32. Clementine
Chapter 32
Clementine
I ’m not going to lie, Clementine the healer is just as strange as Laura implied. But considering that I was able to heal as quickly as I did,I have no problem moving aside to let her do what she must.
Beaded bracelets trail up her arms all the way to her elbows, jangling as she waves her hands over Noah’s still form. Her glasses are too big for her face and so cloudy I’m unable to see her eyes behind them. She’s chanting something as herbs and candles burn on the bedside table.
Laura sits in a plushy armchair in the corner of the same bedroom I was in a month ago. Grandma observes from the doorway. Neither speak, they just watch as Clementine tries her best to wake up my soulmate.
Clementine lets loose a heavy breath and turns to me. I still can’t see her eyes. “He will wake.”
With that, she stands and walks toward the door. Away from Noah. Who is still very much unconscious.
“Um.” I stand as well. “When?”
A grimy, toothy grin breaks on her face, and I have the sudden urge to brush my teeth. “When he is ready. Soon.”
“Thank you, Clementine,” Grandma says sharply, cutting a glare in my direction.
Yes, thank you, oh vague one.
Laura snorts as Grandma walks Clementine out of the room, and presumably the cottage. We came back here instead of Mom’s house. I guess I’m thankful for that. How do I tell the potentially sentient house that she’s gone? Can someone else have that job?
“Told you she was weird,” Laura says, curling in on herself.
I scootch my chair closer to Noah’s side. “You were definitely right about that.”
“Why is there a bunch of garnet in here?” Laura nods toward the bedside table. Along with an assortment of herbs and candles, little polished garnet crystals sit.
“They’re supposed to be helpful in healing. This one here is unakite, which also helps with healing the body, and some quartz to amplify both.”
“Guess there’s a lot more to this witchy stuff than I initially thought.”
I nod. “More than I ever imagined. I don’t even know a small fraction.”
“You know more than I do,” she says. “And you did it all without me.”
This conversation has been overdue for a while. More than a while, if I’m honest. I can’t let it go sideways like last time. I can’t lose her after losing Mom.
Shit.
“And that was selfish of me,” I reply, meeting her gaze.
She sucks in a breath, the finger twisting her hair slowing to a stop.
“It’s hard for me to truly explain, Laura, but something in me snapped. I couldn’t see past my own needs, and what I needed was to get out of that house. I was so stuck, rudderless, and I needed to figure out what the fuck I was doing with my life. It didn’t need to be without you, it shouldn’t have been without you.”
She lets loose a heavy breath. “It wasn’t just you. You did what you needed to do, and Mom...I couldn’t leave her, too. She broke when you left, and I didn’t know what she’d do if I went with you. I didn’t know what it would come to if she knew I was exploring magic with you.”
“I didn’t realize things were that bad.” The guilt is a wave. Disappointment, anger, all broiling in a big pot of guilt. How could I not know? How could Mom put all that on Laura, on me? How could she be such a hypocrite—banning magic for Laura and I and then turning around to hunt daemons? How can I still be angry with her after she saved Noah’s life?
She shrugs. “Why would you? You were off starting a new life, why look back at what you’d left behind?”
I struggle for a response. There’s a wall between us that never existed before I left, and I hope it doesn’t last forever. I hope I get my sister back, but I can tell by the hurt in her eyes that it won’t be today. Probably not tomorrow either. Or the next day.
“I understand more than you probably think I do. But that doesn’t mean it’s okay,” she says, eyes hard.
“For what it’s worth, I am sorry for how everything has happened. I would do things differently if I could.”
She stands with a shallow nod, heading for the door.
“Laura.” I stand as well, taking a step toward her. “Would you like to stay with me? Or at least with Grandma? I can’t imagine you in that big house by yourself. I don’t think it’s good for you.”
“I’ll think about it. But for now, I just want to go home,” she says. With a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, she turns and leaves.
I’ve never been more worried about her in my life. Where is my funny, over the top, Pink Puke Mobile Laura? This sad, broken person who doesn’t trust me barely resembles her.
My gaze drops to Noah. His breathing is finally even, his face a peaceful calm. At least someone is resting.
Despite how comfortable Grandma’s chairs are, sleeping all squished up is a young woman’s game. My aches have aches.
But I will not leave his side.
I stretch my arms above my head, several pops and cracks rippling up my back, and readjust. I’m so tired I can’t open my eyes, but I refuse to move. I was so close to losing him forever and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to leave him again.
“Hazel?” Noah’s voice is as rough as sandpaper.
My eyes snap open with force and I turn to him. He’s barely awake, eyes bleary and eyelids drooping. But he’s awake.
A full body sob shakes me as I fling myself forward to grab his hand. He’s awake.
He’s awake.
“I’m here,” I finally manage to reply. “I’m here, Noah.” I grab the full glass of water on the bedside table and lift it to his lips. He drinks it greedily, spilling some on his chin and shirt in his enthusiasm.
He drains the cup and I place it back, reaching for his hand once more. “You’re safe now.”
