My hands grip her hips instinctively, pulling her close. Her body trembles against mine, hot and fragile and my shirt clings to her damp skin, and I can feel her heartbeat racing in sync with mine.
Her tears wet my neck. I hold her tighter, stroking her back, whispering nonsense just to soothe her.
Time blurs. All I know is when the alarm goes off for Roxy’s next feeding, Nova’s still lying on top of me, breathing steady, asleep. I don’t dare wake her. Carefully, I shift just enough to cover her with the blankets. She clutches a pillow to her chest and murmurs into it. Her voice is muffled but unmistakable.
“I’m so in love with you, Vincent Cooper.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Nova Marshall
PAST (2018)
"There is always magic to be summoned at any point. I love to live in a world of magic, but not a fake world of magic. We all really basically have a lot of magic.... It's only those of us who choose to accept it, that really understand it. It's there for everyone. That's the only thing that I feel I am able to give to people and that's why I know that they respond to me because I try to
give them only their own magic... not mine, but theirs."
Stevie Nicks
––––––––
“This should be the last box,” Vincent says as he comes down the stairs carrying another cardboard box. He sets it down at the foot of the stairs, and Steven quickly picks it up to carry it to the backyard, loading it into Max’s father’s van with all the others boxes.
I sit cross-legged on the floor of my now-empty house, a cherry between my fingers, and look around while I eat the ones Vincent washed and prepared for me.
Aurora hasn’t been around for two months, and only Max knows why. She didn’t come back to school, and she didn’t even show up for my father’s funeral—just like my mother. I try to tell myself she must have had a good reason, but knowing that doesn’t make me feel any less sad or disappointed.
My mother and Asher left just last week. After my father’s will was opened, we learned he had set up a seventy-thousand-dollar trust fund in my name, which I’ll only access when I turn eighteen. My mother got the house and the rest of his money.
She wasted no time putting the house up for sale. A young couple with an eight-year-old daughter bought it quickly. It makes sense—it’s a beautiful house in one of the best neighborhoods in San Francisco. But knowing that doesn’t make it any less painful. This was the house I grew up in, the house where I watched my little brother grow up. The thought of leaving it feels like a knife in my chest.
And then, she decided to leave town. She didn’t tell me where. She didn’t even tell Grandma. She just took Asher with her. She didn’t give me the choice to go with them, didn’t even let him choose whether to stay with me or not.
A few days later, a social worker showed up at the door. He said his visit was just procedure after everything that had happened, but I knew the truth. I knew exactly who had called him. The same person sitting next to me now, passing me more cherries from his backpack.
But I was too dumb to take his help. I let my mother manipulate me and I followed her script. I told the social worker that Asher would be better off with her, that a change of scenery would be good for them, and that I wanted to stay here to graduate with my friends and live with my grandmother.
She told me I couldn’t take care of him, that it was my fault he didn’t have a father anymore, that if I loved him, I’d let him go. And so I did. I repeated her words and let her steal him away from me.
I didn’t even get to say goodbye. One morning I woke up and the whole house was empty—everyone gone, everything gone—except for my room. Now it’s just me, myself and the guilt.
My father died in a head-on collision on his way to buy my birthday cake. A stupid, simple cake. Because of me, my mother is widowed at forty, and my brother is fatherless at seven.
“Are you ready to go?” Vincent’s voice pulls me back.
I nod, standing and slipping my backpack onto my shoulder. He takes my hand, intertwining his fingers with mine.
The house’s empty—Steven and Max are still in the backyard loading boxes—so I rise onto my toes, loop my arms around Vincent’s neck, and press my lips to his. His hands slide around my hips, holding me firmly against him. I cling to his shirt as his fingertips trace light circles on my skin beneath my black T-shirt with Christina Aguilera’s face printed across it.
“It’s going to be okay, baby,” he whispers, brushing a kiss on the tip of my nose. And somehow, with him, I believe it.
Vincent has been the one closest to me these past months. The only one who can quiet the voices in my head. The only one who gives me peace. Every time he says it will be okay, I believe him. I believe him for real. His voice gives me hope, makes me think maybe it really will be.
He’s the reason I haven’t broken down completely and makes me believe again that being special isn’t a curse.He’s the only one I want.
My mother’s last words before leaving are nothing but air in the wind. I’ll never get over Vincent Cooper. I wouldn’t be able to, not even if I wanted to.
He’s not my father. He would never hurt me the way my father hurt her. I don’t care what she says. I know she hates me—for being born, for forcing her into a life she didn’t want, for making her the mother she never wished to be. She says I am the reason she lost everything. That if she had never had me, she would have finished college, become a doctor, lived her dreams.
