Page 55 of Hexed & Hazy

I nod, swallowing the lump in my throat. It burns on the way down.

“Do you still love Scarlet?”

“No.” I let out a choked sound. “But I know she’ll always love me. She’s stubborn like that. She wouldn’t hex me, no matter what anyone else thinks about her. And dammit, we shouldn’t have come here like this. It’s not fair to her.”

I’ve never felt like a worse person than I do now. Deserving of this hex. Probably deserving of a lot more.

“I… trust your judgment.” She leans in closer, her eyes boring into mine—I can feel it even with my eyes closed. I still can’t look. “And I understand.”

Of course, she does. Out of everyone, the Hawthorne sisters understand. I inhale deeply, shaking, and nod.

“I’m an ass.”

“Maybe.” There’s a soft smile in her words—not mean, not like she’s making fun of me, but like she wants to make me laugh.

I can’t quite manage it, but I let out a shaky breath. Close.

“But I know you can be better,” she says. “I’ve seen that. Coming here, talking to Scarlet… that takes bravery. She’s terrifying.”

“She’s not that bad. It’s all an act. Mostly.”

“Still.” Rowan goes quiet for several seconds, and I let her. “This… it isn’t about Laurel, is it? You aren’t still waiting for her, even though she found someone else?”

I have to be hearing her wrong. After everything, Rowan is asking about Laurel. It gets so damn tiring.

Laurel and I have been friends since we were young, but we were never more than that. Everyone around Starbrook always assumed we were. Rowan should know the truth. I trusted her enough to let her cast spells on me and drag me around town, but she doesn’t trust me enough to know what my heart wants?

“What the hell?” I snap.

She leans back into her seat, gripping the wheel. “I had to ask⁠—”

“Why?” I let out a confused, frustrated laugh. “You should understand—she’s just my friend. That’s all she’s ever been.”

She closes her eyes tightly and nods. “I know.”

“I can’t do this right now.”

After saying she understands me, after opening up about my mom and losing everyone, I’ve never felt more misunderstood. I open the car door and get out, stomping down the street.

Rowan groans. “Where are you going?”

“Walking home. Don’t wait up.”

Though she asks me several times to get back in the car, she gives up. She listens. She leaves.

And there I go again, pushing someone else away.

I don’t make it a quarter of the way home before someone in a shiny, vintage, cherry-red car pulls up to me. I know the car almost as well as I know the face of the person who rolls down the window and glares at me.

“Get in,” Scarlet says.

Just what I need. More time with Scarlet.

The fresh air is doing me some good, and being active has always helped me clear my mind. I don’t need the ride home—that’s why I rejected it from Rowan in the start, but…

Maybe Scarlet and I need a moment alone. To really wrap things up.

Hexes can be accidental, right? Maybe that’s what this is, though I’m not stupid enough to ask her directly.