Lie to him, came a traitorous voice in her head, but she could no more lie to Arthur now than she could that first day they kissed. “I can’t,” she whispered.
“You can’t what, Maggie? Please be specific.”
She closed her eyes, squeezing her hand against her thigh. She wished she could lie to him; it would be easier than cracking her chest open so thoroughly. “I can’t tell you that, because I can’t lie to you.” She paused. “I won’t.” Then, in a small, pleading voice, she said, “I want you to say it.” She didn’t deserve it, but she wanted to hear it all the same.
He smiled, and he was so handsome, his face alight with a happiness that thrilled and terrified her. “I love you, Maggie Linden.” Her heart was beating so fast, she thought it mightcome out of her chest. She could barely breathe as his words settled on her skin, as soft and warm as his jacket. “I love you more than this job, and I am not content with a summer fling. I want all of you. Always.” He stepped closer and closer with each word, the few feet between them suddenly nothing. “And I understand if you aren’t ready for that. I don’t…” He searched for the words. “I don’t expect anything of you. But if the fact that we are both employed by Hawthorn College is the reason you want to throw this away, then I am no longer employed by Hawthorn College.”
The silence stretched as they stared at each other. Arthur had stopped when there was about a foot left between them, unwilling to make the final move to close the remaining space, like he was convinced it had to be her. So she took a single step forward, reached up, and brushed a stray dollop of pall slime off his cheekbone. Her hand cupped his cheek, and he leaned into her touch. She felt, inexplicably, like crying.
“I ripped up your resignation letter and threw it in the trash,” she said with a hiccup that devolved into a full laugh. “I told Dean Clearwater I wouldn’t let you quit.”
Arthur brought his hand up to hers on his cheek and gripped her palm, narrowing his eyes with confusion. “Why would you do that?”
“Because Dean Clearwater warned me back in May that I had better not scare you off,” she explained, and again her words were punctuated by a kind of hysterical laughter that she couldn’t quite control. “You are much too important to the future of Hawthorn. He heavily implied that my tenure application might be in trouble, too. Of course, almost immediatelyafter he told me that, I went back to our office and picked a fight with you.”
“I’ll be having a conversation with Dean Clearwater this afternoon, it seems.” His expression softened. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Maggie shrugged. “You’ve been very distracting.” Her voice was husky, and she was staring at his lips. “Say it again, please.”
He dipped his head until she could almost feel the flutter of his mouth on hers. “I love you, Maggie.”
She leaned forward and kissed him, letting his mouth catch her moan. Missing him had been a painful ache. She broke the kiss and said so quietly it was nearly a whisper, like she was telling him a secret, “I’m sorry for what I said. It has never been true, and I regretted it the moment the words were out of my mouth.” He brushed back a piece of her hair, his fingertips trailing behind her ear and down her neck.
“I have been lying to myself for a long time. I think I’ve known since the day you carried me out of the pall,” she admitted, as much to herself as to Arthur. “You were so tender and so kind, and I was such a mess. And then you called Dahlia to take care of me. And, every day since, I have just been trying to convince myself that what I felt wasn’tthat.
“Dahlia called me a coward, you know,” she said. “Because I couldn’t admit it even to her.”
“Admit what, Maggie?”
“That I love you, too.”
Every one of his tentative touches became insistent as he pulled her toward him, wrapping his arms around her waist, gripping the hem of her shirt in his long fingers. He inhaled ashe held her, breathing her in. And she was mesmerized by the way their bodies still fit together like she was exactly where she was supposed to be. He tipped her head back and kissed her, long, languid, slow. It was not an urgent kiss. It was a kiss for people who had time.
“I’m so sorry,” she said again. “I was—Iamscared.”
“I know,” he whispered, kissing her forehead with a gentle tenderness that Maggie had never known before.
In the time since she had told Arthur they were done, during one of her many, many conversations with Dahlia, she had grown so exhausted of letting Evan and his betrayal occupy so much of her present. “It wasn’t fair of me to treat you like your mistake was remotely like what Evan did to me,” she said. “I was mad, I was worried about my job, but what you did wasn’t anything like what he did.”
He wrapped her in an embrace, and they held each other, neither one of them wanting to let the other go. After a moment, Maggie said, “Let’s go find Dean Clearwater and get your job back.” She knew, without a doubt, that she didn’t care anymore. They would find a way to make it work. If their love didn’t last, they were adults. And what if it did last?
Arthur looked thoughtful for a moment. “I think,” he began carefully, “resigning from my position at Hawthorn is one of the only things I’ve been sure of in a long time.” His hand brushed her hair as he went on, “Other than how I feel about you, that is.”
She flushed. He had always been so sure. Even from the moment of that very first kiss, when he’d wanted to remove their masks on Beltane. “You’re quitting anyway?”
He held her hand, rubbing her palm with his thumb. “Foryears now, I’ve been unhappy. It didn’t start when my mom died, but after, I couldn’t ignore it anymore. I don’t think it was until I got to Hawthorn, though, that I realized the problem wasn’t Dartwood. I’m tired of the politics, of people thinking my name is worth more than anything else I bring to the school. I’m done.” Then he said softly, “But I wish you had told me about what the dean said. I would have gone about things a little differently.”
“I’m sorry,” she said softly.
“I think I know a way to make Dean Clearwater happy, though. Even if I don’t teach Materials Alchemy next semester. What do you think?”
“I think I love you, Arthur Taliesin.”
And then they were kissing again. They might have kissed for a minute or five, Maggie was never sure. Time was lost with Arthur’s lips on hers, with his hands in her hair. She tugged him closer, closer by the dusty fabric of his shirt, wrapping her arms around him. She had almost lost him. Almost lost this. Maggie was tired of letting past hurts rule her life. She was done with all of that.
Instead, Maggie was choosing Arthur, and Arthur had long ago chosen her.
Epilogue
