Page 25 of A Lullaby for Witches

There was that old guilt again. She’d been out having a great time with Leo, and Chris was trying to do something nice for her. “Oh,” she said, trying to sound sorrier than she felt. “Sorry, I forgot to check my phone.”

“I guess I wasted a trip,” Chris said bitterly.

“Wait—” She reached out to stop him but he pulled away.

“I’ll see you at home,” he said, getting into the car and slamming the door.

Augusta stood there, watching him drive off, feeling guilty, yes, but also oddly relieved.

She avoided Leo for the rest of the day, which didn’t turn out to be hard since she had a feeling he was avoiding her, too. Occasionally she heard him across the hall talking and laughing with Jill. Jamming her earbuds in, she tried to focus on her work.

There were condition reports to write and stuff in storage to inventory, but all Augusta wanted to do was get lost in documents and search for Margaret. She wondered if Leo would still take her to the archives next week. Of course he would. He was a good guy, and professional. He didn’t care if she had a boyfriend or not, and he certainly wouldn’t let it affect their work relationship. She was blowing this way out of proportion.

And that’s when it hit her. She was staring at the Harlowe family tree again, the spidery lines dancing across the paper, the soft cadence of Leo’s voice just audible from across the hall. She knew people fell out of love, knew that her parents had had rough patches over the years, but this was a sudden, clean flash. She wasn’t happy. She hadn’t been happy for a long time. She wanted to break up with Chris.

It wasn’t that she thought that Leo really had any interest in her, or that she wanted a relationship with him, for that matter. It was that she would never be able to explore that possibility because of some misplaced sense of loyalty to Chris. Maybe she really did love him, but what good did that do her if she was miserable all the time? Did she really owe him anything? Or did she owe herself the chance to be happy, whether that led to another relationship or not?

That evening as she climbed the steps to the apartment, she began to second-guess herself. Where would she live? How would she afford a place by herself? Most of the furniture belonged to Chris and Doug; she would need to buy all new things. She could move in with her mom, who lived on the other side of town, and who would be thrilled to have her. But Augusta didn’t love the idea of moving back home; it felt like a big step backward. Maybe it would be easier to stay with Chris just a little longer. She ran through a mental list of her friends that she could possibly stay with, but came up empty. All her friendships had gradually deteriorated during her relationship with Chris, and any friends she had now were more Chris’s than hers.

But there would always be some reason to stay. She’d already stayed this long, and the longer she stayed, the harder it would be to eventually break free.

Doug was nowhere to be seen when she let herself in, and Chris barely looked up long enough to glare at her from his video game. He was clearly still upset about that afternoon. Taking a deep breath, Augusta perched on the other side of the couch. She had to do it then, while she still had the nerve, or she wouldn’t do it at all. “Can we talk?”

This time Chris didn’t look up at all. “That sounds ominous,” he said, a sarcastic edge to his voice.

He must have known what was coming. Maybe he even wanted the same thing and was just waiting for Augusta to be the one to pull the trigger. Was he happy with her? She couldn’t imagine that he was. Their relationship hadn’t been remotely passionate for a long, long time. They didn’t have much in common except their history, and even that was fading further into the years. Augusta traced the geometric pattern of the couch cover with her finger, glad for once that Chris was distracted by a video game. “Yeah, I guess it is. It’s just...well, I love you. I really do.”

“But?”

“But um, I don’t know. I don’t think that’s enough anymore. I think I need some time to find myself and figure some stuff out.”

Chris didn’t say anything, and his silence made her keep talking, tripping over her words in her haste to get them out. “I think we should take a break. I might go to stay at my mom’s for a while.”

She knew that she was taking the easy way out, trying to peel a Band-Aid off little by little when she should have just torn it off in one go. But it was either baby steps or nothing, and she couldn’t do nothing anymore.

“It’s your new job, isn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

Chris finally threw the game controller on the couch and looked at her. “You’re hanging out with your new friends after work all the time. You’re different now.”

“I...um, I guess?” She did occasionally go out after work with Jill and Reggie, but it was a stretch to claim that she had a whole new social life.

“I was going to ask you to marry me, you know.”

That stopped her cold. But then a burst of laughter threatened to erupt. “No, you weren’t.”

Chris looked injured. “Yeah, I was. I was saving up for a ring, and since you got that new job, I thought we could look for a house together.”

The laughter died on her lips and her heart beat faster. How many times had she wished that Chris would propose? That he would make some sort of gesture that showed he was serious about their future together? And now that he had made it, why did it feel like such a hollow victory?

“I’m sorry,” was all she could make herself say.

“Yeah, me, too.”

She stood up, her body tight and achy from the tension. The longer she talked to Chris, the more opportunity she was giving him to change her mind, or to hurt her.

But then Chris was dropping to his knees, taking her hands in his. “Don’t go. We can still get married, still get a house together. Doug is taking a job in California next year so it will be just you and me. Come on, it will be good. I know I’m not always the best at saying what I’m feeling, but I’ll try harder. We’ll start over.” He was looking up at her, his hazel eyes bright and hopeful, more emotion on his face than she’d seen in years.

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