Cold Kiss (21 page)

“Why do you care so much?” I ask, even though I can’t face him and I’m talking to my feet, the scuffed toes of my Docs against the dull wood floor. “I mean, honestly. Why do you even like me?”

“Wren.” It’s my turn to flinch when he steps up beside me and lays his hand on the small of my back. I want it so much, to count on it there, to lean back into it, to let him take some of my weight. But I can’t, not now, not with Danny in one room and Olivia in the other.

Not when I don’t even understand what it is he sees in me. The only things I see anymore when I look in the mirror make me want to run away.

“Do you want, like, an itemized list or the
Reader’s Digest
version?” he says, leaning close enough that I can feel his breath tickle my cheek.

I open my mouth to answer him just as the phone in the kitchen rings, a shrill surprise. He drops his hand as if we’ve been doing a lot more than just standing close together, and when it keeps ringing, he bolts toward the kitchen to pick it up.

I wrap my arms around myself and wait, even though I don’t know what for. Whatever Gabriel feels for me, I can’t let it matter to me. I have to go home eventually, for one thing, and face my mother. I have to apologize to Jess and Darcia, if they’ll let me. And I have to create a spell that will send Danny back to death.

It doesn’t matter that the only thing I want right now is to put my arms around Gabriel, to feel his arms around me and his mouth on mine, to let him take some of my fear and grief and swallow it for me.

Real love is supposed to be more than solace, more than a way to forget. I had real love once, I think, and what did I do with it? I made Danny do those things for me when he was the one who needed peace the most.

When Gabriel touches my arm, I’m so lost in my thoughts, I jump. He holds out the phone, a cheap portable handset, and frowns. “It’s for you.”

My mother, I think, my heart sinking into my stomach with a nauseating thud, but I take it anyway. It’s not like I can hide forever.

“Hello?”

“Wren, don’t hang up.”

As if. It’s Aunt Mari, and I’m so stunned with relief, I stumble forward a step. “How did you…? I mean, how could you know…?”

“You’re not the only one with magic in this family.” I can hear the smile in her voice, but she’s tired, too, I can tell. “I have a proposal for you.”

Bliss is quiet when I walk in, only two kids from school at a table in the front window, and Mari at another along the wall, two tall mugs of coffee already set out. Trevor’s behind the counter as always, and he looks up when the bell jingles.

“You’re not working tonight.”

“You’re lucky I come in on my day off. This place is really hopping.” It feels good to snap at him the way I always do, especially when he just rolls his eyes, the way he always does.

“Nothing’s on the house,” he calls as I walk over to Mari’s table and pull out a chair. He’s lying, of course, but the tough-guy act is one of his favorite things.

“I see Trevor hasn’t lost his charm,” Mari says drily, loud enough for him to hear.

“You either,” he retorts, and a moment later he’s tapping on his keyboard as if a little banter was just what he needed to get his creative juices flowing.

I hang my bag over the back of my chair and look at Mari properly for the first time in months. I haven’t seen her since a few weeks after Danny’s funeral, and at the time I was spending every free minute furtively studying spell books. She was the last person I wanted to see then.

She looks good, though strain shows in the dark blue smears under her eyes and the tangled knot of curls on top of her head. There are only two explanations for her knowing that I took off, and my bet is actually on Mom calling her rather than Robin. It’s hardly the most important thing right now, but it’s a small sign of hope.

“You okay?” She reaches across the table to put her hand on mine, and all I can do is nod. My throat is suddenly choked with tears again.

“More or less, huh?” she says. Her smile is fond. “Your mom’s on the ‘less’ end of the spectrum at the moment, and so is Robin. She said she texted you and you didn’t answer.”

Oh God. Robin must be completely freaked out. “I haven’t even looked at my phone since yesterday.”

“I figured. And you might be mad, but I told them you agreed to meet me here. Just so they’d know you were okay.”

“I was going to go home, really,” I say, but it’s a hoarse whisper. Sometime later, I’m going to look into having my tear ducts removed. I haven’t cried this often ever, and I hate how weak and helpless it makes me feel. Having power explode out of me is bad enough, I don’t need to be leaking tears every minute.

