually.” She had to.

Riya stumbled outside into the evening twilight and took a deep breath. The air was beginning to take on that familiar autumnal

crispness, the subtle sweetness of decaying leaves.

She pulled her jacket tighter against the chill, the restless edge gnawing at her.

Then she noticed a familiar figure sitting on the stone ledge by the recently massacred flower bed.

Kian. He was hunched slightly, his worn green notebook balanced on his knee, pen tapping against the edge. His silver ear

piercings glinted beneath the floodlights.

She frowned. She hadn’t even told him she’d be here.

“There you are!” Kian snapped his notebook shut and pushed off the wall so fast she thought he might face-plant. He nearly

did.

Riya tightened her grip on her backpack straps. “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting,” he said, breathless.

He stepped closer. Too close. She could feel his presence like a palpable heat against her skin. “I wanted to come in, but

I remembered you said you didn’t need my help, so . . .” He ran a hand through his hair, hesitating just long enough to make

her think he might stop there. But then, with an almost feverish eagerness, he added, “Do you need anything else? A shoulder

massage? A heating pad? Can I carry your backpack?”

Riya’s body locked up from the sheer intensity of him.

She pressed her fingers to her temples. “Can you really afford to waste your time like this? Don’t you have . . . things to

do? Friends?”

Kian shrugged, smile flickering. “Not really.”

Riya adjusted her glasses, suddenly feeling insensitive for asking.

“So how was the library?” Kian shoved his hands in his pockets. “Find anything helpful?”

“No,” she said quietly. “Not yet.”

Kian’s forehead creased in a look of concern. “You don’t have to do all this alone.”

“Unless you’re some secret peri historian,” replied Riya, “you’re not really in a position to help.”

“Well, I can still drive you home. If you’d like.”

Riya blinked. She hadn’t expected the offer. “You do have a license, right? No outstanding warrants or anything?”

“What? No. What do you take me for? Actually, don’t answer that. But yes, I do have a license. I wouldn’t put you in danger.”

Riya sighed. She should refuse. Keep the literal and figurative distance she’d been trying to maintain. But exhaustion argued

otherwise.

So she followed him across the near-empty lot, until Kian stopped.

Not in front of a motorcycle or flashy muscle car. Just an old red Honda Accord. Clean, well kept. Not a single visible dent.

For some reason, that threw her.

They barely knew each other. She’d cursed Kian, altered his life in a way neither of them fully understood. And yet—beyond

that? She knew almost nothing.

“After you,” Kian said, holding the passenger door open for her.

Riya slid in.

They drove along winding roads, the orange light of the setting sun slicing through the trees, casting soft, shifting shadows

across the dashboard. Kian had connected his phone to the stereo, and music filled the car, a dreamy, hazy sound wrapping

around them like a favorite blanket.

She caught herself nodding to the rhythm—then caught herself.

“What band is this?”

Kian grew animated. “The Marías. I’ve got their latest album on repeat. María’s vocals are like velvet, and their guitarist—man, the way he layers those melty, psychedelic guitar riffs—”

He broke off, smiling sheepishly. “What about you? What kind of music do you listen to?”

Riya shrugged. “Anything, really. I don’t have a strong preference.”

“Aw, come on. Everyone’s got a preference.”

She shifted uncomfortably, then relented with a sigh. “I like songs with orchestral instruments. Violins. Piano. And . . .

unique voices, I guess.” She didn’t admit the music he was playing now wasn’t so bad, either.

“For sure.” Kian’s eyes gleamed. “I love how music reaches people, you know? You can be in the worst mood ever, but then you hear the right song, and suddenly it’s like the world understands you.

Bringing out emotions you didn’t even know you had.

Kind of like—” He huffed out a laugh, shaking his head. “Like magic, in a way.”

The word sent a small jolt through her. She’d never thought about magic like that before. Never as something . . . beautiful.

“Out of curiosity,” she said, changing the subject before it could settle, “how have you been feeling lately, since . . .

everything?”

Kian’s grip on the wheel tightened slightly. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I guess I’ve been having more trouble sleeping

lately. I keep—” He cleared his throat, shifting. The glow from the dashboard highlighted the pink creeping up his face. “I

keep thinking about you? Wondering what you’re up to, what you’re thinking. Imagining entire scenarios in my head.”

Briefly, Riya thought her cheeks felt warm. She cleared her throat.

“So, no other obvious changes?”

“Not really. Oh!” Kian brightened. “While I was waiting earlier, I made a list. Questions I wanted to ask you.”

“Questions?”

