“A few months later, they invited me to a moonluck to get to know the neighbors and to get my name out there.” She swallowed thickly. “After everyone left, I was about to drive home, but they insisted I stay since it was so late. Said I could use a guest room if I’d like… Or…”
“That’s when you started sleeping with them?” I tried to finish for her, hopefully making the sisterly share less awkward.
“Just Aurora. Fitz is much more into watching.”
A full-body shiver crept up my torso, and I cringed. Fitz was one of the last people I wanted to think about in that way.
Once I collected myself and looked at Hazel again, she frowned.
“Sorry,” I grimaced with a shrug. “In the memory, she said she loved you. Did you love her?”
“I don’t think so.” Her voice was low and guilt-ladened. “I really don’t know. And that’s probably what makes me feel the most shit of all. I thought we were just having fun. I knew they were married and committed to each other, and I’d much rather stay commitment free—not all of us want to deal with all the emotional baggage like you do three times over.”
“Thanks,” I said, teasing her with a glare.
“I guess that’s why I didn’t want to believe she’d killed Acacia. Maybe I wasn’t in love with Aurora,” her eyes dropped to the floor, “but I loved how I felt being coveted by someone so…”
“Self-important?” I huffed.
“Powerful.”
Aspen started fussing, and my breasts swelled to sate his hunger. I adjusted my bra, trying to manage the discomfort. Of course he’d start crying right as she’d finally begun to really talk to me.
Hazel picked him up from the play center and carried him over to me, then grabbed my nursing pillow, fitting it around my waist carefully. I lifted my shirt up and unclasped my bra, Aspen latching onto my nipple quickly.
Once he was situated, I looked back up at Hazel, wondering if I’d just lost the rest of this moment.
“There was this magnetic pull from them. Knowing they wanted me in their world… It was a high being desired by people like that. Made me feel alive.”
“I can understand that.” I sighed with relief, from both the pressure in my chest abating and also that she’d continued talking. “I’m sorry for prying. I know it really wasn’t my business, but I’m glad you told me.”
“Thanks for not judging.” Her smile didn’t meet her eyes.
“Who am I to judge? My sex life is a dumpster fire.” I chuckled.
“True,” Hazel teased, laughing with me a moment before dissolving into seriousness. The big sister tone returning just as quickly. “I have a feeling everything’s going to work out, sis.”
“Is this feeling just a feeling or more of aknowing?”
Is she saying what I think she is? Has something changed in her vision? Has she seen something with Lynx and Saros?
“It’s a knowing,” she said, and I started to release the tension coiled in my chest, “but not in the way you’re thinking. More like sisterly intuition.”
Well, what good was that?
“I know you’re disappointed, but I learned my lesson before. Truly.” She placed a hand on my shoulder.
“Hazel,” I pleaded, “can’t you do a reading?”
She shook her head. “No. Not because I can’t, but because I won’t.”
“But—”
“I love you too much to keep watching you stifle your own happiness by trying to outrun fate.”
Trying…
Leaving still hadn’t been enough.
