Breathing heavily, I let my arms fall to my sides, too exhausted to even wipe the sweat off my brow. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can! Do you have any idea how many witches would give their left tit to have a connection to their magic like yours?” Maggie, my silver-haired High Priestess, hocked a loogie at the barn floor and wiped her face in her arm. “Stop being such a fucking wimp, grab your power by the fucking balls, and do something!”
Maggie wasn’t your stereotypical High Priestess. Where Joana had given off sweet Earth Mother vibes, Maggie… Maggie was more “biker witch gone mad on power-trip.”
And she was no fan of mine. Apparently, my inability to connect with the green light within came from having been “pampered” all my life, and something about “millennials expecting to have their magic handed to them on a silver platter.”
But, our instant and mutual dislike aside, she had taken me into her coven to help “set me on my path” as Joana had said, and she’d helped me land a waitressing job and set me up with a rental trailer of my very own. I was pretty sure it was only to keep in good standing with Joana, but still. I’d have been royally screwed without her help, so I tried to keep my temper in check, even when she screamed at me.
“I’m telling you, I can’t,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’m about to keel over, and I still have a shift at the diner to get through. Can we try again tomorrow?”
“Fine, whatever. Can’t have the princess fainting, can we?” She shot me a dark look. “I expect you here tomorrow at nine a.m.”
I glared after her as she strode out of the barn. For someone who looked like a sweet grandmother, she sure was a mean old witch.
* * *
My evening shift at the diner was an absolute nightmare. I wasn’t too fond of waitressing on the best of days, but that evening, I spilled an entire liter of soda all over myself, got yelled at by my boss for being clumsy, got yelled at again by a customer wanting extra pickles, and had my ass pinched so hard I was pretty sure it was gonna leave a bruise.
When I got back to my trailer, I only managed to strip out of my uniform before I slid to the floor for a good cry.
It was my new pastime these days—sobbing in a heap when I was finally alone. I hated my life. I hated my job. I hated Maggie and her stupid coven.
And I missed Warin.
Oh, goddess, I missed him so much it hurt to breathe when I allowed myself to even think his name. So I didn’t. In the daytime, I would keep myself too busy to think, either with work or with training with Margie, and at night, when I was alone and the memories came crawling back…
I got up from the floor, a hand pressed tightly to my ribs where the ache of loss radiated from whenever I thought him. It was always there, always gnawing at me, but at night, there was only one thing that could dull the pain.
I scrambled to my little kitchenette and got a bottle of whiskey out of the cupboard.
And I proceeded to get hideously drunk. Sat alone in my trailer. High class ‘till the end.
I don’t know what was different about that night—drinking alone to numb the pain had been my evening ritual for the past three months. But tonight…
It had been so long since I’d even heard his voice. I closed my eyes and thought back to our final night together—remembered every touch of his body against mine, the taste of his kiss and the softness of his voice as he’d told me he loved me.
I would never, ever get over the heartache of losing him. I’d known that even when I left. But even this pain was infinitely better than risking his life by my presence in it. I just wished… I wished I could hear his voice one more time.
Before I even realized what I was doing, I was stumbling around the trailer, looking for my old phone. I turned it on, after a bit of drunken trial and error. I hadn’t had it turned on since I left Chicago, and a new voicemail flashed up on the display as soon as it flicked on.
It was from the day I left.
Breathing deeply, I pressed it.
* * *
“Don’t do this, Liv. Please, my love. Please don’t do this. Come back to me.”
* * *
It was like a punch to the gut. The agony in his voice as he spoke those few words radiated through me, tearing open the wound in my chest as I gasped for air.
I didn’t think as I pawed at my phone, searching for his number. I needed to know… I had to know that he was better now, that he wasn’t in pain anymore.
My heart thumped hard in my chest while I waited for the call to connect, every ring increasing my need to hear him. What if he wouldn't pick up when he saw my name flash on the screen? What if he hated me now? What if he'd gotten a new number?
“Liv?”
The smooth, soft voice floating into my ear sent a shudder of pain and pleasure through me, and I choked on a sob, pressing it down.
“Liv,” he said again, and then there was a long silence while I breathed raggedly into the phone, wishing he would say my name again. Hearing him say it after so long felt like what I imagined a crack addict felt like after getting their first fix in a month—laced with heartache, of course.
"Please, just tell me you’re safe."
The plea in his tone tore at me, making me gasp from the ache in my stomach. Oh, he was not okay. He was in pain too. Pain I’d caused him.
"Please."
“I’m safe," I whispered.
He exhaled into the phone, into my ear, and I couldn't hold it together anymore. Just as he spoke again, I hung up, disconnecting the call and turning off my phone. I sank down to the floor, curling up around my old phone and cried until I fell into a restless, drunken slumber.
* * *
I was predictably really hungover when I woke up the next day, but I had to meet Maggie at nine. So instead of curling up and pretending like the world had stopped existing, I crawled around my small living space, showering and drinking as much coffee as I could fit in my stomach while I studiously avoided looking at the phone that was still laying in the middle of the floor.
I’d heard his voice, and all it’d done was rip open every aching wound with the knowledge that he hurt too… and there was nothing I could do about it.
I couldn’t return to Chicago. I knew, deep down, that even if I told Warin I was a witch, he wouldn’t hurt me. He would be furious, no doubt, but the connection between us was too strong for even age-old hatred to stand between us.
But the one thing that could… the one thing that kept me away even as everything in me ached to just jump into my car and drive until I hit Chicago, was the risk to his life.
A world where Warin was still alive, even if I couldn’t be with him, was infinitely better than a world without him.
But…
Without thinking about why, I bent to snatch up my old phone, shoving it to the deepest recesses of my overfilled handbag, before I rushed out the door to meet up with Maggie. For once, getting yelled at for being a failed witch would be a welcome distraction.
* * *