“I don’t get it. I’m not even asking for fireworks. Just someone who doesn’t make me feel like a backup plan.”
Maya’s smile faded. She reached out toward the screen, palm hovering like she could reach through it and squeeze Blair’s wrist.
“You’re not a backup anything. You’re the damn main event.”
“Tell that to the last three guys who only text me after midnight.”
“Then maybe it’s time for a new kind of magic. Hex the patriarchy.”
“Or actually summon something real. Something that wants me for me. Not because I’m easy to access, or emotionally accommodating, or just, there.”
Maya, firm but kind. “Blair, you’re allowed to want more.”
The call ended a few minutes later. No tears, no breakthrough epiphany. Just a soft click, and then the kind of silence that settles like a reminder: you’re still alone.
Blair exhaled slowly, thumb grazing the side of her mug. Her eyes flicked to the bookshelf across the room, where that dusty grimoire, Maya’s gag birthday gift, sat half-open, wedged between aSex and the Citybox set and an unopened tarot deck.
She didn’t touch it.
Not yet.
She sank back onto the couch and resumed doomscrolling—makeup tutorials, fall-themed cocktails, a cat in a vampire cape, then, one video caught her attention.
A woman with perfect eyeliner and suspiciously high-production lighting was kneeling before an altar, candlelight flickering as she whispered in a rhythmic cadence.
The caption:HEX YOUR EX’S EGGPLANT INTO NONFUNCTIONAL OBLIVION.
Blair watched, transfixed, as the woman described a spell designed to make her cheating ex’s penis only work for her, and only if he apologized in full sentences.
It wasn’t a spell, not really; it was vengeance, sass wrapped in ritual.
But Blair didn’t flinch, because honestly? It wasn’t petty.
It was community service.
2
Witchcraft at 3:47 am
Witchcraft hadn’t been on the agenda, but 3:47 a.m. isn’t known for good decisions.
She was draped in a towel she didn’t remember putting on, eyeliner half-melted into soft crescent moons beneath her eyes, a birthday candle stabbed into a shot glass on the kitchen table like some half-assed Pinterest altar.
There was glitter in her hair.
A fresh crack on her phone screen, which she didn’t recall happening.
The apartment smelled like old incense and the lingering scent of burnt popcorn.
“Blessed be the Target clearance section,” she muttered, flicking a handful of expired glitter over the flickering flame.
It fizzled out immediately, just perfect.
She huffed and thumbed back to the TikTok, rewatching the girl with suspiciously perfect winged eyeliner and a voice like she drank moonlight for breakfast, chant about energy transfers and karmic dick justice.
Blair didn’t believe in magic, but she also didn’t believe in guystexting about Plan B while she was still washing their sweat off her thighs, and yet, here she was.
Her stomach twisted. She didn’t know if it was the wine, the popcorn, or something heavier curling beneath her ribs. Something she didn’t want to name.
