Page 82 of The Alchemists

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll take this one for the team.”

Lily protested; Tori swore. Someone started the shower. Tori emerged, disappeared to her room, returned to the bathroom with a fresh towel and a pile of clothes, before joining them at the island.

“Well, that’s going to hurt like a motherfucker tomorrow, I can already tell you,” Tori said with a sigh. “What do you need fixed, Sebastian?”

He almost laughed. Wanted to ask, “Can you do the past or does that cost extra?”

“I’m okay, I think.”

“How—never mind,” she said, reading whatever there was to read on his face. “At least take off your coat.”

Asher puttered, assembling a concoction that involved tea, brandy, and a lot of spellwork. Seb focused all his attention on him, on the easy way he moved through creation, following some instinct that Seb knew could be tended but not taught. They moved to the living area, settling in their favorite spots, waiting for Lily in relative silence.

A swell of fragrant steam followed her from the bathroom as she emerged, hair damp, bangs plastered to her forehead, in a set of Tori’s loungewear. Seb wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her in black. It hung off her in angles that made her look older, even more serious than she already was. She accepted the mug that Asher offered her and sat down next to Seb, keeping a distance that hadn’t previously existed between them.

“So,” Asher looked from Lily to Seb, and back. “What happened?”

Lily sighed into her mug, then told them everything up to Conrad and Gemma attacking them, leaving out Seb’s panic attack. Gemma? Gemma had been there, and he hadn’t even known.

“Gemma punched you in the face? Wow. What a cunt.” Tori leaned back, shaking her head. She turned to Seb. “I feel like that one’s on me. I told you to get involved with her.”

“So, how’d you finish it?” Asher was looking at him, trying to solve an equation he didn’t have all the variables for.

Seb stared at his feet. His socks were wet. The question hung in the air. “I didn’t.” He looked desperately to Lily. She nodded, incrementally. “I was having a panic attack.”

Neither of his roommates said anything. They just waited.

Lily’s hand found his and squeezed.

“I—” he faltered. It should have been easier, the second time. It wasn’t. “I wasn’t doing an exchange or research this summer. In Lapland.” When he chanced looking up, their faces were curious, confused. They didn’t get it yet—that he was broken, masquerading as himself all these months. “I was there because I heard the way they practice magic could help me get my Words back.”

Next to him, Lily shut her eyes.

“Get your Words back?” Asher frowned. Tori was already bracing for impact.

“I lost my Words the night before graduation,” he said, his voice stiff, digging his nails into the seam of the couch cushion. Rip off the bandage. It’ll hurt less if you do it all at once. “I lost my Words when Conrad raped me.”

Time both elongated and compressed around him simultaneously. His mind fuzzed out. He knew Asher broke the TV. He knew Tori remained calm. Neither of them asked him to elaborate further. He didn’t think he could have. After Asher had calmed down, the three of them—Lily, Asher, Tori—talked. Seb was only vaguely present.

Lily led him into his room, sat him at his desk while she made his bed, rummaged through the contents of his dresser, now on the floor, until she found pajama pants. She undressed him like a child, leaning him against the bed, looking away while she unzipped his fly, picking up his feet one at a time and sliding them into the flannel. He looked at the space where his favorite poster had been while she unbuttoned his shirt enough to pull it over his head, while she guided his arms into a clean undershirt.

She turned down his duvet and pushed him into bed, crawling in after him, curling around his back like a parenthesis. She kept the lamp on. Her nose nestled into his shoulder; her knees fit perfectly inside his.

In the last weeks, he’d thought a lot about what it would feel like to share a bed with Lily. In his imagination, they were naked and warm, floating in post-coital bliss. In his imagination, the lights were off. In his imagination, she had not been attacked by his ex-boyfriend, nor punched in the face by his fling. In his imagination, he hadn’t told her about his rape. In his imagination, he was the one saving the day. In his imagination, they were both whole.

“Sebastian?” she said quietly, her breath warm on his T-shirt. He turned his head slightly so she could tell he was listening. “I’m really proud of you.” She swallowed. He could feel her tears, shockingly hot, soaking into his shirt. “I think that’s the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Her arm squeezed deeper around him, and he pulled their fisted hands to his face. A tear rolled sideways, over the bridge of his nose.

In his imagination, neither of them was crying.

LILY

For the first time ever, Lily skipped class. She’d taken finals spiking a fever, given presentations on no sleep, but that morning she stayed in bed and skipped Latin. Learning a dead language seemed laughable.

She woke up just before dawn, not sure if she’d really slept. She felt like she hadn’t, but she knew she’d dreamed—fitful, jumbled things that were more sense memory than subconscious. More doors, more darkness, more blood, cold stone beneath her fingertips.

Next to her, Sebastian was asleep or unconscious. All night his back had been a furnace, and Lily had sweated into Tori’s expensive pajamas. She stared up at the high ceiling of his room, watching it turn from a bruised gray to butter white. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do now that she was awake. Should she wait for him to wake up, try to go back to sleep? Did she go home? Her bike was downstairs.