I take a step away from him.
“It was easy to use you,” he repeats, “and damn near impossible not to fall in love with you.”
Tears sting my eyes, and my stomach clenches. I bend at the waist to ease the pain and take several deep breaths, trying so hard to keep myself together. Then I stand up straight and force myself to look at Wolfe. “You love me so much that you couldn’t tell me the truth?”
“I wanted to—”
“Then you should have. You didn’t even try,” I say, taking another step away from him. “I was ready to give up everything for you.” I can’t help the tears that roll down my cheeks and drop off my chin, can’t help the way my body starts to shake, suddenly too cold. “Was any of it real?”
“Yes,” Wolfe says without hesitation. “You are more real to me than the waves on the shore or the blood in my veins. How can you not see that?”
“If that were true, you would have been honest with me.”
“I just… I needed more time.”
“More time?” I ask, realizing what he means, realizing he never got his meeting. “You are the one thing I thought I chose on my own. The one thing,” I say, staring at him. “But you chose this for me.” I wipe my face and clear my throat, fulfilling the role he wanted me to play. “Mom, will you give them their meeting?”
“I would be happy to meet with them after the wedding, yes.”
“You’re not seriously considering—” Wolfe begins, but I raise my hand and turn to Galen.
“You have your meeting. Now, please stay away from me.” I look at Wolfe. “Both of you.”
I start up the hill, but Wolfe follows me. He grabs my arm and I turn around, anger and pain burning through my veins like acid. He reaches for my face, and I hate that my first instinct is to lean into his touch. I am too trusting, just like he said.
“Please,” he says, the single word freezing me in place, unable to move or speak. “I can make this right.”
And I want him to—I want him to so badly that I can feel it in my muscles and my bones. I want to cover his hand with mine and tell him it’s okay, that we’ll figure it out together, but how can it ever be okay when I gave him my world and he couldn’t even give me the truth?
“She said to stay away from her,” my mother says, putting her arm around my shoulders and guiding me inside.
“I’m not talking to you!” Wolfe yells, moving after us. Galen comes up beside him and grips his shoulder, keeping him in place.
“Let her go, son,” he says.
“No!” I hear Wolfe struggle against his dad’s hold. “Tana!” he shouts, and I pause, the first time I’ve ever heard my nickname in his mouth. It sounds so beautiful, like I’ve never really heard it before this moment, like it was only ever meant to be spoken by him. But then my mother pulls me forward, and I start walking again, far away from here. I keep my head down to avoid the eyes that follow us, the witches watching from dark corners and the top of the staircase.
“Bye, Mortana,” Lily calls from behind her mother’s legs, and it takes all my strength not to break down right here.
“I’m sorry we never got to color together,” I say, and then my mother leads me to the door, and I let her.
“Tana!” Another breath. “Dad, let me go,” Wolfe pleads, and I can hear the tears in his voice. “Tana!” he shouts again.
Then the door closes behind us, and all I hear is the wind through the trees and the waves on the shore and all the words he never said.
When we get to the road, I don’t turn to look at the manor, because magic or not, I know that it’s gone.
Gone—nothing more than a memory. A bitter, heartbreaking memory I will spend my life trying to forget.
* * *
My mother doesn’t speak to me as we walk home, but she keeps her arm around my shoulders, a tight, firm grip that lets me know she’s here. Even after everything, after I used dark magic and ran away, she’s here. And I can’t bring myself to pull back from her, to set her lies in the space between us, because I don’t think I could handle the distance they’d create. There’s already so much of that between me and the people I love most. Too much.
When we turn onto our street, my dad is standing in front of the house, waiting. I remember him thrashing in the water, coming after me, desperate to keep me safe, and I can’t hold myself together anymore.
I run to him, and he opens his arms wide. He envelops me, tells me it will be okay, tells me that he loves me.