Riya stared at her hands, nails biting into her palms. She almost wanted to believe him. But she knew how this ended.
Once she broke the curse, Kian would forget. He’d leave for Berklee. She would be left rewriting her life from scratch.
“But forget about the curse for just a second,” Kian said, playing with his sleeves. “If it were just me and you—what would you want then?”
Mel had said something like that, too. But this time, it felt... different. Softer, more vulnerable. For him. And for her.
Riya opened her mouth. Closed it.
Then a balloon slipped its knot and drifted upward. Riya tracked its slow ascent, grateful for the distraction.
“Oh,” she realized suddenly. “That’s bad for the environment.”
“Shit, really?” Kian scrambled to his feet. “Let me find a rock.”
“What do you mean, arock—”
But he was already lobbing small stones into the sky with absurd determination.
“That’s dangerous,” Riya muttered, just as one connected.
POP!
“Hell yeah!” he whooped.
The balloon—or what was left of it—fluttered down in pieces.
“...Should I get you another balloon?” asked Kian. “Because I can get you more—”
“No, thank you.”
Chapter 28
The house was quiet when Riya got home. No parents in the family room. No Amara humming from her bedroom, no Nyra riffling through the fridge.
She dropped her bag by the door and managed to wrestle the balloons inside with minimal chaos, though one rogue balloon smacked her in the face.
Up in her room, she tied the balloons to the back of her desk chair, where they bobbed and jostled above the Pillars of Creation. Then she went still, like any movement might shake something loose.
The Pillars used to make her feel small in a good way—like her problems were specks in the face of something vast and unknowable. Now they just reminded her of how little she understood. Of space. Of magic. Of herself.
She sat down without turning on her desk lamp. Dim hallway light seeped across her notebooks and crumpled drafts of her Caltech essay.
Her mind kept drifting back to the look on Kian’s face. His certainty.
I’d fall for you all over again. Every time.
But what if the damage wasn’t just the curse? What if something had already sparked before the magic ever touched him? Breaking the curse wouldn’t just erase a fall thing; it might sever what had become real.
How was she supposed to live with that?
The balloons still hovered close by—bright, ridiculous things that had made her laugh. That she couldn’t bring herself to throw away. Another hint that her life was falling apart in the most unpredictable of ways. Her family would definitely have questions. But they weren’t here now, and even though she’d normally welcome the peace, tonight it felt like absence.
She pulled out her phone. She didn’t want to be alone with this.
Her thumb hovered over Mel’s name. She didn’t know what she was hoping to hear. Maybe just proof she hadn’t ruined everything. That there was still something left to hold on to.
Taking a breath, she pressed the call button.