“I’d like to take you home when we’re done here,” Mari says. It sounds like a suggestion, but I know it isn’t.

“What did Mom tell you?” I pick up my mug and blow across the top, just so I won’t have to look at Mari’s face.

“I’m more interested in what you want to tell me, to be honest.”

That’s a great big nothing, but there’s no way I’m going to get away with that. I gulp at my coffee, which is still a little too hot, and splutter a little. “It’s nothing,” I finally manage. “I mean, okay, it’s not nothing, but I’m handling it. And like I told Mom, I’m not on drugs, and I’m not pregnant, and I’m not wanted by the police, so…”

“Good to know.” There’s that dry tone again, paired this time with a raised eyebrow. “Come on, Wren, this is me. What’s going on?”

I hate that I can’t tell her anything. But I can’t bear the look I know I’ll see on her face if I admit what I’ve done. As far as Mom’s turned from her own power, Mari equally celebrates hers. But she’s never used it lightly, and there’s no way she would understand that I used mine to bring someone back from the dead, even Danny.

“I went a little crazy,” I venture, glancing toward the counter in case Trevor is listening in, which he loves to do when he’s frustrated and can’t come up with the right sentence. “After Danny, I mean. And … I met a new guy. So that’s been a little … strange.”

It’s nowhere near the whole truth, but it’s part of it. Admitting that Gabriel figures into the last couple of days is even harder than I expected. It still feels like a betrayal.

Naturally, Trevor caught that juicy tidbit, and he looks as pleased as Mari looks wistful.

“Oh, sweetie.” She reaches for my hand again and squeezes my fingers gently. “That has to be hard. But no matter how much you loved Danny, life doesn’t stop at seventeen. And you deserve another chance at finding someone. More than one, I bet.”

I knew that admitting I liked another boy would seem to explain everything, and part of me hates to use Gabriel that way. But I can’t tell Mari the whole truth. It’s selfish, I know, but if I’m going to fix it, I don’t want them ever to know how bad I messed up.

They all know that I am the girl who touches the hot stove and drops the eggs. They don’t need to know that I’m also the girl who thought love came with ownership papers, who decided to try to cheat death so her own life wouldn’t feel so empty, no matter what it would do to the boy she loved.

Mari’s waiting for me to agree, I can tell, so I nod. I’m beginning to feel numb, but the day’s not even close to over. I sip my coffee slowly. The longer it takes to drink, the longer it will be before Mari drives me home, and that’s some comfort, anyway. She’s been understanding, but I doubt Mom is going to be.

“Trevor, you got any of Geoff’s iced maple cookies left over there?” Mari calls.

“Could be,” he says, and shrugs. He likes to give her a hard time, because he likes to give everyone a hard time, but I think she also fascinates him. She’s been coming into the café longer than I have—she’s actually the one who introduced me to it. She’s been a preschool teacher for years, but she’s always doing something else on the side—making jewelry one day, singing in a band another, once even appearing in an indie horror movie shot in the city. I think he’s jealous of how fully she lives her life, and I don’t really blame him.

“Wrap up a dozen, if you can find them, that is.” She winks at me when he groans and gets off his stool. “I think we might need some sugary goodness later.”

If you ask me, it’s a little like frosting a cake made out of sewage and old socks, but I’m not arguing. When I face Mom, I’m going to be grateful for any help I can get.

ROBIN MUST HEAR THE CAR PULL INTO THE driveway, because she bursts out the front door and is running down the porch steps before I can even get out.

I stagger backward when she attack-hugs, her sturdy arms wrapped so tightly around me, I can hardly breathe.

“Don’t ever, ever do that again.” Her voice shakes, but the rest of her is fiercely sturdy, clinging to me like a monkey. “Promise me.”

“I do.” I kiss the top of her head, and her hair is earthy and unwashed. “I’m so sorry, Binny. So sorry.”

She squeezes me, hard, and my ribs pinch in protest. “You better be. Where
were
you?”

“Not far, really. I’m okay.” I take a shaky breath when she finally lets go, and Mari walks around the car to grab Robin’s hand.

“Inside, huh?” She tugs and Robin follows, but not before grabbing my hand so we’re walking up the porch steps like a crooked daisy chain.

