Funny Tragic Crazy Magic (Tragic Magic Book 1) (23 page)

But
I knew. I knew who I was; just no one cared what a rube thought.

I
left the Study through the front entrance. Helena, Kaylie, and Ana stood right
outside the front doors. Ana smiled at me, and whispered into Helena’s ear.

Kaylie
waved at me when I left.

I
wandered around the streets of Paris for a while. I’m sure I looked
frightening. There was my own blood on my silk dress.

Joe
and Giara found me about an hour later. Giara made me
promise
I wouldn’t
say anything about what had happened. If I didn’t say anything, then she
wouldn’t hurt Joe. I didn’t trust her, but enough inside me wanted to keep him
safe so I
promised
anyway.

Giara
transformed
into my mother while Joe drove me to the hospital, my home
for the last two months. She did a rune on my arm, so the scars looked fresher.
Doc Jensen welcomed me in, and accepted Giara’s claim that I had tried to kill
myself and needed to be locked away for my own protection.

She
gave me a kiss on the forehead before she left.

“I’m
so sorry,” she whispered, as if an apology would make up for what happened to
me.

Joe
looked at me for a long time, and like an idiot, I stared back at him, tears
running down my cheeks. I wasn’t embarrassed. I wanted those tears to hurt him,
to make him doubt, to make him love me in any way I could get it.

He
too gave me a kiss on my forehead. His lips felt soft against my skin. That
fire and love feeling I’ve always had for him threatened to consume me. The
tears fell harder as he turned away from me again. His hands were in his pocket
as he walked away, his shoulders arched up against his ears, as they do when
he’s upset.

I
watched after him, my eyes trying to lock in every vision of him I could,
before he turned the corner and out of my line of sight. I knew, somehow, that
that would be the last time I ever saw him, and it was.

Giara
left last. I ignored her eyes, and just tried to take in the vision of my
beautiful mother as best I could. I closed my eyes when it became too much, and
I could hear the sound of her moving away from me.

With
my eyes still closed, I spoke, “Please don’t hurt him.”

She
was silent. I opened my eyes, and she looked out at the door to where Joe had
gone. She looked like she was debating what she should say, and then finally
she answered.

“I
would never hurt him, Larissa,” she smiled, and I could see this giddy gleam in
her eyes that I knew meant Joe’s time on earth was almost over. “Not unless he
gives me no other choice.”

“There’s
always a choice,” I whispered.

She
nodded, and smiled at me as if we both finally spoke the same language. The
evil look from her eyes was gone. Her shoulders relaxed as if a weight lifted
off them.

“I
hope you can be happy with your new life here,” she said. “I would change it if
I could.”

I
rolled my eyes, and wouldn’t look at her. She turned away from me as the nurses
wheeled me away.

I
read once that every novel is a letter written to one person. I don’t know if
that’s true or not. I do know it’s true for me.

This
story isn’t fiction; it really happened. It really happened to me. I hope you
believe it, but I don’t really care if you do, because the person who I wrote
this for knows it’s true.

I
wrote this for you, Giara. My mom trusted you, but you destroyed her daughter’s
life. I want you to understand what you’ve done.

I
hope every word I’ve written is like a knife that cuts into your heart and
makes you understand, makes you wish you made a different choice. I hope this
tortures you as you read it, as it has tortured me as I wrote it. You know
what, I take what I said at the beginning back. You can worry all you want,
Giara. You should be worried.

I
used to want you to like me, but I don’t care anymore. I don’t like you, who
cares if you like me. I used to want you to understand me and see I made the
right choices. But now, I don’t even care. Right or wrong, they were
my
choices. I’d do it all again.

It
took me less than two months to write this. Fifty-four days. That’s all the
time it took to write down every bit of my life that meant anything. It’s gone
now. The story is over. Who I am, really, has ceased to exist.

I
wondered how I would feel when it was over, when I had finished telling this
story. I worried I would feel depressed, with this weight of my life’s story
not on my shoulders anymore trying desperately to get out.

You
know what… I don’t feel sad, or empty, like I worried I would. I feel free. I
feel like my memories finally make sense. Really, what I feel most of all now
is peace. And hope. I’m hopeful that one day my life really will have a meaning
beyond what happened to me thus far. That despite being a rube from now on,
maybe I’ll be able to find the happiness my rube friends are all trying to
find.

You
know, maybe I could even take some college courses online, maybe even get well
enough that they’d let me out of here. I don’t know. Maybe my life will find a
way to go on.

I
just… More than anything, I want the world to know I’m still here. I want the
world to know that Larissa Jayne Alvarez lived, and that she loved, and that
she’s still here. I’m broken, but I’m still in here.

I
don’t know why I can’t answer any of the doctor’s questions when he speaks
Spanish. I don’t know why I can’t remember anything that happened before my
parents died, and I don’t know why my hair suddenly turned blonde. All I know
is this, I’m here, and I know who I am.

I’m
Larissa Alvarez, and I used to be a Witch.

SO
I’LL SAY WHATEVER I WANT.

I
don’t actually feel bad that Giara got what was coming to her. I mean, she
killed someone in order to keep me hidden and keep herself in power. She
ignored, terrorized, and tricked me. To see her locked away makes me feel all
warm and fuzzy, if I’m being honest.

