She looks hesitant at first, then gives me a small smile. “Yeah, of course. We’re great. I was cleaning up with my parents after the celebration and got to bed late. I’m just tired.”
“Okay,” I say, even though there’s something in her tone that isn’t convincing.
Maybe I’m just overthinking everything.
“Landon kissed me,” I blurt out, realizing I haven’t told her yet. “I almost forgot.”
That gets her attention, and she leans over the counter toward me. “That good, huh?”
“No, no, it was… nice. Sweet.”
“Nice? Sweet? That’s it?”
I sigh. “Yeah, that’s it.” I hear how flat the words are, and I silently scold myself. Landon is fully committed to this union, and he’s trying. He deserves better than this. And yet I can’t stop the burn in my eyes, can’t stop the tears from rolling down my face as I look at Ivy.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m being selfish and immature, and I open my mouth to apologize, but Ivy slams her cup down on the table, stopping me.
“You know what, fuck this,” she says, grabbing my hand and pulling me from the store. I’ve never heard Ivy curse like that, and it unsettles me.
“Ivy? What’s going on?” I ask as I stumble after her all the way into the woods in the center of the island, far away from Main Street. “I’m sorry, I know I’m acting like a child—”
“Just stop, Tana,” she says, holding up her hand.
I’m silent. I feel unsteady, unsure of my footing. Ivy has been my foundation my whole life, and I wish I could grasp what’s happening between us, something in the distance that’s just out of reach.
I know it’s there, but I can’t see it.
“Please tell me what’s going on,” I plead. I can’t take it anymore.
She exhales and looks past me, her stance rigid and tense. “I made a mistake,” she says, more to herself than me.
I watch her as fear climbs out of my stomach and crawls throughout the rest of my body. A heavy dread settles on my shoulders and threatens to crush me into the damp earth. I look to Ivy for some kind of reassurance, but there’s nothing.
“Ivy?” I ask, my voice trembling.
“I’m going to get in a lot of trouble for this,” she says, shaking her head.
“Tell me.”
She breathes out and finally meets my eyes. She looks angry, angrier than I’ve ever seen her, and my heart starts to race. “The reason you’ve been feeling like things are off is because they are. I’m mad at you for something you don’t remember, and I’m not over it yet. I don’t know how to get over it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I thought we were doing the right thing, but seeing you like this… I was wrong.” She shakes her head and looks off into the distance.
“Ivy, say what you need to say.”
“There’s a veil over certain things in your mind. You can feel it, right? A haziness you can’t explain?”
All the air leaves my lungs. “How do you know that?”
“Because you made a lot of bad choices, so we had you drink a memory eraser.” She looks down at the ground, regret and bitterness crossing her face, two things I so seldom see on her. “You took it willingly because I convinced you to. Because you trust me. But it turns out some of those bad choices were good for you.”
“Who’s ‘we’？”
“Your parents and me.”
I take a deep breath and keep my voice as calm as possible. “Ivy, start from the beginning. And don’t leave anything out.”
“It’s a long story,” she says, motioning to a bench on the trail.
“I like stories.”
She nods and sits down next to me. Then she starts to speak. She tells me about a boy I met, a boy who practiced dark magic and put a glimmer in my eyes. She tells me that he taught me some of his magic and that I loved it the way I love the sea. She tells me that she was swarmed by bees and almost died, but I stepped in and used dark magic to save her life. She tells me that she hasn’t been able to forgive me fully.
She tells me that I ran away from home to be with the boy—Wolfe, she calls him—and that I chose him over everything else. That I was willing to give up my whole life for him, my parents and Landon and our coven.
She tells me that I found out he’d lied to me and used me to get close to my mother, that his coven sent him to seek me out for that purpose. She tells me that I willingly took a memory eraser to forget the boy so marrying Landon would be easier.