Will tosses a pack of paper towels into our shopping cart with the enthusiasm of a shot putter. He’s in a mood; Becca called twenty minutes before we were supposed to leave to run errands and broke down once more, weeping about she might be pregnant—except, she lost the baby in the accident and that was over a year ago. It’s a conversation they’ve had a dozen times, when snatches of memory crawl their way back to the surface of her broken brain. Poor Will suffers through hearing about how his girlfriend and best friend cheated on him more times than is fair. And yet, he listens to her, offers forgiveness, but like always, she and the memories tie him down in ways he can’t escape.
As I can only imagine the horrors I would feel, let alone act upon if the same were true about Jonah (or Kellan), I’ve decided to try my best to distract him. “Did you know that houseflies taste with their feet?”
He regards me as if I’ve turned into a fly myself. I nod vigorously—interesting facts! I gots them! But he shakes his head and grabs the wrong toilet paper, chucking it next to the paper towels. I quietly put it back on the shelf and pick the right kind. Cameron is quite particular.
A little girl nearby wails; her sibling dances around the cart she’s strapped in, clutching a dolly’s head. Sure enough, the little girl is holding a decapitated, naked baby.
My heart goes out to her. As the mother ignores the two, I zap the doll’s head back on. The children go quiet—the boy stunned, the girl increasingly delighted. I debate giving the poor thing clothes but figure the kid must have a reason why her dolly is naked. I hide the small smile creeping on my lips when she clutches the doll to her chest.
“Jesus. I’ve prattled on so much that I’ve lost you. Sorry, Zo.”
I jerk my attention back to Will. He looks so sad, so . . . lost. “No! Don’t be silly.” I nudge his arm with my shoulder. “Maybe it’s time to change your number.”
“You don’t think I want to?” He tugs on his earlobe. “Becca’s mum begged me not to. Says the connection to me is the only thing that gets her through some of her better days.” He sighs heavily. “She cheated on me. Broke my heart. But . . . I’ve also known her my whole life, Zo. I stupidly can’t let go of her or Grant. I just . . . I wish I knew how.”
It’s because he’s a good person. He puts Becca’s fragile mental welfare at times above his own. As for me? I just abandon those whose hearts I shatter.
When the mother pushes the cart past me, the little girl grins and holds up her doll for me to see. “Pretty,” I tell her.
“My baby,” she proudly tells me in return.
Her brother scowls, trailing slowly after his mother and victorious sibling.
Four—no five—uses of Magic in less than two days. I need to get myself under control, especially since there’s this rotting undercurrent in my brain that my craft is being wasted on things like dog leashes and boots rather than the betterment of civilizations.
My mother’s words, crafted from caution and disgust, weigh heavily upon my conscience. She turned away from me first. Why should I care about what she thinks? I grab a box of tissues. The good kind, with lotion, which I have a sneaking suspicion I might just need in the dark hours of tonight.
“Grant’s mum called last night, too.”
I look up from the cart. “What did she want?”
He won’t look at me when he says, “The fuck if I know. She cried. Tried to remind me of how we played together in our nappies. That this was all Becca’s fault. I don’t know. She—I guess she needed to reach out to somebody who loved him, too.”
I wish I could personally call the woman right now and tell her to back the hell off.
For the rest of the shopping trip, Will is on autopilot, leaving me to wonder what I would do if I were in his shoes. What if I found out that Jonah was expecting a baby with someone else—somebody like his ex-girlfriend Callie, whom I called a good friend? For the last five hundred years or so, Magicals have been able to produce one pregnancy, so if in my absence they have sex and he’s so taken away with the moment he forgets a condom and she’s fertile or some crap like that—
Ka-BOOM!
Five seconds later, Will grabs my arm, asking me if I’m okay. He’s absolutely soaked, covered head to toe with laundry detergent. As am I. As are the three other people in this unfortunate aisle of the store. Because every single bottle of detergent just exploded, sending down a rainstorms of scented, slimy cleaners down upon us.
I’m shamed to my core. Some things never change. Even now, even after I’ve tried to deny myself Magic, I still can’t control it when my feelings get too intense.