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I scoffed quietly. “Is she? She just sleeps and does the basic things day in and out. It’s been two fucking weeks and she still hasn’t said a word to anyone. Do you see how blank her eyes are? You call that being alive?”
Pocus sighs, running a hand through his hair. “I wonder what the bastard did to her.”
“Do you think she blames me?” I ask, searching Pocus’s face like it might have some answer answers to the questions that have been running through my mind all week. “I… I know everything is my fault, and I wish she’d lash out at me instead of keeping it all in. Her silence is killing me, man.”
“No, man,” Pocus says, shaking his head. “Tory doesn’t blame you. I believe she’ll come around.”
“Everyone keeps saying that, but it’s been two fucking weeks.” I run a hand down my face in exasperation. “I wish Edward would just open his fucking eyes and undo whatever shit he did to her.”
“Fucking Edward,” Pocus snarls. “What are you going to do about the bastard when he wakes up.”
“Kill him, maybe.” I sigh heavily. “I don’t know, Prez. I’m confused as fuck.”
Pocus doesn’t respond to that. Instead, he reaches into the pocket of his cut, produces a strange-looking stone the size of a fist, and holds it out to me.
I frown up at him in confusion. “What’s that?”
Pocus shrugs. “I don’t know. I found it in the pocket of the bastard’s jacket. I have a feeling it’s the Zoramhus shit Mama talked about.”
I take the stone from him, and suddenly, the stone transforms into a shining, almost translucent color. “What the fuck?” I mutter dazedly.
“Yep, that’s it,” Pocus says triumphantly. “You can get your powers back. We just need to figure out how this shit works.”
I drop the stone like it burns. “I… I don’t know,” I say, shaking my head slowly. “I’m not sure I want them back.”
* * *
Mama stops by her truck and turns to face me with an unreadable expression. “I’m sorry, but this is not something that can be cured by meditation or spells, not even herbs.”
I feel my hope plummet. I’d convinced myself Mama would have the answers.
“You don’t have to look so defeated,” Mama says.
“It’s just… I’m scared, Mama. She seems to drift farther away from me every day.”
“Her silence is a self-defense mechanism,” Mama says like that’s supposed to reassure me. “Edward must have tried to mess with her head pretty badly. She’ll come around.”
It’ll be fine.
She’ll come around.
You’re okay.
Everyone keeps raising my hopes, and I find myself clinging desperately to their false sense of assurance. But now, my heart is filled with so much guilt and doubt that hope has become a foreign notion.
What if she never comes around?
What if things never return to normal?
What if she hates me?
What if? What if…?
These are questions that keep running around in my head all day, fueling my fears and driving away my sanity. It’s a slow process, but it’s happening.
“You don’t look like you believe me,” Mama says, breaking the long silence that’s settled between us.
I sigh deeply and shake my head. “I… I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
