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“I feel like I am,” I whispered. “Everyone always leaves. Everyone?—”

“Beth and I will never leave you.”

“You will one day, I’m sure.”

Her brows drew together. “We won’t.”

“How can you possibly know?”

“Because we love you.” She shrugged her shoulders. “It’s that easy. You want to know a secret?”

“Not really.”

“Well, that’s too damn bad.” She turned her head, glancing at the living room. Embarrassment crept in at the sight of the broken mirror.

“I didn’t mean for that to happen,” I whispered. “I tossed my phone too hard and it broke.”

Nancy nodded slowly and then looked back at me. “The secret is that we’re all cursed, Simon. Every single one of us. We all carry the weight of those who have harmed us. The feeling that we aren’t good enough. That we don’t deserve to be here. That we don’t deserve love.”

Fuck.My vision blurred with more tears.

“We all carry curses. But you know what else? We also carry the ability to break them.”

“How?” I bit out. “How am I supposed to? I don’t want to be anything like him. And I feel like… I don’t know. I don’t know, Nancy. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called, I shouldn’t have?—”

“You did the right thing by calling,” she said. “And the way you break a curse is by doing exactly what you’ve been doing. You found your music. You created a future for yourself that is nothing like your father. You arenothinglike him.”

“I’m more like him than not,” I whispered back. “You just don’t know what I’m really like. You don’t know who I really am. I don’t understand why the two of you are so kind to me. I’ve never done anything for you. All I’ve done is eat your food and be a pain in the ass. Why did you even bother stopping me all those years ago?”

“Because once I broke my curse, I wanted to help other people break theirs,” she said. “I know exactly what it feels like to carry the burden of a parent who didn’t love you the way they should have. I know exactly what it feels like to fall apart and think everyone hates you. I’ve lived through it, kid. The Nancy you know now is not the same woman I was years ago. Before Beth.”

I shook my head. “Did Beth change you? Did she fix you?”

“No,” she said. “Of course not. I fixed myself. Did loving Beth make me a better person? Yes. But I had to do the work myself. I had to be the one to grow.”

“I tried,” I said, my voice breaking. “I tried. I tried so hard this time. I love her. I don’t know what I did wrong. I don’t know what happened.”

“I can’t tell you. I’m surprised, because I know what love looks like, and I think she loved you back. I think you should give everything some time. I’m sure she’ll come around.”

“She told me she was done.”

“And she may be for now,” Nancy said patiently. “And I know it hurts, but if that’s the case, you have to be done for now, too.”

“I don’t want to be, though. We talked about our future together. We talked about what it would be like. It doesn’t make any sense.”

She released a slow sigh. “I don’t have the answer for that. But I do know we need to get some food in you. And maybe be prepared for you to throw up. Plus, you cut yourself on some of the glass, so you need bandaids too.”

I looked down at my hands. I hadn’t even noticed.

Nancy stood up and held out her hand. When I didn’t immediately take it, she nudged me with her boot. “Get up.”

“I don’t want to,” I muttered. “I wish I could just stop feeling this way.”

“Wishing isn’t going to get you anywhere. No one else can do this for you. You have to love yourself enough to break the curse first. And then she can love you enough to remind you that you were never cursed to begin with. Now,get up.”

FORTY-TWO

PEPPER

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