Page 38 of Summertime Hexy

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And when she looks at me, it’s like shesees.

“You always brood in grayscale?” she says, voice too bright for the ashes beneath her.

“This isn’t real,” I murmur.

“Yeah,” she says, hopping off the altar. “But it still feels like something.”

I reach for her. Don’t mean to. Just do.

Her fingers thread through mine before I even make contact.

And when she pulls me closer, I let her.

And right before I wake, she presses her forehead to mine and whispers, “Stop pretending you don’t want me.”

I sit bolt upright in my bunk, heart pounding, chest tight.

The cabin is dark. Quiet.

She’s not here.

But her scent still clings to the pillow beneath me.

Vanilla, sage, and danger.

I close my eyes again.

But sleep doesn’t come.

Just the ghost of her hands on mine.

And a single, echoing truth:

She’s inside me now—in every way that matters.

And I don’t think I can let her go.

—

I’m chopping firewood behind the cabin.

Not because I need to—there’s a spell for that. But because I like the rhythm. The repetition. The clean split of blade against grain. It’s the kind of silence that asks nothing of me but presence.

And right now, presence is the only thing keeping me together.

Camp Lightring hums behind me. Kids laughing too loud. Magic crackling where it shouldn’t. Pixies divebombing the mess hall roof for the fifth time this week. Thorn pretending he’s not the one feeding them sugared rosemary.

It’s chaos.

And it’s the closest thing I’ve had to home in a century.

Here, I’m not a weapon.

I’m not a ghost.

I’m just… Derek. The one who fixes broken wards, makes sure the ley lines behave, and catches kids when they fall off their brooms.

And lately—keeps an eye on one particular witch who throws spells like grenades and somehow makes the whole world brighter.

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