Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
I looked down at my phone, the blinking notification from a text I still hadn’t replied to.
I had an idea.
One that Max definitely, unequivocally, absolutely would not like, but I thought maybe if I could talk to him about it in person, he’d be less likely to flip. So I got in my truck and drove to his house.
Max’s family lived in a big farmhouse on the outside of town, with two pens for training horses and a greenhouse in back for his dad’s tomatoes.
I got out of the car, popping the back on and off my earring—I’d swapped out my bumblebee studs for ladybugs.
I’d been here so many times before, but every time I’d come as a friend, a welcome guest. Now I walked up the front porch and felt dread brew in my stomach.
I swung open the screened door and knocked, wondering what his mom would do. Scream at me, tell me to leave?
As usual, the house was bustling, loud, and chaotic, with dogs barking and kids screaming. Mrs. Middlemore yelled, “Oh, quit!” to the dogs jostling to get to the door, until all eyes landed on me.
She stared at me for one long moment, and I half-considered turning around and pretending I had the wrong house. Nothing to see here, just slide back in my truck, when her face broke into a huge grin.
“Cella!” She rushed toward me, arms outstretched.
There was more hustle and bustle as chairs scooted and Cheerios were hastily moved.
I was sat at the kitchen table and introduced to various nieces and nephews staying for the week.
Mrs. Middlemore set a bowl of tomato soup and a heaping plate of mac and cheese in front of me.
Both made from scratch, of course. Not for the first time, I wondered if Max’s mom didn’t have some Magic of her own in those cast-iron pans.
She started chatting almost immediately. I was grateful all I was required to do was nod every so often.
“And look, Jason’s got himself a new leg brace and a walker.
He’s going to do just fine. Janie’s not here, Max told you, I suppose.
I swear, if the Devil himself had gotten into that girl, she’d be better behaved than she is now.
Disappears for days, can’t ever call her mama to let her know she’s alright, has me worried sick half the time.
But oh!” she cried, and turned to me suddenly. I jumped.
“I’m just so happy you two are working together again!
You know his Magic was on the fritz, and we could really use the help around here.
Between you and me, that girlfriend of his isn’t worth a sack of salt.
Ain’t got a lick of Magic in her, and even then, she doesn’t have the sense not to smooch all over a man in his daddy’s house.
She came over here last week, and I could just hear them in the upstairs bathroom.
And you know I’m a Christian woman, I don’t like to say nothing bad about nobody, but, well, Old Lou died, and she didn’t even send a condolence card.
Nothing! I don’t know, I just didn’t think it was very polite. ”
“Eileen said she got it. It just came in a little later than the others,” one of Max’s younger cousins said, sipping his soup.
She waved him away. “Are you all done, honey? You want some pie? Neighbor across the street made it.”
I’d always liked coming here. It was so much sunnier than my own home. The creaking old farmhouse, filled with rugs passed down from his grandmother, the scent of the tomatoes from the greenhouse. His dad, cracking jokes from the den.
I stood up from the table and washed my plate in the sink. “No, thanks, Mrs. Middlemore. I should really see Max. Is he in the barn?”
“Sure is,” she said, wiping up a spill from one of the little ones. “And, Cella?”
I looked up as I headed for the door.
“It’s good to see you, honey. I wish you’d come around more often.”
“It’s really good to see you, too, Mrs. Middlemore.” The screened door swung shut behind me.
I had so many memories from this place, sitting on the fence with Max’s sister eating Twizzlers and watching the horses, riding a horse myself for the first time—Max taught me.
Granted, I felt a little out of place now, worlds away from the girl I was the last time I was here.
The girl climbing out of Max’s truck with flushed cheeks, so carefree in her sundress and cowboy boots, not a problem in the world.
I wasn’t sure I even knew who that person was anymore.
Max was in the barn, working the saddle leather.
“Hey.” I popped open a bottle of Coke from their icebox.
“Just be a sec. This one here’s a little difficult.”
Marlon, the brown stallion, who was temperamental on his best day. “I know.” I patted his neck, breathed into his nose. “Hello, Marlon.”
“He always did like you.”
I climbed up on the fence to wait.
I had flashbacks of another time here. Crickets chirping, lying in the bed of his truck, wrapped up in an old blanket.
The truck had broken down at the back of the farm, and we were waiting for his sister to come and bring the cables, laughing and resigning ourselves to a night beneath the stars.
He leaned over and kissed me. I’d had kisses before, but this one made it feel like this was the only kiss that had ever mattered.
He looked at me, tilted my chin with his finger, and I was lost in blue, blue, blue.
Now he heaved the saddle off Marlon with a grunt. “If you’re here, I’m guessing there’s bad news.”
I took a swig of the Coke, letting the bubbles crackle and fizz in my throat. “No.”
I watched the muscles tense and flex under his loose T-shirt as he worked the oil into the leather.
The aura around him was a tangle of stormy thoughts, but I didn’t have to peek at his Magic to know something was up.
He’d been in moods like this before. He had a lot on his plate, I knew, and for a moment, all I wanted to do was ease his burden. Hold his hand while the storm passed.
“Saw your mom.”
He laughed, “Oh yeah? She’s been asking about you ever since I got elected to the council. ‘When are you going to tell Cella to get over here? I miss that girl,’ yada yada.” He smiled, then looked down. “Dad wasn’t there.”
