It hung surprisingly heavy around my neck. I should’ve taken it off, but my cabinmates had insisted that I wear it again today. They all had bragging rights now that Flower Moon cabin had won gold in archery.
“Half the camp has them,” I said with a wave. “It’s no big deal.”
“It is a big deal,” Sabine countered, threading her fingers through mine. “Listen, I was thinking.”
My gut plummeted. “Thinking” in this context was never a good thing. “Is . . . everything okay?”
Sabine pushed on as if she were forcing the words out. “I was thinking at the end of the summer, you should stay.”
“Stay?”
“Come live in Maple Hollow,” she said. “Join the coven. I know it’s not some big marketing corporation, but I know there are some locals who could use a social media manager, and you could live in one of the coven-owned apartments while you figure out what you want to do and?—”
I closed the distance and kissed her. I couldn’t contain myself anymore, not when my heart was leaping out of my chest. It was the sweetest, softest kiss too, one that would linger in my mind for a long, long time. My favorite way to quiet Sabine’s storming thoughts. I breathed in her sweet and spicy scent, like jasmine and cloves, a heady mix that had me lifting my hands and delving them into her hair, wanting to deepen our kiss.
Sabine moaned into my mouth, and I leaned into her, the two of us stumbling until her back was propped against a tree.
We broke apart to laugh, our foreheads pressed together.
“I think I’d really like to come live in your town with you,” I whispered with a smile.
Her eyes saddened, and I panicked. Had I taken it too far? Had I made her nervous?
“I don’t meanlive with you, live with you, like, move in with you,” I stammered. “I mean, I’m not sure if that’s what you meant, but I’m totally chill. I just?—”
“It’s not that,” Sabine said, pushing off the tree trunk and taking a step away from me.
I felt that distance like a pair of scissors cutting the delicate thread tying us together. I knew then what she was going to say before she even said it, and my cheeks burned with embarrassment for being so excited.
“I’m not going back to Maple Hollow at the end of the summer,” she said, her voice tight. “I’m moving to New York, like we talked about. Starting a new chapter in my life. It’s time for me to make my own way in the world.”
“Then I’ll come with you,” I said, brows knitting with confusion. “Unless you . . . don’t want me to?”
“But you just said you wanted to move to Maple Hollow,” she countered. “I think you should. I think you’d be really happy there.”
“I think I’d be happy with you,” I choked out.
Fuck, was this what heartbreak felt like? Like someone was ripping my rib cage apart?
I rubbed a hand across my sternum as I moved toward Sabine, but she just retreated another step, and tears welled in my eyes.
“So you think I should live in Maple Hollow?” I asked. “Without you?”
“I do.”
I hated the emotion clouding her face. How dare she get upset! She was the one ruining this. She didn’t get to act like she was doing the noble thing when she didn’t know what I wanted at all.
“If you didn’t want to be with me, you could’ve just said that,” I gritted out, wiping my eyes before the tears could fall. “Youdon’t have to pretend it’s what’s best for me just to let me down easy.”
“That’s not what I’m saying?—”
“Yes, it is!” I shouted, balling my hands into fists. The bush next to me disappeared and was replaced with a dozen motherfucking toads. “Goddamn it!” I stormed away to the soundtrack of confused croaking.
“Gwen!” Sabine called after me, but she must have been blocked by my warty army. “Damn it, hop out of the way!”
“Don’t follow me,” I growled, quickening my pace until I found the edge of the camp. Only then did I look over my shoulder.
Tears poured down my cheeks when I realized she hadn’t followed.
