Page 46 of A Little Red
“No, Mom,” said Paxton. “He’s not coming back and it’s because of you.” Paxton couldn’t find the words for anything he wanted to explain and finally said the one thing that was any comfort to him. “I’m glad Dad’s not here to see this.”
His mother went pale, but Paxton couldn’t find any sympathy for her. He turned and left the room.
Episode 23
Because of You
Scarlet
Liam was sad. Scarlet could feel it leaking out of him in little waves. She closed her eyes and looked for the tangled red string that bound the two of them together. It was there, wrapping around each of her fingers and up her arm. He loved her as much as ever, if not more, but he was still sad.
“What do you think about moving in together?” he asked suddenly, turning away from the floor to ceiling window in his narrow living room. She was sitting on his couch and pretending to be watching the light fluffs of snow that were drifting out of the sky and onto the treetops in the park. Scarlet blinked at him. It sounded like a much better idea than trying to maintain her plants while commuting back and forth from Brooklyn. They were getting droopy without her. And he was next to a park so that worked out.
“We might need to find a bigger place,” he said looking around.
“No, I need the green space,” said Scarlet. “I mean, yes, I’ll move in with you. I like your place. We can live here. I like it because it’s close to the park.”
“Me too,” he said, smiling at her, but the sadness in his eyes didn’t go away.
The drive from his family’s property to the city had been mostly silent. Scarlet had gathered that whatever had happened hadn’t gone well, but she was beginning to think it had gone very, very badly. They’d made the team decision to both call in sick for the day. She had hoped he would be better by today. But his mood hadn’t changed and the snow outside only seemed to bring it out further.
“Did you want to go to your Grandma’s over the holidays?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Scarlet. “My brother and sister will come home then. We’re not Christian of course, but we do like the lights. And the food.”
“And the gifts?” he asked, teasingly.
“If you’re doing the food, then you might as well do the gifts,” she said. “You could come too, if you wanted.”
“That sounds nice,” he said. “I always wanted to do the Norman Rockwell Christmas.”
“Oh, well, no. You’re not going to get that. Azure will probably want to sing some sort of horrible holiday song about sacrificing Christians, and do not even think about buying anyone anything plastic because she will make a scene. Ochre will probably get drunk and start a lecture on how the pesticides in crops are causing birth defects. And Grandma will probably want to try and go see Mom and we’ll try and talk her out of it.”
“Where is your mom?” asked Liam and Scarlet instantly regretted mentioning her mother.
“Uh… with my Dad. Grandma doesn’t approve. You know, because she left all of us here. So… that gets super awkward.”
She had explained abouttravelingto Liam and she thought he got that she wasn’t entirely human and he’d seemed fine with it, but she also got the feeling that he didn’t really know where the boundaries were. But discussing where the Fae had gone to was one of the things that she was not allowed to talk about.
“Oh,” said Liam, clearly sensing her tone. “Sorry.”
“It’s OK,” said Scarlet. “We’ve talked about it. Mom’s better off with him anyway. She was never any good at being here. But Grandma still gets mad.”
“It’s hard when our families won’t behave like we want them to,” said Liam. He picked at the fringe on a blanket that hung over the back of the couch and Scarlet sighed. Apparently, she wasn’t good at seeing his boundaries either.
“Liam,” she said, softly, “is your family not behaving like you want them to?”
“No,” he said shaking his head. “I’mnot behaving like they want me to. And so, I’m just… I’m not welcome back.”
“Because of me?” asked Scarlet, tears filling her eyes.
“No. Yes. No. It’s been a long time coming. I just can’t do it anymore.” He shook his head, tears filling his eyes too. His fingers clenched around the back of the couch and then he consciously seemed to loosen them one by one. “This isn’t because of you,” he said, looking directly at her. “Don’t think that. It’s just the situation.”
Scarlet set her mug down on the coffee table and rose to her knees so she could hug him over the back of the couch. But she thought he was lying. She kept her arms locked around him and tried to figure out how to give him hope.
“All those warlocks that attacked us are dead by the way,” she said. “Even the first one, that tried to attack me in the park, that cut your shoulder. He only made it three blocks. I probably ought to feel bad about that, but I don’t. I feel like you’re the best boyfriend ever whether you’re on two or four feet.”
He laughed and then leaned back to look at her face. “How many warlocks have been attacking us? I really wish I could remember what the hell happened.”
