Shattered (29 page)

“The compass changed. The
arrow is now in the middle. Young lady, do not make one single move without me.
Do not budge. Do not plan. Do not speak of what you have decided. Take the
potion and do not use the antidote. I trust you. I will come for you in the
morning.”

“And then?” I pressed. “What
did he say after that?”

Emma walked out of my
bathroom dressed in a red bikini. “I told you,” she said. “He’s on to whatever
you’re doing.”

“And that’s all he said to
tell me? Really? There has to be more.”

“There isn’t. Unless you
count the kiss. He’s a Ewing, they have a tendency to kiss phones and love on
you from miles away.” I regretted drinking my afternoon dose of the potion. Now
that he’d forbidden me from the antidote, and obviously knew about what I was
going to do, I was annoyingly in the dark on my own plan.

“What do you think about this
one?” Emma asked. “Too much?”

I shook my head. It was
appropriate for the dinner-turned-beach party Sophia had planned at our house
tonight. The guest list started with just my family and friends, then slowly
expanded to Emma’s parents and all of Sophia’s family coming to end her double
life. Mom and Dad agreed to have company in our secret home, mostly from an
inflated sense of confidence that Kamon Yates would be dead soon because of
her.

Emma raked her fingers
through her hair, catching and straightening a tangle, and said, “Are you going
to talk to your parents about it?”

“According to your message
from Pop, I’m not supposed to.”

“I meant about … them. Their
relationship or whatever it is.”

I put a pretend gun to my
head. Since seeing them kiss earlier, my parents couldn’t have been more disgustingly
obvious about what was going on between them. Even if I wasn’t psychic, I would
have figured it out by the way they’d visited me all day. They’d come in
together each time, stayed for thirty minutes or so, and, conveniently, Mom
would have to make a call and Dad would suddenly have a household chore to take
care of.

And her excuse for still
being here was clearly a lie:
I cancelled
my meetings because I’m tired
. Really? Tired? Seventeen years of working
nonstop, and today, you decide to be tired? She didn’t seem tired at all.
Actually, she was the happiest I’d ever seen her.

“Resist the urge to throw
this in their faces,” Emma said. “It never works how you think it will. Them hooking
up, to them, has nothing to do with your relationship with Nathan.”

“Don’t say hooking up when it
applies to my parents,” I said and shivered.

As I got dressed, I considered
telling her about what I’d decided to do tomorrow just to have someone to talk
about it with, but I couldn’t. I wanted to follow Pop’s rules. The fact that he
hadn’t told his wife or my mother meant that he wanted me to help, or at least
had accepted that I was going to.
 

Emma took us downstairs. My
father was walking out of the door with a tray of smoking burgers in his hands.
“Hell no,” he said. “You need more clothes on.”

Emma snapped and a semi-sheer
cover-up appeared over my bikini. “Better, Dad?” I asked.

“Keep it on,” he warned. “The
whole time.”

After a few rounds of beers
with Emma’s parents, he didn’t notice that I’d taken it off to play in the water
with my friends.

The party was a success. Even
my mother was having a good time. Some of the Ewings looked terrified at first,
but as the night progressed, all of Sophia’s children, and their children, and
their
children had met Mom and shaken
her hand.

Amelia, Sophia’s oldest
daughter, hugged Mom and thanked her for paying her mother an outrageously high
salary for a maid. Apparently, how she and Pop had managed to care for their
entire family and others had been a running joke and mystery for years.

Paul took turns tossing us into
the foamy waves until the
sun set
and Sophia ordered us
out of the water. We made our own table with Paul’s handsome older brother,
Stephen, and seven of his female cousins that I’d met at least once in my time
of knowing them.

My secret ally was missing
for most of the night, but when Pop showed up, I stood from my seat to go to
him. He shook his head and turned his back to me. Now was not the time to talk,
apparently.

I stared at the darkening
sky, waiting for panic to hit me. But it never came. I still felt sure of my
decision to finish what my mother started. I was doing it for my immediate
family, my extended magical one, and for families across the world who didn’t
deserve to go through another war. It was time for this to end.

Emma questioned Paul’s
brother about his job teaching 1
^st
grade, trying to gage how much
math was involved, in case her dreams of being a professional stylist didn’t
come true.

“I could do that job,” Emma
said. “Maybe I can teach dance or something. Or recess! I was great at that.
I’m just thinking of jobs Chris and I could do together. You’ll be teaching Art,
by the way.”

“Thanks for planning my life,
Em.” I gasped as her fantasy spread to my mind, like a deliriously wonderful
disease. “And our classrooms could be next door to each other. We’d see each
other all day. That’s actually perfect.”

She applauded, and then she
and Paul abruptly stood from their seats. Emma’s flew back from either her
momentum or some magic I couldn’t see.

“Maybe I can teach Math or
something. I want to work at this school, too.” The voice cut through me,
chilled me, warmed me, all in the same second. “Now would not be the time for
janitor jokes, Paul.” I turned around slowly. Nate and my dad were standing
behind my chair. I forgot how to breathe. I couldn’t decide on whether to stand
or keep sitting. To hug him or act aloof. Ask him about his time away or demand
that he never leave again.

“You kids have fun,” Dad said,
tossing me my forgotten cover-up. “But just so you know, I’m standing right
over there and can see every move you make.”

He slapped Nate’s back hard
enough for him to stumble in the sand and walked back to the circle of adults.

As I put the cover-up over my
head, Emma cleared our table with some not so subtle orders for everyone to
give us space. Nate straightened the chair she’d left toppled over and sat across
from me.

“You should probably
breathe,” he said. My lungs took a tiny sip of air, and he flashed his adorable
smile. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“Nice house,” he said. “Your
parents have a thing for real estate or something?”

