Page 110 of Cackle

“You’ll be alone?”

There’s no pity in his tone. Only mild curiosity.

“There something wrong with a person choosing to spend Valentine’s Day in their own company?”

He looks up at me, his eyes so blue I’m defenseless against them. They demoralize me. Hold my exhale hostage.

My insides pickle as I wait for him to speak.

Is he going to ask me out?

“Sophie,” he says. “I didn’t know if she ever let you be alone.”

Seconds pass, flat and colorless. I listen to the slow clap of my heart.

Oskar does not relent. I seem to have unwittingly entered a good old-fashioned staring contest. His eyes are merciless.

The understanding expands, and with it my embarrassment, occupying every last crevice of my existence.

Oskar was never flirting with me. He doesn’t give a shit if I spend Valentine’s Day sobbing into a self-bought Whitman’s Sampler repeatedly viewing The Notebook or having an orgy with street magicians I met on Craigslist. His interest in me is purely related to my association with Sophie.

He’s engulfed in his vendetta. I see it now. It hangs around him, a red agony.

“Sophie is my friend. My best friend,” I say. I’ve never said it out loud before.

I travel back to the moment I met her, across the street in Simple Spirits. I remember how gorgeous she looked, how I was in awe of her. If someone had told me then that she’d become my closest friend, I’m not sure I would have believed them. I definitely wouldn’t have believed the rest.

But . . . who knows?

Maybe the hardest thing for me to believe would have been that Sophie would want to be my friend. That she would take a special interest in me, take me under her wing. Maybe that was the most severe bend in my reality. After that, it was easy to believe in magic, to accept that ghosts are real and to play with cute spider accomplices.

“She’s no one’s friend,” he says.

I look down at the ring she made for me, the pale pink stone with its starry glint. I think of the things she’s given me, the things she’s shown me. I can’t listen to anyone speak badly about her.

Also.

I have to believe in her. I have to believe she’s good and right. Because I’m like her.

Because the coffee cup that was just on the counter is now floating into my outstretched hand.

Oskar goes rigid. His jaw unhinges just a little, just enough that I don’t need to squint, I don’t need a microscope to confirm his dismay.

The cup arrives in my hand. I summon a lid.

“You know, all Sophie does is try to help people, and you and everyone else in this town just want to blame her for anything that goes wrong. It wasn’t her fault that Helen left.”

He winces when I say Helen’s name.

“Thanks for the coffee,” I say. I decide I don’t feel like paying. I turn to leave.

“She’s a plague on this town!” he shouts, thick, ugly veins swarming his neck.

Really? A plague?

I sip my coffee and give him a sweet church smile.

“Then move,” I say.