Chapter 46 Stone
Stone
Nothing can make me feel better.
Not even Hercules.
Not that I want to. If there’s anything that reminds a person they’re human, it’s pain and suffering.
How could Coco have lied to me for so long?
That isn’t love.
It’s betrayal.
It’s the depth and breadth of the lie that hurts. For weeks she could have revealed the truth, but she let me fall in love with her. She let me believe the lie . . . and that’s unforgivable.
It’s Monday morning and I’m back at the construction site, ready to dig into work, get things moving.
I stayed the rest of the weekend with Pane, who helped me break into my phone and laptop. Man, did I have a few thousand emails to sift through. Answering them kept me busy all of yesterday and helped keep my mind off Coco.
Mostly.
She got in there every once in a while, like when Hercules wanted to be petted.
All the best memories of him are tangled up with her.
But I’m not some softy who gets taken by a woman and played for a fool.
There’s a knock at the door. “Come in!”
Pane enters and grabs a hard hat from a shelf. “Hey.”
“Hey. You ready to walk the site?”
“Let’s do it.”
I push up from behind the desk and head out with him. Hercules is still with me. Even though he reminds me of her, I can’t get rid of the lambicorn.
He’s only a baby, and I’m not a monster.
Pane says good morning to the guys as we pass them. All I can offer is a nod in greeting. This isn’t a good morning. I don’t see myself experiencing a “good” morning for the next hundred years.
Not without Coco.
Not without my sun.
Stop it, Stone. She lied to you. Repeatedly. Even when she had the chance to tell the truth, she still lied—happily, so that she could save her town and apparently her own ass.
Those two things were always more important to her than I was. And that’s what hurts most of all. I gave her every part of me, and all she wanted was her town.
I don’t miss her. In fact, I’m better off without her. I was fine before her, and I’ll be fine again. Maybe. At least that’s what I tell myself over and over until it’s almost believable.
Much as I’ve tried repeatedly to push these thoughts away, they continue to creep in.
“The build’s going great,” Pane says. When I don’t answer, he sighs. “You okay?”
“Fine,” I reply curtly.
I’m such a liar. The ley lines thrum happily. Well, maybe not happily, but they’re pulsing and alive thanks to the changes we made to the resort.
“I was worried when I first heard about the materials shift, but this looks good. It’s strong.”
“How’s Rhett?”
“He still not talking to you?”
I grunt.
“He’ll get over it.” Pane kneels and runs his palm over the limecrete.
“This is perfect. Not one crack. It’s hard to find that.
Well done. Looks like the materials switch was worth it.
Otherwise, if you’d kept using the other stuff and this town lost its magic, we’d be screwed. No tourists, no need for the resort.”
I rub the back of my neck. “Yeah, I guess.”
“You should congratulate yourself.” He rises and slips his hands in his pockets. “Mom called me.”
My mom. Pane explained that whole clusterfuck to me, too. “Yeah?”
He nods. “Yeah. She’s sorry. I think she really wants to try.”
“Good luck to her.” I’m too raw to even consider talking to anyone about emotions or feelings or their long-lost cousin who’s been living in a swamp.
Hercules runs past, kicking up his hind legs with glee. Glad someone’s happy.
He munches on grass that sprouts on top of the ley lines, and when he turns around, his horn is glowing this weird iridescent purple. It reminds me of the color of that flower Coco picked in the meadow during the full moon.
“Is he okay?” Pane asks.
“Hell if I know. Hercules, come!”
The lambicorn leaves the grass and trots over. Pane watches him closely. “Does he have magic?”
“Not that I know of.”
“That’s what the piggycorns did when their magic first showed up. Their horns glowed.”
I bend down and pat the lambi on the back. “You feeling okay, bud?”
“Baaaaaaa.”
He lowers his head, touching his horn to my wrist. A line of light flashes under my skin. At the same time, I feel the ley lines throb with power.
I exhale a gusty sigh. Electricity surges through my veins, burning like lava. It hits me—hot, sharp, like my insides might explode.
The air’s knocked from my lungs, and I struggle to catch my next breath. Everything in my head goes silent, still, like I’m suspended in midair, waiting for gravity to grab me with its unyielding hand and drag me back to Earth.
Then my veins open. Air surges into my lungs. Blood rushes in my ears.
And I remember everything.
Who I was before the amnesia. The pain my mother caused by keeping our father from us. My initial rejection of Hercules and all his sunshine.
And I remember how I threatened to blackmail Coco.
My body hurts, the muscles aching from losing her. Coco’s voice echoes in my mind—how she felt seen. I remember the night in the meadow, and feel her breath on my neck, taste how she kissed me like she believed in us.
I remember the lie my mother told and how much pain it gave me, and how Coco’s betrayal hurts all the more because of the past that’s chained around my ankle like an iron ball.
All that pain crashes down, threatening to choke me.
So I wall it up because I know who I am now, and I remember everything.
What happened with the lambicorn hits me. Hercules ate the potion Coco had made to fix me, and somehow harnessed its magic. Now I’m free.
Am I? Or am I chained to the past?
The past is what made me who I am. The past is an anchor that doesn’t shift or change.
So many emotions and thoughts flood my mind.
It’s like I’m two different people—the before me and the after me.
The person I became because of Coco, because of the amnesia, is compromised.
He believes people too easily. He trusted the wrong person.
That Stone was a sucker who doesn’t deserve respect.
So I shut the door on him.
“You okay?” Pane asks.
“Never better.”
My gaze washes over the site, and all I see is limecrete, red earth, and grass. No more ley lines. They’ve vanished from sight because the spell Coco cast no longer strangles me.
I’m glad they’ve vanished. I didn’t need them anyway.
“The materials,” I tell Pane.
“What about them?”
“What would you think about changing them?”