“No.”
I watched him work the leather, his hands applying more and more pressure.
I climbed off the fence, took a brush to groom Marlon.
“Careful of the—”
“Left leg, I know,” I smiled.
We worked in sync for a while, falling into a groove, and it was quiet except for the bray of the horse, the buzz of the cicadas, and the gentle rush of the wind through the open doors. I didn’t know what it was about this place that felt like coming home.
“I forget what a natural you are at this. Julia’s terrified of the horses.”
“How’s that going?”
“Could be better,” he said, looking down and scuffing his boot on the ground. Didn’t want to talk about it, then. I continued brushing.
“Everything feels like it’s kind of just … closing in, you know? You ever feel like that?”
I sighed. “All the time.”
He looked down at me from beneath his hat, the sapphire glint coming back into his eye, if only for a second.
His boot slid closer, sole scraping against the wet pavement after he’d hosed it down.
He was so close I could see the sunburn on the back of his neck, the tan line beneath his shirt. “You know, I’m glad you’re here.”
That night, in his truck, he’d whispered promises in between kisses. “I know you’re afraid, that you think I’ll hurt you. I promise you, I won’t. I won’t.” He’d whispered it into my ear all night. “I’ll never hurt you, Cella.” He breathed it into my neck, into my hair, into my heart.
All of a sudden that familiar pounding hit my chest. The feeling that reminds me to run, to get the hell out of here, to not let him get any closer. And a familiar voice, from a conversation years ago.
What are you so afraid of?
“Everything,” I’d wanted to tell him, “everything.”
Now I swallowed, his face drawing closer, the warm scent of him filling the space between us.
“I think I should go to the Phi Kat party tonight,” I blurted.
He stopped inches before my face, still staring at my lips. “What?”
I glanced down at my phone, the blinking notification still at the top of my screen. The text from Basile I’d yet to answer.
Still coming tonight?
I’d felt so bad after our conversation, like the light of the sun had left me, that I sought him out to clear the air. He’d taken the whole thing gracefully and offhandedly had mentioned a party tonight.
“You should come. Meet the guys,” he’d said.
I took a deep breath. “There’s a party tonight at the Phi Kat house, and I think it’s the perfect opportunity to dig more into Grant. We need more information, and what better way to get it than at a house party with all his friends? Maybe I could even sneak into his room, do some real recon.”
Any trace of a smile dropped from Max’s face. “He threatened you. He drugged Joselyn Hart. The guy is dangerous. And I don’t think going to a creepy rapist frat party is the right move.”
“We need information, and we’re running out of time. You saw the bloodstains at Maritza’s. Dani’s running out of time, and I won’t abandon her, Max. I can’t.”
And while that part was true, that it was a way to get more information about the frat—it was also a way to smooth the waters with Basile.
Because, despite the nagging warning in the back of my mind, I couldn’t just give up on this, on the Reality Paradox, on the promise of everything he could teach me.
I didn’t know how exactly it worked, but he’d proposed theorems of how to reach this new world, and the promise of it, the idea of this …
this untapped knowledge was too enticing to give up.
For me, it was so much more than some theory.
It was everything I loved about Magic, about discovery.
It was an opportunity, a place where maybe I hadn’t missed it all, where I hadn’t fucked up so badly.
A place where … where maybe Aaron was still alive.
And I saw it then in Max’s eyes, the look of defeat. I wasn’t going to back down, and he knew it. He exhaled a giant sigh. “Alright. But I’m coming with you.”
“Sorry, but no, you aren’t. I won’t find out anything if you’re tagging along after me like a bodyguard.”
“You’re joking, right? What if something goes wrong? If Grant corners you or finds you poking around and decides he doesn’t like it?”
I put my hand on his, watched as he mollified. “They won’t touch me. If it were me and I’d done something wrong, I’d be on my very best behavior. Maybe I’d … maybe I’d be so focused on that that I wouldn’t remember the things I forgot to clean up.
“Besides, I’m stronger than them, and they know it. Even stronger with …”—I faltered—“with you here.”
He smirked. “How hard was that for you to say?”
“I’ll be fine, okay? I’ll text you in the morning and let you know what I find.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and squirmed. “Just don’t get too close to anyone. And don’t let anyone near your drink, for God’s sake.”
I quirked an eyebrow. “Careful, you don’t want Julia hearing you express concern for your ex.” I made a shocked gesture. “Scandalous!”
He laughed at that, and I let myself out the way I’d come in.
I climbed in my truck and put my palms against my cheeks to cool my flush. It wasn’t just the summer heat or the stifling hot barn that was coloring my cheeks. There was something electric about being here. I felt like that time I’d drunk half a bottle of Mrs. Middlemore’s homemade peach wine.
I looked back out the window, toward the grassy fields, the wooden fence penning in the horse pasture, the stables that I’d just left.
The thing was, if I let myself fall into these things, get comfortable here …
if I let myself want what I wanted and reach for it, what was to say it wouldn’t all be ripped from me again?
That a chasm wouldn’t just open up wide and take what was left of me?
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let myself get hurt all over again.
I looked back down at the blinking light on my phone, the text I still hadn’t replied to.
I shoved back the frizzy hair curling around my face and reapplied my lipstick in the rearview mirror.
On my way, I texted back, and pulled onto the highway back to campus.