His hand slips away from mine.
“Hazel, I need an explanation, because what I remember...” He shakes his head. “It doesn’t make sense.”
Shit. It’s not like this is surprising. I knew I’d have to explain all of this to him. But how do I explain something I barely understand myself? Explain something that I haven’t even begun to fully process?
Years of therapy are a prerequisite to this conversation, and I have had none. I have to attempt it, though. I really have no other choice.
Today is the day for hard conversations, that’s for damn sure.
I breathe in. “I wanted us to talk when we woke up. I wanted to explain everything to you myself when we were relaxed and safe, after you told me you loved me. I’m sorry that this happened this way, that I wasn’t able to tell you myself.”
He stares at me, brown-black eyes hard under those goddamn bushy eyebrows I love so much.
“I’m a witch.”
Apparently we’re going for blunt today.
“I figured it was something like that, considering the giant monsters that picked me up from your place. I don’t remember anything after that, was I unconscious?” Anger flares in his eyes. He hasn’t tried to touch me.
I nod. “They knocked you out. You’ve only been out for about twenty-four hours.”
Craziest twenty-four hours of my goddamn life, that’s for sure. A breeze whips the candles to flicker on the table with the erratic beating of my heart.
With a wince he lifts his hand and rubs the back of his neck, curls bouncing in front of his face. Even now, even with him as frustrated and upset as he visibly is, the simple motion causes my heart to swoop up into my throat. I love this man so much.
Even if he refuses to ever speak to me again, I’ll never not love him.
“It’s not even that you are what you are.”
Jesus, okay. Ouch.
He clears his raspy throat. “It’s that you lied. And it’s not even a small lie, a lie about what your favorite food is or if you hate my hair or the way I laugh. You lied about your very being, about what makes you who you are. You hid something vital to your entire person from me.”
Panic thrums in my bones, my stomach rolling in a way that almost makes me nauseous. “I?—”
“I told you about Sam.” His voice breaks over his brother’s name. “I told you about all the cracked and broken places inside me, and I’m finally realizing that you never reciprocated. At all. I know barely anything about your family, about your life. What you are. You’ve kept me at a distance and lied , Hazel.”
My eyes burn with tears, my vision blurs. He’s not wrong, and he’s going to leave me. The person who makes me feel happy, feel whole, is going to leave because I wasn’t ready to share my whole self with him.
I’ve never shared my whole self with anyone.
He shakes his head again, hair tickling the edge of the bruise under his eye. “You gave me the safety of knowing you would never judge me. You made me feel heard and seen in a way no one ever has before. You are beautiful, intelligent, and kind. I loved you so goddamn much and all I asked was for you not to lie. And you chose to lie about the biggest thing in your life.”
“I do love you, Noah.” I’m wobbling, stumbling over my words. “I just didn’t know how. I wasn’t ready.”
He drops his head into his hand. “I can’t think right now. Every single part of my body aches like I’ve been slammed into a wall. Which I probably fucking was. I’m exhausted and I can’t. I can’t.”
“Noah—”
“I can’t.” Finally he meets my gaze and it’s broken. Anguished. But final. He won’t be discussing this. Not now. Maybe not ever.
I nod, tears escaping to make little trails down my cheeks. “I’ll let you rest.”
Despite it being physically painful—like a knife cutting through my abdomen—I stand and walk toward the door. I may never want to leave his side, but I can’t force him to want me there.
“I’d like to leave tomorrow,” he murmurs.
I turn as his eyes close.
“Okay,” I whisper.
Closing the door behind me is the hardest thing I’ve had to do. And tomorrow will be worse.
What if he never comes back? What if my soulmate rejects me? I know I won’t die or anything dramatic, but I know I won’t love anyone else. Ever.
What if he gets married? Has babies? Moves on with his life as if I never existed and I’m just stuck here in a soulmate bond by myself?
Alone forever.
“Hazel, come. Stand up,” Grandma’s voice calls to me.
Am I on the floor?
I’m wheezing, I’m barely breathing. I’m apparently in the middle of a goddamn panic attack and I’m so wrapped up in my own thoughts that I had no idea.
“I don’t have the energy to help you up, dear, you have to stand on your own,” she continues, her voice weary and small.
She lost her daughter today.
How the hell have I not even processed that fact until this moment? I’m wrapped up in Laura, in Noah, and myself, completely ignoring the shit Grandma must be going through.
It’s been a hell of a twenty-four hours.
With a strength I barely knew I possessed, I manage to stand. To address the woman who has been nothing but a pillar of strength to me for my entire life. “What do we do?”
She shakes her head, leaning heavily against the floral wallpaper in the hallway of her cottage. “I have no idea.”
My thoughts are on Noah. On Mom. On Laura. On all the people I’ve let down, who have let me down. On all I’ve lost today. I run my fingers along the warm wood door separating me from the person I love most.
“He’ll forgive you,” she says.
A pained chuckle that hurts my chest escapes me. “No, Grandma. I don’t think he will.”