The play felt like a triumph.
For the past couple of months, Daisy had felt like she’d been treading water wearing a life jacket made of lead. Like she was going to sink to the bottom completely, and there would be no way she could do it all.
But she had.
The kids had been amazing, including her own. The sets were fantastic. And when the play closed and the curtain dropped, Marjorie, the director of the theater board, called her up to take a bow.
She saw Jonathan, mainly because Amberly was standing and clapping and hopping. She pointed at Daisy’s dress—she had worn the emerald one—and gave her a thumbs-up. Jonathan, meanwhile, didn’t seem to notice at all.
Daisy scanned the crowd for Zach.
Marjorie handed her a giant bouquet of flowers, and she looked down at them, then up at Zach. Because she knew they were actually from him, and he wasn’t giving them to her in public out of respect.
But she knew they were from him all the same.
She felt like she was standing on top of a summit. It wasn’teverything. Her whole life wasn’t sorted out. But she had managed to do this. For the kids. For Alexandra, who should’ve been there helping, but was still in the hospital, unable to.
She’d done it. She wasn’t defeated by this. By the hideous, awful thing she’d gone through.
She was still standing.
Then she looked and saw her friends. Soraya was standing up and clapping, with Nora next to her, and Sam on the other side of Nora.
It meant so much to have friends.
She’d been so sure her life was over when Jonathan walked out the door. Her life had shrunk down to him. Him and the kids and their house.
Over the years, she hadn’t kept up with all her friendships, hadn’t kept up with herself. And yet, there were all these people here for her. And she felt like herself. Her friends had waited for her, and so had Daisy. The girl she’d been. The one she’d lost touch with all that time ago.
Who used to sing but didn’t now.
But had, in Soraya’s kitchen.
Who had been desperately in love with Zachary Woods on the TV screen, and who now got to go to bed with him pretty much every night. Her dreams weren’t over. Her dreams were just starting.
Daisy felt magic. Right then, she felt absolutely magic.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Nora
Love bleeds life on all it touches. Revenge is a poison that withers the weeds and spares not the flowers.
—Rules for Witches
Sam had left quickly after the play the night before, and Nora felt weird about the whole night.
She wished she hadn’t taken the picture. That she hadn’t used him to be petty. It wasn’t fair to him. She just hadn’t been ... She’d been thinking about the way Soraya’s husband had gotten some comeuppance. The way that Daisy would be able to pop up in Jonathan’s face one of these days bragging about how she was banging Zach, and Nora felt like she had nothing. But she had a weird feeling that she’d hurt Sam, and she really didn’t like that.
“What’s wrong?” Soraya asked when they were midway through their shift, Nora hanging out over the counter of the coffee nook, Madison and Soraya working diligently in their little space.
“I’m a bad friend,” Nora wailed.
“No, you aren’t.” Soraya was gentle but firm.
How far they’d come.
“Why?” Madison asked.
