It was logical.
It was the result I’d hoped for. Yet I cried some more all the same until Lu forced me to take another shower in hopes that the water would eventually wash it all away.
So I could start again.
29
This time, the ache didn’t feel like something was being carved out of me, dug into my veins like tunnels trying to find permanent residence within my body. This time, it felt like I had been shot. A bullet had struck me in the stomach, and the wound was bleeding with no one coming to help stop it. To be honest, I wasn’t sure right away if I wanted to stop the pain.
Because that would turn into work.
I would have to apply pressure. I would have to find gauze or towels. Then, I would make sure that it had shot right through this time. Clean entry and exit. If it hadn’t, I’d have to dig. I would fight the tears of agony and frustration, knowing this sort of pain was being ingrained deep in my soul again. After all of that, I would have to patch the stinging hole over, once and for all.
I would have to decide to think positively. I would have to believe that it would get better. The wound wouldn’t become infected. I would have to trust that it would heal and seal right back over, as if it never was anything, and be prepared if it scarred.
Because that was what heartbreak was. It was disappointment. But mainly, it was work you hadn’t signed up for when your head was up in the clouds and your lips were on someone else’s mouth.
Only this time, I ignored it. I stitched myself back together with every movement forward I took. I stripped my bedsheets and stuck them in the wash. I ran the dishwasher and kept the blinds open, both during the day and the night. I got dressed in the clothes I liked and slid on my shoes as I made my way over the bridge to the other side of the isle every day.
I got back to work, though hair clients were still few and far between. I picked up the pottery that was finally ready. A wavy-lipped mug was stored in my cabinet, and the slightly lopsided vase held the remnants of the flowers Dom had given me and pieces of the crowns we had danced in on Beltane before they wilted and I had to get rid of those too.
I made my way back toward the main road of town, just one street off, and stood in front of the brilliantly sage-green-painted apothecary. A sign hung out front.
Moon-Touched Apothecary.
Huh. Well, look at that.
One side of my mouth curved upward before I walked in.
“Oh good! You made it!” Lu called from behind the counter.
Somehow, in the past few weeks, the entire inside of the shop had been transformed. Shelves were up and lined with jars and books. Candles were separated by color and size. Soaps and oils were categorized by scent and magical properties.
“I wasn’t sure if you’d be here to help set up.”
Whatever I was thinking must’ve shown because, this morning, when I had woken up, the heaviness in my chest was back, and for a moment—but only for a moment—I hadn’t been sure if I was going to make it either.
But I did. I couldn’t miss this.
For her. For the coven already inside, hanging a big grand-opening banner over the windows and setting out the folding sign on the sidewalk on the corner of Main Street and here. I pressed my lips together in a tight smile at their well-meaning antics.
Lu paused, looking me over and then behind me, where the door remained empty. “Are you okay?”
I shrugged, letting out a deep breath. I knew I was going to have to eventually tell them what all had happened, but I hadn’t quite put together the exact story I wanted to tell them. Maybe, this time, there wasn’t one I needed to string together.
For them, I was beginning to see, it was only ever me. I loved them for it.
“And the curse?” Lu asked.
“Gone,” I said. Sometime between the first time we kissed and Beltane when everything came together and fell apart all at once, the curse sort of disappeared. Or maybe, it faded slowly, everyday Dom and I spent together, and I pieced together the shards of our story I didn’t have the last time. It took me a few days than it probably should’ve to realize the bad luck no longer hung in the air.
“You know it’s okay if you aren’t ok, right?” Lu asked, putting a hand on her hip.
“I know, Lu. But I am. I’m going to be perfect.”
“I know you will be. But can I ask …”
“What?”
