“You aren’t focused. Where’s your mind?”
Elliot wrinkled his nose, shrugging.
Grandmama hobbled over to the bench in the corner and slumped into the seat. She was paler than usual. Her normally mischievous eyes were tired and sunken. A lethargy hung heavy in her aura.
She looked like she had after she’d healed Damon’s mom’s broken pelvis after the crash. It’d taken weeks for her to recover after healing an injury of that extent.
“Are you okay?” Elliot asked.
“I’m fine. Just old. We had a hoarder situation earlier today. Healing eleven animals at one time might have overworked my powers a little.”
Elliot worried his lip. Another reason he needed to learn to summon his magic at will so he could take some of the burden off her shoulders. “You need to be careful. One of these days you’re going to burnout or have a heart attack or something.”
Grandmama waved a dismissive hand. “You should know better than to lecture me, boy. Iwillbind your powers.”
Elliot rolled his eyes and plopped down on the doctor stool.
Grandmama would never. She was just stubborn and prideful.
That stubbornness was why she still hadn’t given up on Elliot. For some reason, she still believed in him.
“I can tell your mind is elsewhere,” she said, refusing to take the hint that Elliot didn’t want to talk about it.
“Damon and I got into a fight,” he finally admitted.
She stared, waiting for him to continue.
“Apparently a girl in our school told him I was gay. He asked me, and I couldn’t lie to his face.”
Grandmama was the only person in his family that he’d come out to. It wasn’t that he thought his parents wouldn’t accept him, more that he just didn’t see the point. It’s not like he had a boyfriend or anything.
“He didn’t react well?”
Elliot gave a one-shoulder shrug. “He was upset.” After replaying the conversation in his head over and over, Elliot realized that Damon wasn’t being homophobic or rejecting him. “He was hurt that I didn’t tell him.”
Guilt gnawed at him every time he saw Damon in the hall, every time he thought about texting him, because being gay wasn’t the only secret he was keeping from him.
Elliot had wanted to tell Damon he was a witch for years, but if he did, he’d have to own up to the fact that it was his fault that Damon’s dad was dead. Elliot was a coward, too afraid of losing his best friend, so he kept his powers a secret too.
Grandmama hummed. “That boy has always been strangely possessive of you.”
“No, he hasn’t.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“He isn’t,” Elliot insisted.
“Okay.”
Elliot spun himself around on the doctor stool, staring at the ceiling. “I feel like crap that I’m keeping so many secrets fromhim, but now that he knows I like guys, it’s only a matter of time until he figures out how I feel about him.”
“When was the last time your powers worked?” Grandmama asked.
Elliot sighed and stopped spinning on the chair. Guess they were done talking about Damon. That was fine. He hadn’t wanted to talk about him, anyway. “I don’t know. Like maybe over the summer? Or no, Christmas break. I was able to heal myself when I cut my finger.” Elliot wasn’t about to tell her about his boner-reducing spells.
Grandmama squinted. “You cut yourself at Damon’s house.”
“Yeah, we were helping his mom with dinner.”