And at the top, standing just inside the screen door, is Mom.

“We brought cookies,” Mari says brightly, but Mom doesn’t even seem to hear her. She’s staring at me, only at me, and steps aside just far enough to let Mari and Robin into the house before she says a word.

“Wren.”

I can hear so much in the single word, love and regret and relief and even anger, and I wonder if it will sound the same if I say, “Mom.” Instead, I push the screen aside and walk in. We’re only inches apart, so close I can smell the clean cotton of her shirt, the faint citrus of her shampoo, but the distance seems like miles. Just as I decide I should keep walking, she grabs me and pulls me against her.

“I guess we need to talk,” she murmurs into my hair, and I nod.

“You’re not off the hook here, you know,” she adds as she sets me away from her. “I’m still angry.”

“I know.” I steady my voice. “So am I.”

Her mouth twists as if she’s trying not to smile. “Fair enough.”

The fire is hypnotic, long fingers of flame reaching for the flue, the grate, flicking and snapping with the wind outside. Now that Mari’s taken Robin upstairs and Mom and I are settled on the hearth, it’s hard to know where to begin. I watch the fire instead, holding my palms up to let the heat seep in.

“So this is awkward,” Mom says mildly, and I can’t help but snort. “I guess I should have read one of those parenting books, you know?” She’s looking at the flames, too, instead of at me, and I can’t tell if she’s joking or not. “
Teenage Rebellion and You
or something like that.”

“I’m not rebelling, Mom.”

“Aren’t you? I made something forbidden and you decided to go ahead and do it anyway. Unless this isn’t about the magic.” She finally turns to face me, and maybe the fire is magic, too. As the flickering shadows move over her face, I can see myself there in the set of her jaw, and Robin in the hair falling across her forehead, and Mari and even Gram in the shape of her eyes.

“It is,” I admit, wrapping my arms around my knees. “And it isn’t.”

“I’m too tired for riddles, kiddo.” She gives me a wan smile, and tucks a stray feather of hair behind my ear. “It’s been a long couple of days.”

“I know, and I really am sorry. I didn’t mean to make you worry. I didn’t mean…” I shake my head and rest my chin on my knees. “I didn’t mean for a lot of things to happen.”

“Can you tell me what they are?”

“I’d rather not?”

She sighs. “But you’re not pregnant, and you’re not on drugs, and you’re not wanted by the police.”

“Right.”

“You know, if you want to be honest from here on out, about our power and everything else, it’s a two-way street.”

I nod. “Can’t we just start fresh, from right now? I promise you, I’m okay. Or I will be. I’m trying to clean up my own mistakes here, and that has to count for something, right?”

She sets her jaw, and the flames in the hearth jump a little higher. “It’s not going to be that easy, Wren. I’m not just letting you off the hook free and clear because you had a bad day.”

“I’m not asking you to!”

She levels a gaze at me, and for a second our power and our anger is tangible, crackling in the air between us. “Oh no? But you won’t tell me what went on this weekend? You have to understand that it’s hard for me not to know what you’re going through.”

“It’s hard for me not to know, well, a lot of things,” I say carefully, and glance sideways to watch her face. She doesn’t smile but she doesn’t flinch, either, and that’s good, I guess. “Things about what I can do, what I am, what … the limits are, I guess.”

She swivels around to face me then, and we’re like one person, reflected in a mirror—her arms around her bent knees, her chin propped on top of them.

“You know who you are, I hope.” She tilts her head, thoughtful, as if she’s testing the shape and weight of the words to come. “You’re a bright, imaginative girl with a lot of special talents.”

She’s so not getting off that easy. I arch a brow at her. “Come on, Mom. Special talents are playing the violin really well and scoring goals every game. What we are is different.”

“You’re right. And different doesn’t mean bad, all evidence around this house the last few years to the contrary.”

I peel chipped dark purple polish off my thumbnail. “You know I remember, right? When Robin was born, before Dad left, when Mari and Gram were here all the time? It was a part of us then. It wasn’t weird or wrong. I thought it was strange that other moms couldn’t make flowers grow or put fairy lights up on the ceiling.”