Page 51 of Summertime Hexy
I’m sitting behind the ward cabin, sharpening my blade like it’s going to tell me how to fix this.
The steel sings with each stroke. Clean. Predictable. Unlike the wildfire that calls herself Hazel and the storm she left behind in my chest.
“Hey.”
I don’t need to look up.
Milo.
I keep working. “Shouldn’t you be hexing cookies or something?”
“Already did,” he says, climbing onto the overturned bucket across from me. “They taste like pickles now. Reed cried.”
I grunt.
He watches me for a beat, then says, “You make people run, you know.”
My hand stills.
“I’ve seen it,” he continues, voice maddeningly calm. “The way you get all... tense. Like feelings are a disease and you’re afraid you’ll catch them.”
“Go play, Milo.”
He ignores that. “She came back, you know.”
“I noticed.”
“Barely. You didn’t even look at her at dinner.”
“That’s none of your business.”
“She thinks it is.”
That cuts deeper than it should.
I set the blade down. “What do you want, Milo?”
He leans forward, elbows on knees, expression older than it should be. “You could just ask her to stay.”
I don’t answer.
Because the silence is safer. Because admitting what I want is like inviting the knife to my own throat.
“You think pushing her away protects her,” he says. “But maybe it just makes her feel like she was never worth keeping.”
My chest tightens.
“She’s scared,” Milo adds. “But she still came back. That counts.”
“Yeah?” I say, finally meeting his eyes. “And what if I come closer and she runs again?”
He shrugs. “Then maybe you let her. But at least she’ll know you wanted her to stay.”
We sit there in the dusk light, the weight of too much unsaid hanging between us.
“She talks about you, you know,” Milo says, quieter now. “Even when she’s mad. Even when she’s trying not to.”
I close my eyes.
