I huffed, unsure of what to say.
“I know I’m not the one to be approaching you with this. But you decided to finally step up and do what you want. So, why aren’t you trying to be happy and go after that? All of it?”
“You’re right; you’re definitely not the person who should be bringing that up.” With her messy past relationships and terrible taste in men that left her aching in her own pity parties worse than my own, Ana was the last person that anyone should’ve been receiving decent personal advice from. Especially not after her last boyfriend, who was surprisingly kind of sweet, until something happened and she pushed everyone away, even the coven, for a short while.
“Don’t be rude. I’m doing your hair.”
“Sorry,” I muttered, but I noticed her small smile. “I really hope you aren’t dyeing my hair orange or something for some sort of revenge.”
“Revenge? For what?”
“Like I said, I’ve been doing pretty well, making everyone mad these days.”
“No,” she insisted. “You’ve just been terrible at listening. A trait that should be rectified in our great and future high priestess, don’t you agree?” Ana raised her eyebrows.
Probably.
“Ryan isn’t the sort of person I think any of us pictured when we told you to get out there. And obviously, he isn’t the person you pictured. But he makes you happy, Lu. Anyone would have to be blind not to see it even if it sounds like you both have made some pretty poor decisions in the moment. You love him.”
I did.
“He loves you.”
So he’d said.
“What’s that face for? He doesn’t?” Her face shut down, as if she was personally affronted.
“I just …” I took a deep breath, poring through my thoughts that all did indeed sound ridiculous.
Ana finished the final section of my head. Letting the foils sit, she sat in the chair next to me, spinning around once before making the chair stay still.
“What if he deserves better?”
“Why would you say that?”
“Like Celeste said—”
“I thought we stopped caring about what Celeste thought today.”
“We don’t fit,” I stressed.
“So?”
“We look, well, we don’t look right or at all like we’re meant to be together. I’m all …” I looked down at myself. My dark-green nails were chipped, and I was pretty sure Ana had clucked at how greasy my roots had gotten before she washed my head.
“Screw meant to be.”
“He’s so nice. He smiles all the time and makes cheesy jokes. He has friends, and everyone has said that we don’t make sense.”
“You’re going to believe them?” Ana seemed shocked by this. “What happened to my strong, independent Luella, who pried me out of bed after the last asshole I was with? What happened to the girl who made Gertie literally scream from joy that we had another witch joining us for the long haul?”
She was still in here, I was sure, somewhere.
“I wanted to give him a choice. I wanted to make sure that he was sure of what he wanted and that he wouldn’t regret it,” I said.
I couldn’t handle being a passing fancy. I could barely handle whatever this was.
“You’re hurting me,” Ana said with an exhausted sigh.
