“Well, kind of,” he said, as he wobbled his hand back and forth in the air. “But that wasn’t what I meant.”
“Okay. So what did you mean then?”
“That only me and you were this way with each other.”
It didn’t seem to take him anything at all to say the words.
But it took a lot for her to hear them. She felt her stomach lurch into her feet the second they were out. She had to pretend to scribble something in her notepad, just so he wouldn’t see the naked shock all over her face. And only when she felt sure that she was calm and normal did she meet his gaze and say what she had immediately wanted to.
“You can’t possibly really think that,” she tried.
But he just snorted. “I don’t see why not.”
“Because we were never like this before. When we were kids.”
“You can’t be serious,” he said. Then when he saw she wasn’t smiling, or laughing, or anything of the kind, he carried right on. “Cassie, that’sallwe were. Just forever talking at a million miles an hour about the weirdest things, filling each other’s heads with nonsense, always cracking each other up.”
As soon as he said it, she remembered just that. She saw herself having to use the inside of her T-shirt to wipe away the tears of laughter streaming down her face. Felt what it was like to have him nudge her with his elbow, and point to something weird to snigger over. Heard the sound of his wheezing, braces-smothered laugh in her head.
Then felt so much warmth toward him she couldn’t speak.
Because he had known they’d had something special. He knew it, and he acknowledged it. It didn’t even bother him to accept it. Or consider that maybe they even still had it now. Even though they’d didn’t, they didn’t. She would not accept that it was true.
“Yeah, but you aren’t cracking me up now,” she said, but god it sounded weak. So weak that it took him no effort at all to wave it off. To roll his eyes at her.
“Oh come on. I’ve seen you force down a laugh about fifty times.”
And what then? He was right.
So now she had to face that he was. By being completely ridiculous.
“Okay, but in my defense, I did not know you could see that happening.”
“Did you also not know that it was happening to you at the time?”
“No, I did. I just… it was just that I—”
“Wanted to pretend a little longer that our connection was nonexistent, or that I found it nonexistent, or at the very least that it’s still completely dead in the water? Because you know, if you want I can pretend that too.”
She shook her head, frustrated. “I’m not asking you to pretend.”
“Then tell me what it is you do want.”
“Just call it something more fitting to the place we currently are.”
“Okay,” he said, and she could see him thinking. Like he was really trying to consider all of this carefully before he answered. “So… we have the ability to get along in a reasonable manner.”
And that was good. That was great. She could deal with that.
“Yeah, that’ll do,” she said. “Now carry on telling me supernatural stuff.”
“It’s kind of hard to when you’re still mad.”
“I’m not. I’m okay.”
“Cassie, we might have been downgraded from connected to barely getting along. But I can still read something that simplewhen it’s all over you. It’s as clear as it ever was, just—you know. With an extra sprinkling of witch glow.”
He waved a hand around the general shape of her. Though it took her a second to realize why: because he meant that last bitliterally. And, okay, now she actually was mad. Or at the very least, taken aback. “Oh my god. So Iglownow? Iactuallyglow?” she gasped.