I laughed and forced myself
to inhale again. “I said the same thing.”

“You did not.”

“I promise.”

 
We laughed a little too hard, and we both
hummed awkwardly after. “I’m sorry,” we said together, then laughed again. Our
brains must have been tethered, linked by some invisible string.

“What do you have to be sorry
for?” he asked.

“For not telling you what was
going on. I should’ve said something after the open house at Trenton. I
should’ve gotten you help.”

“You were afraid. I get why.
I shouldn’t have put you in that situation to begin with. I knew I wasn’t okay,
but I didn’t say anything. I could spend the rest of my life apologizing to
you, and it still wouldn’t be enough.” He pressed his forehead into his palms
and his elbows into the table, muscles bulging and tense. I couldn’t stop
thinking that if he accidentally broke this table in another shifting mishap, I
would never see him again. “I promised myself I wouldn’t cry. I’ve called your
dad a few times, and tonight when he invited me here, I cried like a baby.”

I thought I might cry if I
commented on that so I said, “You’re late.”

He laughed. “He actually just
called fifteen minutes ago and said he was sending Sophia. He gave his blessing
for us to be friends again. If you still want that. If you can forgive me.”

His voice lost the tremble,
the threat of tears, and he smiled another heart shattering smile.

“Of course, I can,” I said. I
reached across the table and grabbed his hand. “I forgive you.” It felt good to
admit that there was something to forgive. He should’ve been more honest and
asked for help. “I forgive you completely, without question, without a thought.”

With his eyes glued to the
hand I was holding, he bit his bottom lip. I nearly hopped over the table to do
the same.

“I have something for you,”
he said.

He pulled a crumpled envelope
out of his pocket and smoothed out the creases on the table. He slid it to me,
peeking over his lashes, looking vulnerable and gorgeous.

I opened it slowly and took
out a drawing of a stick figure with curly hair with her foot in the butt of a
stick figure with a wincing face.

“It’s a coupon. I’ll just
stand there while you beat me up,” he said. “In case you have any pent up
aggression about … you know. Is it too soon? I thought it might be too soon for
a joke, but I went for it. Not to minimize it. I’ve cried and cried about it…”
He paused his ramble for a moment then started again. “I just thought this
would be a good way to stop crying about it.”

I nodded and caught happy
tears under my eyes. Of course he would give me this. He was still Nathan, the
guy who can joke through anything and make any moment perfect.

“I wouldn’t need a coupon, by
the way,” I said.

“Probably not. I saw you in
action.” I laughed and peered into the envelope. There was more–an old
photo of him as a little boy. His dark hair flopped over his forehead, nearly
hiding his emerald eyes, and his mother had a smile on her plump and healthy
face.

“She was beautiful,” I said.
“And you were adorable.”

“Thanks. I wanted you to have
that. I’m sorry for not telling you how much she meant to me. After how I
reacted when you told me you were human, I felt like I couldn’t say it. And
when I brought you to meet her, I hoped you would sense it so I didn’t have to
say it. Then after that, I just didn’t want to say it. I’m sorry.”

I rubbed my finger across his
huge smile in the photo, hoping our son would look exactly like this. “Don’t be
sorry about that,” I said. “I knew something was wrong. I just didn’t want to
push you to talk. You would’ve told me eventually.”

I dropped the envelope on the
table and something jingled inside. I opened it again, and the world stood
still as my eyes caught on the sparkly ring at the bottom corner of the
envelope.

“Don’t take it out,” he said.
“Your dad hasn’t blinked since I sat down. I don’t want him to see that.”

I looked over my shoulder and
laughed. My father was sitting next to my mom with his eyes wide, glaring in
our direction. I waved slowly. He saluted with his beer, and I turned back to
Nate.

“Are you asking me to-”

“No, I’m sorry. I should’ve
explained it before you saw it. It was for my mom. I can’t imagine pawning it
or watching it collect dust or ever giving it to anyone else. That ring meant a
lot to her, and she meant a lot to me. And there is absolutely no way someone
could ever come close to being what you are to me, even if we’re over. So I
wanted you to have that. There’s a chain in there so you can wear it around
your neck as a two-carat necklace. If you want it. If not, you can totally not
accept it.”

I reached into the envelope
and turned the ring to see the stone. It was clear and perfect and exactly what
I wanted, from exactly who I wanted it from. I denied the urge to slip it on my
finger. I could feel my father’s eyes on the back of my head.

“Of course I want it,” I
said. “And, Nathan Reece, if you think we’re broken up, you’re crazy.”

He didn’t say anything, just
smiled. At least he didn’t refute it.

The party quickly dwindled to
only Pop, Sophia, and Emma and Paul’s parents. Dishes started clanking and
tables started disappearing. I wanted to hang on to this night as long as I
could. But Paul came to retrieve Nathan, and my dad came to supervise our
goodbye.

He’d given me his mother’s
ring, and we ended the night by shaking hands. When the house cleared of
everyone but my parents, Sophia, and Pop, Mom hugged me and kissed my forehead.

“I ought to get going, too,” she said.

Sophia snapped and a frame appeared in
her hands. She gave it to me, for Nate’s picture I assumed, and said, “Good
idea, Lydia. You’ll need your rest.”

 
“Awww,” Pop said. “That’s too bad.
Christine was hoping you’d stay one more night.”
 
For the first time all night, he looked
at me. I caught on. He must’ve needed Mom to be here, maybe to make sure we
stopped her from going to Kamon tomorrow.

“Yeah,” I said. “Are you sure you can’t
stay one more night?”

“I am, sweetie. I’m sorry. You don’t have
to worry. I’m just going to go home and get right in bed. I’ll call you
tomorrow.”