He tilts his head slightly, his brows drawing together. “Scared of what?”
“I guess I was scared of whatever was coming next. Of giving up the past for an unknown future. One I could never imagine was possible,” I say, motioning around at the impossibilities around us. “You can’t want something that you don’t know exists.”
“You were always meant for bigger things than Presque Isle,” he says. “Things that were bigger than me.”
My magic pulses beneath my skin, a reminder of how much has changed. “Matt, I?—”
“You don’t have to say you love me,” he cuts in. “I know you don’t. At least, not anymore. And that’s okay.”
Relief floods through me, because he’s right. I care about him—I always will—but the romantic love faded months ago.
Matt was my past, but he was never my future.
“Just promise me something,” he says, his form fading at the edges. “Save Zoey. Don’t let her end up like me.”
“I promise,” I say firmly, and I mean it with all my heart.
He smiles—a real smile this time, not bitter or angry. “And there’s one more thing,” he says slowly, as if he doesn’t like what’s coming next, but is determined to say it anyway.
“What’s that?” I lean forward, watching his ghostly form become more transparent by the second.
“I saw the way he looked at you that night.” He glances at Riven, who’s still turned away to give us privacy, even though the space is so small that he can obviously hear us.
My pulse stutters at Riven’s name.
“What night?” I ask, returning my focus to Matt.
“New Year’s Eve. At the Maple Pig.” He tilts his head slightly, watching me closely. “He looked at you the same way I did when I first saw you in the hallway at high school.”
I swallow, since I’ll never forget the moment I first saw Riven at the Maple Pig. He was so focused on me—like nothing else mattered in the world.
Which makes sense, since he was there to hunt me down. To use me for my potion making abilities. He was testing me—seeing if my magic was strong enough to give him what he needed. To see how much of anassetI could be to him.
“You have no idea what happened that night,” I tell Matt, trying to breathe steadily, despite my racing heart.
“I was there,” he reminds me. “And the way he was looking at you… it was the look of someone who knew they were doomed from the start, but who fell anyway.” His voice drops, almost like he’s talking to himself now. “Like he didn’t have a choice.”
The words hit me so hard that it’s impossible to steadily breathe.
“Saph?” Matt’s voice rips me out of my thoughts, and when I look at him, he’s fading even more, dissolving like mist in the starlight. “I hope you find your way back to whatever you lost. Both of you.”
Then he’s gone, leaving me alone with the weight of his words and the storm of my magic that can’t be released in this ghostly limbo.
I take a shaky breath, trying to push away the memory of silver eyes watching me from across a crowded bar, full of wonder and possibility and that terrifying, beautiful thing Matt called love at first sight.
“Time to go,” Circe calls, her voice cutting through my thoughts.
I turn back to her and Riven, forcing my expression into something neutral. But as Riven’s gaze meets mine—like he’s searching for something he lost—Matt’s words echo in my mind.
Love at first sight. Like he didn’t have a choice.
But it’s not true. Rivendidhave a choice. We all have choices. And he chose to throw whatever existed between us away to that dryad.
My magic settles, not in peace, but in resignation. Because whatever sparked between me and Riven in that electric moment at the bar, when he made one of his typical teasing comments about the pink drink I made for him, is gone.
And no amount of wishing or remembering will ever bring it back.