“To get to know you,” he said. “I was thinking about what you said—how we barely know each other. But I want to know the real

you.”

“What kind of questions?”

“Favorite color. Favorite animal. If you could meet anyone, dead or alive. Political issues you care about. It says a lot

about a person, you know?”

“I’m not a psych study.”

“I know,” he replied. “I just want to know things to add to the stuff I already know about you. Stuff that isn’t influenced

by any curse.”

So that was what this was about. Kian wasn’t just curious—he was searching. Hoping. Trying to prove that what he felt was real. That it wasn’t just peri magic pulling his strings.

But that wasn’t how magic worked. It didn’t carve clean lines between what was real and what wasn’t. It seeped in, messy and

invisible, until even the strongest emotions couldn’t tell where they started.

If he was hoping to build a wall between himself and the curse—

He couldn’t. No one could.

“Oh?” Riya muttered coldly. “And what do you think you already know about me?”

“I know you have a strong sense of justice. You work hard. And you care about your friends.”

“Anyone could guess that.”

“And you hate asking for help,” Kian added, gentler. “Even when you need it.”

“That’s because I have everything under control.”

“I know.” He smirked. “Hey, want to hear a joke?”

“No.”

“What do you call a fish with a bow tie?”

She sighed. “I don’t know. James Pond?”

Kian burst out laughing. “Shit, that’s pretty good. I was going to say so-fish-ticated.”

“God, that’s . . . awful.” It was the kind of joke her sisters would tell—childish and unfunny, especially after the day she’d just had. But before

she could stop it, her mouth twitched.

“There it is,” said Kian, grinning like he’d just won something.

They stopped at a red light. The music softened to a hum, María’s voice spinning a slow, dreamy web between them.

Kian spoke again. “I tried looking up stuff about peris. After our talk.”

“What?” Riya blinked. “Why?”

“I wanted to understand better,” he said simply. “But there’s, like, nothing out there. No real history, no proper records.” He paused. Glanced at her again. “But then I started wondering if researching

peris felt weird for you. Like . . . does it make you feel more connected? Or does it make you feel more like an outsider?”

“What do you mean?”

Kian hesitated. “It, just, reminded me of something.” He made a turn before continuing. “A while ago, my dad made me read

this book on Filipino history. Obviously, I already knew a lot—you kinda just pick up the traditions and stories naturally when you grow up in it, right? But reading them made it

feel distant. Like I was studying something academic, something separate from me, instead of something I am. It kinda freaked me out, how disconnected I suddenly felt.”

Kian smiled faintly. “But then, as I kept learning, it made me feel proud, too. Like I was reclaiming it. Reconnecting in

a way I hadn’t before.”

Riya fiddled with her hands in her lap.

Her heritage was just a fact of her existence, like eye color or height. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt pride

in peri magic.

Only fear. Only mistakes.

“I’m not doing this for pride,” she said. “I’m doing this to fix a mistake.”

“Right . . .” Kian nodded. “Eyes on the prize. I gotcha.”

He smiled, but there was something in it that made her stomach roil—a subtle, knowing sort of sympathy, the same look her

family sometimes gave her whenever the topic of peris came up.

“But if you ever want to talk about it—”

“I won’t need to,” Riya cut in. “Once the curse is broken, everything will go back to normal.”

Kian’s hands flexed on the wheel.

“Normal?” he echoed. His voice had a hairline crack, like glass under pressure. “Is that really what you want?”

“Of course it is. Don’t you?”

For one breathless moment, Kian hesitated. Long enough for her to notice. The world outside the window blurred past. Inside

the car, it felt like everything had gone perfectly still.

Then Kian exhaled, and the moment collapsed in on itself.

“Right. You don’t have time for distractions,” he said, his lopsided smile returning.

There it was. The answer she’d been expecting.

So why did it feel . . . wrong?

María’s voice drifted through the speakers. Sweet. Sad. Like a lullaby for an ending.

“I just want you to know,” Kian said, “no matter what happens—I can promise I’ll always be there for you.”

Riya glanced at him, searching for the boy he’d been before the curse. Searching for the truth, for anything she could trust.

But there was only Kian, smiling like he meant it.

And Riya—

She swallowed hard. Forced her face still.

“. . . Sure,” she said.

“And hey, if we run out of ideas, we could always try the fairy-tale route. You know how the princess kisses the cursed frog

and—”

Riya turned back to the window. “No, thank you.”

Kian laughed. But Riya barely heard it. Her mind was already racing ahead. Planning. Plotting.

She would set things right. She would.

Whether Kian liked it or not.