48. Chug It #2
The one time we went to visit her in her new glass box of a prison, a null space where she couldn’t use her Midas touch to turn anything else magic, all seven of us knew better than to expect some sudden revelation.
Without magic containment, she wouldn’t even be able to hold a fork or an apple without changing it, bestowing it with some kind of magical force.
We fully expected her to refuse to speak to us. A cold shoulder. A final rejection.
We needed to see her anyway. Needed some kind of resolution.
What we hadn’t expected was for her to rush to the glass and claw at it, begging us to help release her. Telling us we were her only salvation. That if we let her out, we could be a family again.
Despite her pleas, none of us could ignore the wild, bloodthirsty glint in her eye. There was no question that if we let her out, she would slit our throat the first chance she got.
That is, if she didn’t turn the weapon into a talking cartoon or a flowering banana first.
When we told Mother she was exactly where she needed to be, she really lost it.
We watched as she tore her cell apart, picking up the singular chair in her cell to slam it against the unbreakable glass again and again until the metal seat was bent and dented, her hands bleeding around it.
She’d always been so composed. So controlled. Never a hair out of place. Her voice only needed to rise a fraction to silence a room. Perfect manners and etiquette no matter the situation.
But inside that cell, our mother became a raving, screaming banshee.
As we turned to leave, she screamed that she would never love us. That she never had. That I was a disgusting thing and she hated me.
And while somewhere deep down there was the slightest twinge of reaction, the better part of all seven of us remained untouched by the words she had once used to control our entire existence. We’d been freed from the need for her approval.
Thanks to Snow. Our little magic-obsessed stalker turned savior.
She’s the only one whose love we’ll ever chase. The only person we’ll ever strive to be worthy of, which honestly is ridiculously easy since she loves us exactly how we are.
No matter how many fights we pick with her when we’re feeling on edge, how frustrating we can be while working through the remnants of our self-hatred, or how many pigs we sneeze.
I blink back into the room. Snow is still stroking my hair. I can’t help but laugh a little despite the tension ratcheting through my chest.
“So this decision is just one more, albeit deliberate, decision you get to make about how you want to grow,” she continues.
“If you stay seven different yous, there will be pain. If you combine all your parts, there’ll probably be different pain.
” She glances toward the bottle. “So maybe don’t think about choosing between the pain you know and the pain you don’t. Pick the future you want.”
Something inside me stills.
“When you picture yourself ten years from now, how do you want to live? How do you want to feel?” Snow asks. “Seven separate guys making one jumbled mess, or one jumbled guy made out of seven parts?”
I rear back and glare at her. “When did you get so wise?”
“Me?” She points to herself, eyes widening. “No, no. Still the dagger-throwing, magic vigilante of the night making rash decisions to help others. But I’m surrounded by super wise chicks who definitely rub off on me.”
I laugh quietly again even as I still struggle to come to an answer.
“What does Seven think?” she asks quietly.
A hesitation rolls through me. It’s Seven’s.
His feelings haven’t been clear like the others. Whatever he thinks, he’s been keeping it to himself.
The room dissolves as I retreat inward, yet I still feel Snow patiently holding my hand, her fingers interlaced with mine.
I’m tired of fighting for dominance, Seven confesses in a low tone.
The words land so hard and heavy I can’t think for a few long moments.
But it’s not like we’re going to be any less conflicted as one person instead of seven, Six points out, playing devil’s advocate as always, though I’m not sure he’s really made up his mind about staying split.
We’ve developed a flow, a way of being that works for us, Seven continues. But I’m tired of pushing different parts of us backward while someone else gets the front. It dulls everything. Food. Sleep. Snow.
I turn outward again, and the room comes back into focus on Snow, who is still sitting beside me holding my hand and patiently waiting for us to figure our shit out. In that moment, Seven stops holding himself back, and his longing opens through us so clearly it almost hurts.
He wants cold air in his lungs, sunlight on his face, Snow’s fingers in his hair and her mouth against his. He wants the world to hit him full force instead of reaching him through whoever happens to be leading. He wants to be there for all of it.
That lands somewhere deep.
How many times have we shoved one of us backward while someone else got the full hit of living?
I’ve never dwelled on it because it was necessary, or maybe because I’m the one who usually got to take lead.
But Seven had been buried the deepest for the longest, robbed of visibility, influence, touch, taste, all the sharp immediacy of being the one at the front.
Agreement begins to creep between the seven of us. Three and Five don’t say anything, but they’ve spent plenty of time tucked behind the rest of us too.
What if taking the petal doesn’t erase any of us? What if it means none of us ever has to watch from the back again?
And then we could also stop fighting over who gets to lick Snow to orgasm, Four grumbles.
No kidding, Two snorts in salty agreement.
They’re referring to our last fight. Seven muscled his way right through all of us and turned her into a screaming, shuddering mess on the bed, then hogged her the entire night despite our insistence that he needed to share.
Not that any of us hated the show. Snow’s sweat-slicked body, curled toes, and sexy little noises had made watching Seven toss her around every which way which was enviable.
But that’s the clincher, isn’t it?
We watched him. We envied him. Snow’s pleasure had been happening through our own body, and somehow most of us had still been standing outside it looking in.
The rest of our lives, we’ll be fighting over who gets to bite into an apple and actually taste the juice, Six says.
Who gets to enjoy sleeping in a real bed, Two adds, earning Three’s hearty agreement.
Or who gets to be with her, Five says quietly.
Pain shoots through all seven of us.
If we become one, isn’t that proving Mother right? Six asks. That changing ourselves means some part of us still believes she was right about what we are?
Only if we’re doing it for her, Four says. And the split was never her problem as much as the powers. Blackthorn already told us the petal won’t strip those. It’ll only unify us.
Five pushes closer. When Snow thought she was human, she always wanted magic.
No matter how many people told her she should be satisfied without it, some part of her knew something was missing.
His voice softens. That’s how I feel. Like I’m not allowed to want to be whole with you again because wanting it means I hate what we are now. But I don’t. I just...want this too.
The ache that moves through my bones is unmistakable.
We’ve learned how to live like this. We’ve stopped treating ourselves like something shameful, and we know how to move around one another without every day becoming a war.
But maybe accepting ourselves doesn’t mean we have to stay exactly as we are forever.
Shame still rises hot in my throat.
“Snow?” I ask.
Her gaze immediately finds mine.
“Do you think wanting to be whole again means we still hate ourselves?” My fingers tighten around hers. “That we aren’t accepting ourselves the way we are? The same way we were taught not to accept our magic?”
Her brows draw together, and her mouth softens. She lifts our joined hands and presses them against her chest.
“You’re allowed to want what you want,” she says. “You don’t have to prove you love yourself by staying exactly the same forever, and you don’t have to prove it by changing either.” Her thumb sweeps slowly over my knuckles. “You just have to trust yourself enough to know the difference.”
The words settle deep.
I don’t want to live life in pieces. I don’t want one of us tasting while the others watch, one of us touching while the rest hover somewhere behind him. I want to reach the whole damn world whenever I want
I want to always be able to reach Snow.