Page 88 of Jinxes and Drumsticks

I’m silent as I approach and sit cross legged in front of her. I prop my elbows on my bent knees and lean forward, resting my chin on my folded hands. I stay like that for a few moments, allowing her to let it out.

She hiccups and lets out a wet promise of, “I—I’ll be fine in a few minutes. I’m sorry.”

I have half a mind to make her take it back, like that day in the kitchen. But this state isn’t one that will dissipate when met with firmness. This requires a gentler touch. This isn’t Lillith having an erroneous thought, or even hiding from me. She’s cried a lot in front of me already in various states. If she’s hiding like this, it’s because she’s scared. I don’t know if it’s fear of how I’ll react to her sadness, or if it’s something more nebulous and indiscernible, but only affection can fix this.

I finally reach out to her, softly hooking my hand behind the back of her knee and pulling her toward me. I scoop her into my lap and she transitions from hiding in the cloak to hiding in her hands. I grasp both her wrists and grapple them away from her face. She resists a little, but eventually relents and folds her wet hands in her lap.

“Why are you hiding in here, you silly, beautiful woman?” I ask as I swipe her tears away from her face.

“I know it’s not... not fair of me to act like this,” she hitches. “I know this is what I signed up for and that I have to get used to it. I just... I keep thinking about how Wren is going with you, and most of me wants that, but part of me is so... so frustrated by how I can’t go. And how I want to so badly. And how tired I am of all this. I was supposed to be okay with being confined to Del Lune forever. I always have been.”

A little needle of guilt slides right into the center of my chest. I’ve never felt so much like a Vodou doll—wait, no. A poppet. Lillith corrected me on that a couple days ago.

“I’d stay if I could. I’d take you everywhere with me,” I say.

“I know,” she almost growls, her fists closing in her lap. “And that’s why I’m hiding. ‘Cause crying over this is so stupid, and I have no reason to feel like this. I have no right.”

“You have every right to be angry at the shit hand you’ve been dealt,” I say.

Words spill out from her mouth too fast. “I just don’t want to create problems between us because of this. It will be such a slippery slope—if I get sad, you’ll resent me. And then you’ll resent being with me. You’ll feel like you have to quit music and I don’t want you to quit music. You love it and I love your music and—”

“Slow. Down. Little bird,” I tell her. “Breathe, sweetheart. Breathe.”

She inhales a deep, tremulous breath and then exhales it just as shakily. I reach up to tuck the loose tendrils of her white hair behind her ears and cup her face in my hand, leaning down and pressing my brow to her. “Remember what we talked about in Halloween Town?”

She both loves and hates it when I call it that, she laughs against her will and I smile.

“That I can’t pregame trauma,” she says.

“Yep. Or discomfort, or breakups, or anything else,” I say. “Right now, I just want to spend as much time with you as I can before I launch into the world’s weirdest crossover episode with Wren. It’s bad enough I have to think about you being alone with Bastion Beedle-Boop all week without me.”

She huffs out another wet laugh. “These names are getting ridiculous,” she says.

“Good, he’s a ridiculous man,” I say, playfully serious. Then I continue, “Lillith, you’re allowed to be sad. I don’t know if anyone ever made you feel like you’re not allowed to be sad, or angry, or anything else. But I’m never going to do that to you. I’m never going to tell you to just buck up and shut up. Do I feel a little guilty for leaving you? Sure. But that’s on me, not you. I’d feel that way even if you were able to hold this all in until after I left, which is what I think you’ve been trying to do.”

She nods, using one of her adorable sweater-paws to wipe her face. “You promise you won’t resent me?”

“I promise I won’t ever let anything get bad enough that resentment builds between us. If this whole thing’s going to work, we have to communicate. That won’t always be comfortable, but you’re worth the discomfort to me. Am I worth the discomfort to you?”

She nods again and meets my eyes after looking askance this whole time. “Yeah,” she says. “You’re worth... everything.” She hiccups through the word, giving it one or two more syllables.

“So be sad, baby. I can handle it. If I couldn’t, I wouldn’t deserve your happiness when I come back home to you.”

And she is my home. Already, she’s my home.

She wraps her arms around my neck and nuzzles against my cheek. “Can we cuddle?”

“Duh.” I hold her firm against me and clumsily getting to my feet so I don’t have to part from her for even a couple seconds.

As much as I tease her for her small bed, I actually love it. When I lay us down in it, she’s practically on top of me, and that’s how I like her. I like her good and close. All the soft parts of her pressed against the hard parts of me.

Her head is on my chest, and I tug her messy bun out and let her silky hair spill out over me. I comb my fingers through it and feel her soften and grow heavy on my body. A couple of tears fall onto my tank top, soaking through. I kiss the top of her head.

“We’ll FaceTime every night,” I tell her.

“Okay,” she rasps.

“And I’ll get you souvenirs.”