Page 4 of Starlight Witch

“Yeah, I do. It’s complicated, but yes. I love him enough to not pressure him to remember, because his health means so much to me.” I let out a long sigh, shaking my head to clear my thoughts. “Give me a moment while I get ready to play my part.”

As we headed back into the living room, I tried to rein in my emotions. I managed to keep a stoic face while I said goodbye to Faron, and then ran all the way back to my car, where I broke down in tears as I turned the ignition and pulled out of the driveway.

CHAPTER TWO

I stopped at Bree’s shop as I passed through town. My best friend and a puma shifter, Bree Loomis owned a travel company called the Olympic Forest Expeditions Company. She led hiking adventures in the Olympics, focusing on guided tours through the spring, summer, and autumn months. She even offered a winter selection, though she vetted the ability of the customers for those tours because the hikes could be grueling.

As I pushed through the door, a bell jingled. Bree looked up from her desk. At five-nine, she was four inches taller than I was. I was curvier, though, and while I had muscle, she was jacked. She could bench press two hundred pounds. Given she was a puma shifter, that wasn’t all that unusual, but it beat out anything I could hope for. Her hair hung mid-back, blond and golden. She had sleeked it back in a ponytail, and she was wearing cargo pants, a flannel shirt hanging open over a light tank top, and a smidgen of makeup—mostly mascara and lip gloss.

“Elphyra! What are you doing here?” She came around her desk to give me a hug.

“I went to see Faron today. He’s home now. Well, he’s staying with his brother.”

She studied my face. “How did it go? I can tell by your silence that it didn’t work out the way you hoped it would.”

I sat down on the chair opposite her side of the desk. “No, it didn’t. Want to get a coffee?”

She glanced around. The shop was empty. “Sure, I can take half an hour. Nobody’s coming in today, anyway, I think. With Thanksgiving next week, everybody’s focused on the holiday.”

“By the way, what are you doing for T-Day? We’re holding Thanksgiving up at my mother’s house. I don’t want to go. But Aunt Ciara needs to be around people who won’t make the day all about themselves. My mother isn’t exactly the comforting kind. Owen’s only been dead for a few weeks. The holiday’s going to be hard on my aunt.” I prayed Bree wouldn’t be busy.

“I take it this is an invitation?”

I nodded, giving her cute-kitty eyes.

Laughing, she said, “Sure, I’ll tag along. I hadn’t made any plans, and my parents are going on a cruise, and I don’t feel like joining them. I don’t like mariachi music.” She arched her eyebrows. “I keep thinking each year it will get easier, but so far, it hasn’t.”

“Some wounds take forever to heal, and some only scar over.” I stared at the desk. “I really liked Jeffrey.”

“He looked out for me. He was my big brother, and I felt safe when he was around. It’s been…what…ten…eleven years? I was in my second year of community college and he was in his third year at the University of Washington. He came home for Thanksgiving. My mother asked him to go out for ice cream and he decided he was going to walk.” She bit her lip, and I could hear the quiver in her voice.

I’d heard the story at least a dozen times, and each time, she paused at the same spot. “Don’t—not if it makes you sad.”

I didn’t want her sliding into memories that were hard to shake, but then I stopped. We were nearing the anniversary of his death. She needed to express her emotions, and her parents weren’t able to support her feelings of loss because they were mired in their own. In a way, I felt they’d let Bree down. When they lost Jeffrey, they sort of forgot about her and, while they loved her, both of them became distant. They sought comfort in each other, but seldom included her in their sorrow.

“He never came home. We got the call about an hour later.” She let out a shaky breath and shuffled her papers into a stack. “Gods, I hate drunk drivers. They don’t give a fuck what they do to anybody else. I don’t care if they kill themselves driving headlong into a tree, but they take so many innocent people with them. That bucket of pus who killed him got away with three years. He’s out and walking free now. At least he lost everything because of the blood money he had to pay my parents. It’s never a replacement, but it paid for my college and it paid off their home. I just hope that everyday, he relives that night and that his heart plummets when he remembers he killed somebody because he couldn’t wait for his fucking whiskey until he got home. I hope the memories of seeing my brother’s lifeless body, mangled in the car, are burned into his mind.”

It was time to pull her out of the spiral. I stood, shouldering my purse. “Come on. Let’s go get coffee.”

As she came around the back of her desk, I wrapped my arm around her waist and walked her to the door. She locked the door and we headed into the gloom of the day.

We tucked ourselves into a booth at Eloise’s Diner. It was a classic, like Denny’s used to be, or Coco’s, for those who remembered back to before I was born. Eloise didn’t aspire for a retro look, nor was she hip or jive, but she’d made the diner cozy and comfortable, with a soft color palette, and plenty of stick-to-your ribs food. Eloise was the owner, but I was more familiar with Taisy, one of the waitresses.

Taisy was a bear shifter, working her way through night school. She had two young children and a beat-up old trailer, but she was a hard worker, a good student, and a devoted mother. It suddenly struck me that she and Kyle might get along. They had a similar vibe. I made a mental note to bring him here for coffee, introduce them, and see if anything happened.

“What can I get you?” she asked in the way all waitresses have who like their customers but who also know that if they’re nice, the tips would be better.

“I’ll take a mocha, double shot, and a side of fries,” I said. “Grams won’t know if I don’t tell her.” I grinned at Bree, who laughed.

“Mocha sounds good, but I think I’ll have mozzarella sticks.”

“Want to order calamari and we can share everything?” I asked, suddenly hungry.

Bree agreed, so we ordered our food and waited till Taisy brought our coffees before I spilled the tea, so to speak.

“So, I saw Faron today. He’s out of the hospital now,” I said. “He’s staying at Kyle’s.”

“Were there fireworks?” Bree asked, but she hesitated as I slumped. “What? Did I say something wrong? Is he okay?”

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