"Your grandmother's in her apartment. Or was, twenty minutes ago. Knowing Eliza, she's probably already started three newprojects." She lowers her voice, conspiratorial. "We're still recovering from her impromptu tantric breathing workshop last weekend. Had to remind her that, while we encourage social activities, some energy work is best kept to private sessions." She winks. "But between you and me, I haven't seen the bridge club this energized in years."
The third-floor hallway smells like a combination of patchouli, and what Grams swears is "sacred smoke," but management keeps insisting is against fire code. Music drifts from her apartment and the door is wide open.
Her place is a riot of color and controlled chaos—tapestries covering every wall, crystals catching sunlight and throwing rainbow patterns across the ceiling, herbs drying on copper racks that her partner George installed "under protest and only because I love you."
I find her in the middle of her living room, barefoot in a flowing emerald caftan, silver hair falling in wild waves down her back.
"My spirit guides told me you were coming," she announces, not turning around. "Also, George texted that he saw you in the parking lot hitting that curb.Again."
The casual way she mentions spirit guides like other people mention the weather is so perfectly her. When I was eight, and kids at school said I was weird for reading fairy tales about real witches, Grams told me the problem wasn't that I believed in magic, it was that they'd forgotten how. She's never once made me feel like I needed to dim myself down for other people's comfort. Until today, I'd forgotten what it felt like to question that.
"I just wanted to visit and see—" She spins around, bangles jangling a sharp warning.
"Oh, Pixie." Her face softens instantly. "That bad, huh?"
The nickname hits different today. She's called me that since I was four and insisted I could talk to garden fairies. Back then, her belief in my magic felt like the only thing keeping me tethered to who I was. Now I wonder if she was just enabling a lonelykid's fantasy. And the moment I see her concerned expression, surrounded by the familiar scent of essential oils and unconditional love, the tears come.
"Did someone die? Join a cult?" She asks, already pulling me into a hug. "Not sure which would be worse."
I shake my head against her shoulder.
"Ivy," she pulls back, holding me at arms' length. "Please tell me you didn't sign up for that crystal MLM. I taught you better than that."
"I slept with Caleb."
"Oh, thank the goddess." She relaxes. "That we can fix. Probably without having to hex anyone, though I'm not making any promises. Come on, I just got a new batch of that tea George says is 'not FDA approved' but works wonders for heartache."
And somehow, just like that, I know everything might eventually be okay.
The tea steams witha sweet fragrance of lavender and rose, but there's a deeper note beneath it—one that calls to mind midnight gardens and old lessons on magic. Leave it to Grams to brew a blend that smells like bottled childhood.
I wrap my hands around the mug, letting its heat seep into my palms. My tears have dried, but the tight hollowness lingers as the whole story spills out of me—the wedding, the kiss, last night, this morning. Every painful detail laid bare under the soft afternoon light filtering through her lace curtains.
Growing up with Grams meant conversations other kids definitely weren't having with their grandmothers. Like when she explained the difference between "making love" and "fucking" when I was twelve, or when she rated my high school boyfriends based on their "sexual energy." Most people think she's too much—and she absolutely is—but when you're the weird kid who sees auras and talks to plants, having someone in your corner who's even weirder is everything
"Sometimes the universe gives us a little creative assistance. It might not be what we expect, but it's always what we need." She considers me carefully. "But there's more to this than his harsh words, isn't there?"
"He made it into a joke. Everything I believe in, everything I am."
"Hmm." She stirs her tea three times counterclockwise. "And how often have you let him treat your magic like it's just some quirky personality trait? Something to be tolerated instead of celebrated?"
"I didn't—"
"Oh please." She sets her cup down with a decisive clink. "I've watched you water yourself down for years. Making your spells sound like 'wellness routines' so every new guy wouldn't get uncomfortable. Calling your rituals 'meditation' because heaven forbid someone think you're too," her fingers sketch air quotes, "weird."
"I was trying to make things easier."
"For who?" Her brown eyes pin me in place. "Because from where I'm sitting, you've been dimming your own light so long, I'm surprised your aura hasn't gone completely beige."
"Beige isn't an aura color," I mutter into my tea.
"Exactly." She reaches for her herb basket, pulling out sprigs of rosemary. "You didn't just sleep with him. You collapsed into him, hoping he'd finally catch you. But boys like Caleb Miller? They're so busy running from their own shadows, they don't have hands free to hold anyone else up."
Something hot and painful lodges in my throat. "So what am I supposed to do? Just stop loving him?"
"Oh, Pixie." Her laugh is soft but knowing. "This isn't about halting a feeling. It's about beginning again, with yourself at the center. You've spent so long trying to love him into growing up that you forgot something crucial."
"What's that?"
