After dinner, Skye emptied my hefting satchel in the dining area, and a pile as high as the table spilled into Ash’s doorway. Half I recognized as the stuff she’d thrown at me. The other half was the entire lingerie department of Anjelika Stork’s. Satin, strings, lace. I approached the pile and pulled out the first thing my hand touched, then held it up in the air for her.
“Skye.” I dangled the shiny black bra for emphasis. “Why is this latex?”
She found the matching boy shorts and unfolded them with a grin.
“Skye!”
“Well, it was less weird to just buy all of it,” she said defensively. “Plus, it might help you pass your classes. You seem like you’ll be needing advantages.”
I aimed the dominatrix bra at her face but missed.
“Thank me when you are top of your class.”
I did not indulge her with a response.
She began to separate things into smaller piles, her face animating at the task. I helped her fold, trying not to think about the mountain of laundry I’d left in my bedroom in the human realm. I’d left a mess, dirty blending with clean, and who knew when I’d be back to take care of it.IfI’d be back to take care of it.
I looked up to find Skye staring angrily at my hands and realized it was because I’d stopped folding.
“We need to put this away before bed,” she said.
No sleeping on the couch.
Fold the biggest laundry pile known to man.
“You’re very bossy,” I said.
“Yes. Well. You need it.”
“I was doing fine on my own.”
“Your eyes are dead. You don’t smile. Half the time I talk to you, you aren’t listening. Your face is always very sad. You’ve been sleeping on the couch with your protein bar wrappers. So, like . . . why are you giving up? Are you depressed? Or is sucking all the life out of a room how you dohappy?”
I set aside the jeans I’d been folding. “No,” I said quietly. “That’s not how I do happy.” And it definitely wasn’t how I wanted to make everyone feel around me. “I just . . . I don’t sleep well. I don’t have friends in this realm. I’m a half witch. I miss my dad, my home, myself.”Myselfbeforethe blood feelings.“And yes. There are times I want to give up, but not in a final way. And I don’t go out of my way to, but . . .”
But Leland was right. I don’t always protect myself. I stop taking care of things because why does it matter?
“But . . . ?” Skye prompted.
“But I’m fine,” I said. “It’s life. Mine’s not that bad.”
“Everyone’s life is bad.” She swept a cluster of thongs toward me so she didn’t have to sort through them. “Most of us killed our moms, so that is a fun thing we all deal with.”
There was the problem.
Why I said I was fine. Why I said nothing. I knew people had it worse. I knew I was sad because I lost Ash, and everyone else at school had mothers, and my dad was someone I had to take care of, but Gray hadlost his parents. Iknewthat.
“I didn’t say it to make you feel bad,” Skye said. “I said itbecause you act like you’re not allowed to be sad, but we all are, and we all have to learn to express our needs and ask for support. That is the part you’re not doing.”
“Because I don’t need anything,” I said, my hands busy folding.
“You are turning off, closing your eyes, hiding. And I say this lovingly because, like — I get it — I’ve been there. But this isn’t what I ordered. Ash said you were funny. She said you did silly voices. She said you used to put your hair in eight pigtails and pretend to be a gorgon. You were obsessed with your tiny ceramic pig collection, and one year, for winter solstice, you asked for a wall mount for your stick sword. A literaltree limb.”
None of that was a question, so I kept folding.
“So, like,” Skye went on, “where is that person?”
“You met me this morning,” I said flatly.
