Chapter 33 Unfortunate Endings #2
"Can I have some wine?""No," they all said to Bess's eye roll.
"Last day of summer school tomorrow, right?" Tilly asked, and Bess nodded.
She didn't say what she was thinking or feeling. She couldn't get the words past the knot in her chest. Because tomorrow would also be the last day that Jeremy looked at her like she was his to look at.
Bess tapped her pen against the notebook propped in her lap as she sat on a concrete bench in the high school's courtyard.
It was her lunch period, and she had successfully avoided Jeremy for two days, answering his texts with simple responses and excuses.
He came to the coffee shop when she was working, but she hid in the stock room until he left.
He left her a squat, cream pumpkin with a note.
I know you're shutting me out. Here's a pumpkin that grew in our backyard in the middle of July to woo you. Maybe there is some magic here.
-Jeremy
She'd seen him at her locker five times. Five times he leaned against the metal, handsome and hopeful, and every time she almost gave in and walked up to him with the smile he so easily pulled out of her.
But they weren't real smiles. None of this was real.
Crystal, with her magic returned and a new sense of power that surrounded her, simply said, "Darling girl, love from a man can be one of the most exciting adventures for any woman. But only if it's honest."
Then she told her what she must do to break the hex, and after her shock came acceptance.
And then two days of avoidance.
When she felt someone's gaze, she looked up to see Jeremy Bracker's blue eyes on her, something in them that even across the courtyard could make her stomach dip. She lifted a hand with one side of her mouth tugging up.
She couldn't help it.
She couldn't stop how much her stupid heart felt where this boy was concerned, even knowing the truth.
Once he was standing in front of her, her standing and looking up into his eyes that were saying things, she felt a frisson of uncertainty and fear at what was about to happen.
"You've been avoiding me." His voice wasn't angry, accusatory. No, it was understanding. Like he knew what was coming.
"You're pretty smart for a jock," she joked.
He smiled sadly.
She looked down at her boots.
Fingertips gently tipped her chin up. Should a teenage boy's eyes seem this deep? Should they contain this much emotion?
"I-"
"Don't," he whispered. It was gentle but strong, and she closed her mouth against the words they both knew she was about to say. "I know you believe that I'm hexed or whatever. And that you won't listen to reason."
She frowned and he smiled, running a thumb over her cheek.
"And I also know that I can't convince you of my feelings, so I'll let you go."
Her heart clenched. A fist had taken hold and firmly squeezed, making her want to gasp in both fear and pain.
When she opened her mouth to say something, not sure what words would come out of her mouth, he stopped her again, but this time he stopped her with his lips.
Warm lips covered her surprised ones, and it was like being suddenly covered in sunshine. She had been cold, and now the apricity of the sun was blessing her as his lips moved against hers in the oldest confession.
The way that he pulled her into him, his large hand sliding into her unbound hair at the nape, causing shivers to erupt along her skin, felt like she belonged there, in his arms. It wasn't an overly passionate kiss.
It wasn't a kiss of expertise; it was one of slow curiosity, thorough, and unhurried. She could taste his emotions.
Or, she could taste what the magic had told him his emotions were. They were sweetness covering something she couldn't quite name. There was hidden meaning here that she knew she could never unravel the mystery of.
Jeremy and Bess was never going to be a story she got to enjoy.
So she kissed him back, enjoying this last moment of sweetness, and then, when she pulled back, hands on his chest, feeling his heart beating hard and knowing it mimicked her own, she mourned in three beats those secrets she'd never have.
"I don't care if this haunts me. I enjoyed being seen by you," she whispered, the words sliding past her filter of pride. Because now that they had kissed, the hex would be broken.
She had laughed when Crystal told her what she had to do, and she said it was like a reverse happy ending. Fairytales got so many things wrong.
"Goodbye Jeremy," she finally said, finally stepping away, finally on the other side of this dream.
Because with each backward step away from him, Jeremy's face took on a look of confusion, blinking, shaking his head twice, and then looking at her with different eyes.
She pulled in a deep breath and turned, walking away from him, unable to stand and watch what would unfold next. She walked away, holding back tears and disappointment.
Why did she feel like someone had just handed her back her tender heart, with a 'no thank you' sign straight-pinned to it?
She cried at the loss of something that never would be. She cursed Astra with her dark magic, giving Bess a false gift that left her bereft and empty.
A broken heart must be the most unkind hex she could think of.
It took the fifteen-minute walk back to The Lost Souls House for her to push those tears down deep. Tom Hanks sat on the porch with Casper and followed her into the house, where she smelled the kitchen hard at work, but when she stepped inside she found it empty.
"Hello?" She wandered through the kitchen, found no one in the back and with a raccoon under her left arm, Tom Hands curled under the right she found a card propped against a milk glass vase filled with pink sweet peas.
Bess,
We've gathered at The Blueberry House for a blueberry picking redo. Meet us there. Bring Casper. He feels left out. Outfit on your bed.
-U she thought she couldn't pick a better woman to emulate.
When Freida showed up, she was a little tentative at first. But when Tilly hugged her, she loosened her shoulders and let out the breath that every woman is familiar with in her life - I'm welcome here and I'm wanted.
Tess showed up in a matching skirt that she had found on her bed in a perfectly wrapped parcel with the largest blue ribbon she'd ever seen. She paired it with a green cropped sweater. That night would be her first Lost Souls sleepover.
There were fifty women gathered around the porch and spilling into the back.
They talked and laughed, music played from nowhere that anyone thought to ask about.
Food was eaten, drinks were poured, some danced.
The bushes were picked clean, and Tilly had that tired happiness energy of a party beautifully worn out.
And by the end of the evening, the Lost Souls women were sitting on the front porch of The Lost Souls House, exhausted and happy. All of the animals had wandered to where they spoke softly about nothing.
And Tilly gracefully exited with smiles, a few smooching sounds from her friends and a jar full of moonlight. She followed the path she knew would lead her to the patch of forest that lay claim to a gothic house and a vampire who had laid claim to her.