Page 114 of Jinxes and Drumsticks

“I could probably make one,” I say.

“That little evil smile is so damn sexy. I’m keeping that in mind for the next time they prank me.”

“How has Satoshi handled it?” I ask.

“Mostly by talking about Wren every second he gets. I swear the guy is just listening to conversations for an opportunity to simp for her.”

“I mean, valid,” I say. “I also simp for Wren.”

“That’s different. You’re best friends,” he says.

I wiggle a little underneath him as the final hazy edges of pleasure become clear again. “I know you were proving a point, but can we please bathe now?” I ask. “I feel... sticky.”

“Absolutely,” he says.

He picks me up as he stands, his half-hard cock slipping out of me and hanging heavily over the fly of his half-dropped pants. I become an absolute mess all over my thighs and his abs. I wince. “Sorry,” I whine.

“Don’t be. I fucking love that you’re messy because of me,” he says, as he walks into the bathroom and sets me down on the closed toilet. He turns on the tap, running a bath for us instead of a shower. I heave out a sigh, anticipating the comfort of soaking with him. With having his fingers running through my hair to wash it for me.

The bath is the last bit of care I need for the miasma of melancholy to finally release its hold on me. It feels so nice to be taken care of by Damien. Once I’m clean, I feel kind of human again. We order greasy Chinese food, and Damien puts on what he calls my “sad girl pop” playlist as we finally crack open one of the journals. Specifically the journal from the year my mom got pregnant with me.

Damien reads it to me, and his low voice reading it like a storybook helps me distance myself from the main characters of the narrative a bit. It helps that, in the beginning, my mother’s regard for Nan is similar to mine. But even when that perception begins to shift, it’s not abrupt. A lot of what my mother has written mirrors how I feel now.

Confused, hurt, hopeful she’s mistaken. Hopeful I’m somehow misremembering Nan. That she wasn’t this emotionally negligent woman that recent experiences have colored her in my mind as being.

But my mother’s not mistaken, of course. And neither am I. After we get about halfway through the journal, Damien closes the yellowing parchment around his thumb and sets it aside.

“Tell me what you’re thinking about,” Damien says, his voice gentle. A little fried from hours of reading. “You look so fucking distraught right now. And I think this stuff is going over my head.”

“It’s complex,” I say with a nod. “But... essentially, my mother learned shortly after she conceived me that the ‘curse’ from the demon—from Aemon—wasn’t so much a curse as much as it was an old ass bargain.”

“Which... we knew, right? We know that this whole thing is a promise for a bride that wasn’t fulfilled.”

I nod. “She summoned him, asked for an out, which he refused on the grounds of needing her to get free from a bargain of his own which he refused to give her any details about. So she went above him. She went to the holder of Aemon’s bargain and made a bargain of her own.”

“And she can’t disclose the bargain. That’s part of the deal, isn’t it? Not even in writing.”

“Yeah, appears so,” I say. I suddenly feel so exhausted, despite spending almost an entire week in bed. I cup my mouth in my hand and lean onto my elbow, looking down at the journal. “I just... I’ve been wrestling for a bit with the idea that maybe my childhood with Nan wasn’t as pleasant as I thought it was. Maybe it was kind of fucked up.”

Damien takes my free hand in his and squeezes it. “It’s hard to sus that out in a vacuum, baby.”

“Nan cared about me,” I tell him.

“Of course she cared about you,” he says, squeezing my hand. “But take it from someone who got passed between foster homes for more than half his life. Just because someone cares, doesn’t mean the way they care isn’t fucked up sometimes.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

He heaves out a sigh.

“If you... don’t want to talk about it—”

“I do. I want to talk about it with you. Unfortunately, even after years of therapy, it’s not always easy.”

I wait patiently as he looks down at our joined hands. After a little while, he speaks.

“People have lenses through which they look at life. It’s why one person’s evil deed is another person’s retribution. It’s why people feel entitled to things they haven’t earned. It’s why people still hit their kids when the science says it doesn’t actually do anything but make your kids fear you and hide things from you,” he says. “It’s why old people get weird about stupid shit like pronouns and—I don’t know, someone daring to speak some language other than English in front of them. Because their lives have only given them so many colors and shapes to look through as they take in the world.”

“Right,” I say.