But
in order to do it, I had to give her my memories. I wanted her to understand
why I had to save Joe. I wanted her to have some sympathy, and understanding of
who I am, and why I made the choices I did. So I did a rune I didn’t know
enough about, and there were consequences I didn’t expect.

So
now, there’s a girl who looks like me, who thinks she’s me, and who loves my
boyfriend. And she’s hurting. She’s in pain.

I
don’t know exactly how I feel about that.

               
Leaving Giara in the
hospital was harder than it should have been. I hated to see her in pain like
that, hated to see her looking so much like me, clinging to my memories as if
they were her own. But as the hours went by, and I prepared to leave, all of
Giara’s actions came to life. There were others she had killed. Other people
she had fooled. Innocents, witches. My family.

         
Perhaps it’s better for her, and for the world, that she thinks she is me. She
wanted to be the one who won so badly that she refused to see reality. The
transformation spell had worn off, and now she’s her real self. Giara is a
plain looking woman now. If I saw her on the street, I wouldn’t ever recognize
her. She looks nothing like the mask she always wore, and with her hands
missing, she’s truly a frightening sight.  I’m glad I don’t have to watch
her.  That job was placed on the person she had hurt the most. Shizuka
watches her now through the cameras in the hospital. Giara refuses to look in
mirrors, refuses to see reality…she truly is crazy. A mental hospital is the
best place for her. I don’t know why that is so hard for me to accept.

         
When we left Paris, we brought a couple people home with us. Kaylie came with
me, and Ana. The Grandmothers wanted to make sure I stayed in contact with
them, that I didn’t just disappear into Joe’s arms and never come back. I
wouldn’t though. I really want to be the kind of witch my mom always wanted me
to be. Maybe if I help enough people, then in a way, my mom’s dream will live
on. I love that idea.

         
There was a lot of noise and chaos getting home. Getting settled. Ana and
Kaylie drove Ryan’s van back home to them. Joe and I drove a rental. I kept reaching
for Joe’s hand, wanting to hold him, wanting to touch him. He kept his
distance, and kept looking away from me, his eyes far to the distance, staring
to the horizon.

         
Ms. P. waited on my front porch. She stood when we pulled in, and crushed Joe
in a hug once he stepped out of the car. She was so happy to see him, so mad
and grateful at the same time. He was grounded for leaving for a few days, and
she took him home with a glare in my direction. I didn’t respond; I just
watched them leave my driveway with trepidation. A sad moment was on its way
for Ms. P.  I could feel that moment as if it followed them like a storm
cloud. I was going to miss Ash, and I didn’t love him. He wasn’t my family.

         
I walked into my house, my fingers running over the protection rune above the
front door. Ana was looking through the books on the bookshelf, a few in her
hands already while her bags sat unpacked. I walked into my kitchen, and that
pizza box still sat on the table, the pizza inside starting to smell. Ick. I
planned to crash in my bed, but first things first. My OCD had to be answered.
I quickly tossed the box in the garbage outside. My shoes crunched in the snow
as I walked back inside.

         
The back door slammed behind me. I walked through the TV room, the kitchen, the
front room and then up the stairs. Kaylie was in Fee’s room, blasting One
Direction through her radio as she unpacked her things into Fee’s drawers. I
waved at her and took one last look at Fee’s room the way it was before. I had
seen it empty enough times that I didn’t regret the intrusion.

         
 I closed the door to my own room and made my way to my bed. Resting made
my heart feel better, made everything happen in order, made my whole world make
sense again. Ana and Kaylie were making so much noise in the house, but it felt
good to not be alone. It felt like the house was full again, that it was alive.
I put Carol King’s
Tapestry
on my iPod and closed my eyes. The most
beautiful music in the history of forever reached through the cobwebs and made
me feel whole, made me feel alive. Made me feel like me.

         
When Joe came over a few hours later, the house was quiet. Light from
streetlamp outside my window let streaks of light that arched across the walls
of the room. Joe walked through my closed bedroom door, his Chuck Taylors
silent against the carpet. I put my hand up and invited him to join me in my
bed, but he stayed back by the door. I pulled the head phones from my ears and
sat up.

“You
okay?” I asked.

         
In the shadow by my door, his shoulders were arched, and his hair fell loose
over his eyes.

“Joe?”
My feet slid to the floor. “Are you okay?”

         
His voice was strained, and frightened. “How do I know…” he said, as he combed
his hair up toward my ceiling. “How do I know you are who you say you are? How
do I know that the wrong Larissa isn’t hidden away with her hands cut off? How
do I know?”

         
“Joe,” I whispered, silencing him kindly. I drew the rune for
stay
in
the air, and threw it at him from my bed. I could see him try to move, and even
Joe couldn’t pull himself through my
stay
rune.

         
 “No one can do that. No one but me. How do you not know me? I’m a
freak.”  I stood up, the blanket sliding over my legs and onto the floor.
I walked to him and took his fingers in mine. Then I wiped the rune away, and
Joe could move again.

         
 As soon as he could move, his hands went around my chin, and he pulled me
to him.

“Riz,”
he whispered between kisses.

         
I’m so grateful he knew me. That he called me by my real name, because now, and
forever, I am his Riz. I’m Riz Alvarez.

         
I’m a witch. I’m a freak.

         
And I’m home.

Written by Sheena
Boekweg, Melanie Crouse and Sabrina West

Available October 11
^th
.

Check it
out on
Goodreads