Page 111 of Hexed & Hazy

“But why? I don’t get it. If you wanted better hours or something⁠—”

“Because you forgot about me!” She lets out a laugh, more hectic than lighthearted. “And you’re still forgetting, aren’t you? We were hanging out at parties. Kissing.” She flushes. “More than kissing. I thought—I thought we were dating, and one day, you just stopped. You turned down my invites. Went back to treating me like a coworker. And I realized, you didn’t think we were dating at all, did you? You didn’t even—didn’t even look at me like that.”

What can I say?

Forgot about her? That doesn’t sound right. I remember the kiss and fooling around a few times. I remember hanging out with her. But I thought we were friends—with some pretty mild benefits—and she… she thought we were more, apparently.

We never talked about it, and I didn’t think we needed to. I thought we were on the same page, but I was wrong.

So damn wrong.

How could I have been oblivious for so long? Oblivious about Rowan’s feelings. Oblivious about Farrah’s. It took me so long to wake up.

I can’t go back to being asleep. I can’t keep hurting people. The rejection Farrah has been feeling for months? It probably hurts worse than the hex ever did.

“And then,” she whispers, “you started hanging out with other people. My friend, Victoria. And then you went back to Scarlet. And I tried to add more energy to the spell, to get you to remember me, but you started—” Her voice breaks.

“I started dating Rowan?” I ask slowly.

She nods. “I saw you kiss, and I thought it was casual, but you confirmed it was serious. The flowers. Gods, the flowers. I was so angry. So stupid. But so angry. And when I tried to dismantle the spell, I think—I think it made it worse.”

“How do you know?”

“Nightmares.” She shudders. “And my goddess—Aphrodite. She left me. Disappointed in me for misusing my magic, I think. It was never supposed to be like that. Attraction spells are supposed to bring someone to you. You can’t make someone love you, but you can create an opportunity. Instead… I repelled everyone. Pushed everything away. From you.”

I nod slowly, processing, my eyes flickering closed. “People were hurt. Your magic… it’s more powerful than you think, Farrah. You can’t just be using it like that.”

“I know, but you”—she shakes her head—“you need to treat the people you care about a little more kindly, don’t you?”

When she lays it out like that, she’s right. I wasn’t being fair to her, Scarlet, or even Victoria. And it definitely wasn’t fair to Rowan.

I like to think I’ve changed now, but that doesn’t erase everything else. I was so ignorant that I didn’t even consider Farrah when we were interviewing potential hexers.

If I could have been better—a better boyfriend, a better friend—no one would be hurt. We wouldn’t be here.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she whispers. “I regret it. I know it’s my fault.”

“We both made some bad choices,” I say slowly, searching her expression. “But it was an accident. You didn’t mean to hex me. I didn’t mean to forget you.”

She flinches, clearly hurt by something I’ve said, but I can’t work out what it is. “I want to remove it. I want us to move on, and for you to do the same. I want us to be friends again. Is that… ever possible?”

“Hey.” I squeeze her shoulder, and she finally looks at me. “Maybe we don’t need to worry about who’s to blame. Maybe all we ever needed to do was talk about what happened. Right?”

Her eyes shine with tears that never fall. “Right.”

“I’m sorry for hurting you.” These are the kinds of conversations I used to avoid—but it hurts more in the long run to hold these things back. I can’t keep doing that. “You’re a good friend to me, but I never saw you as anything more. That’s blunt, I know, and I wish⁠—”

“No.” She smiles—big and genuine, but it’s clear she’s feeling a lot. Maybe too much. “No, that’s exactly what I needed to hear. Thank you.”

“That went far better than I ever could have envisioned,” Donnie says, swiping through his phone.

But he doesn’t know just how well things have gone. My hex, even though I can still feel it clinging to me, isn’t a mystery anymore.

I have to tell Rowan. But not yet.

Donnie and I are two of the last people left at the festival, cleaning up while most have gone home. Luckily, there isn’t much of a mess—the other vendors are cleaning up their booths, and I carry a bag of trash to the dumpster by Greene’s.

We could have hired someone to do this work, but I’m still wired after the event—and after the possibility of breaking the hex, or at least figuring out who caused all of this. I’m not ready for sleep yet.