Cherie drops her gaze to the floor before quietly saying, “Blair’s always helped me when I wanted to jump into a book.”
“Yeah,” someone else says. “She’s patient and kind.”
A girl from high school with long dark curls says, “Blair never once rushed me at the store or wanted me to hurry, and I never felt her use power on me. She’s not like what you’re saying, Cathy. She’s not a bad person.”
Other people agree, murmuring that I’m not bad. People who I never expected to, they take up for me. People who rarely speak to me in public, who barely say two words to me. They are all disagreeing with Cathy, telling her that I’m not a terrible person, that I’m good, kind.
Good and kind?
I’ve lived my whole life in Castleview thinking of myself as an outcast, as someone unworthy of this sort of praise. But here is my town all rallying behind me, telling Cathy that even though Ihave this terrible power, this intimidating magic, it doesn’t make me a bad person. That I’m good, in spite of it.
“Maybe you’re the bad one here, Cathy,” Sadie accuses.
Cathy’s jaw drops. “It’s not me. It’s her. It’s Blair. Don’t any of you see?”
Her minion shakes her head. “All I see is you trying to hurt someone.”
Devlin’s hand tightens on mine as the entire crowd agrees in a chorus of “yes” and “yeah” and “leave Blair alone.”
Tears spring to my eyes as folks turn on Cathy. “Maybe you should go,” Cherie says.
And Cathy—red-faced and collarbone flushing with embarrassment—takes a long look at the crowd. “Will no one stand up for me?”
When no one replies, realization washes over her face. Nobody in the room believes her. She’s all alone, her bullying having gotten her absolutely nothing.
She nods slowly. “All right. But don’t say I told you so whenshe”—Cathy jabs a finger at me—“does something that ruins one of you here.”
She stalks out of the room, just a few minutes after Storm.
Would anyone else like to step up and spar with me and Devlin?
Ha. Just kidding.
There is a collective sigh as the crowd looks at me and I realize something. For my entire life I’ve believed that my power made me different in a bad way, so different that these people didn’t like me, that I wasless than.
As I stare into the ballroom, the chandeliers bright with light, the room smelling of gardenias and the hems of silk ballgowns swishing along the floor, all I see are faces smiling at me.
Perhaps it wasn’t the town who believed that I was bad; maybe it was me. Maybe it wasn’t that none of the guys wantedto date me because they were afraid. Maybe this whole time—for years—I’ve been giving off the signal that I didn’twantto be dated. I thought,No man is going to like me anyway,so that’s what I expected. And it’s been my own limiting belief that’s pushed dates away (it turned out good in the end, hence Devlin, don’t get me wrong). I made myself unapproachable, turning into someone so chilly that not even the warmest fire could thaw my heart.
Maybe, just maybe, I’ve been the problem. I felt too sorry for myself to see the truth.
Poor little old me, with all this intimidating power; no one wants to be my friend.
The powerisintimidating, but everyone here realizes that I don’t use it willy-nilly. I’ve had an entire town full of friends this whole time. But that fact has never dawned on me before, because I was so convinced of one truth that I never bothered to look for a different one.
Seek and ye shall find.
This whole time I’ve been seeking the wrong thing, and of course that’s what I found.
Devlin presses his mouth to my ear and kisses me. I drag my gaze from the crowd to him and realize that for as awful as this night has been, it’s also been absolutely perfect.
He smiles. For a long time I thought that smile was smug. It was, I think. But there’s always been warmth in it as well. A lot of warmth. More than warmth, actually. Every time Devlin smiled at me, he was saying something else this whole time, a secret language that I only just now realized.
I love you, his eyes have been telling me.I’ve loved you for so long.
I squeeze his hand. And I’ve loved him, too, and I’m ready to jump into the next phase of our life together, even though I’ve been scared. I’ve been scared to let my heart be hurt again, tolet myself fall as hard as I did for Devlin before, afraid that if I was hurt, that my heart wouldn’t recover because it would be shredded. The pieces would be too jagged to be stitched back together, and I’d wind up without a heart at all.
But I would rather live a thousand lives of heartache than one life without love. Or Devlin. Period.
