Page 38 of The Woodsmoke Women's Book of Spells
“Now... I’m trying to find my place. I want to see if I can belong, if this is the home I’ve been searching for the whole time. I’m not going to take anything from you. I’m not trying to change anything.”
Jess fidgets for a moment. “You left without a backward glance. You—you say you don’t want to change anything, but you’ve already changed things, Carrie. Your presence changeseverything.” She finally fixes her gaze on me. “All I wanted was a normal life. And I’ve got that.”
My breath catches again in my throat, and my eyes begin to sting. When it comes to Jess, I can’t hide a damn thing. Not even from myself. I forgot that about her, about us. “You don’t want me back here. That’s it, isn’t it? I’m—I’m disrupting your dream. This dream life you built without me.”
“I—”
“We were practically sisters.” I pause, pulling in a cooling breath, hot hurt sliding up from my chest, the tears already clouding my vision. “Remember that night we cut our palms? Remember how we swore we’d always be us? Never mind him, never mind Tom. We were meant to be forever, me and you. Yes, Tom and I weren’t meant to last forever. He never wanted to leave. That’s what I found out before I left. That’s how I knew for sure it was all wrong between us. He had already agreed to his apprenticeship, and I guess he would have told me after we married. And I’d have been stuck and stifled. But me and you...”
I look up at the ceiling, trying to hold myself together. I press my fingertips into my cheekbones, as though I can erase the tears. As though I can close up the fissures reopening inside me. “You were my sister,” I whisper. “You were my sister, and I’ve come back, and you’re choosing to throw me away.”
“Carrie, you never called, never wrote, not inten years—”
“I couldn’t, Jess! What would I say? You got together with my ex and started this whole life without me. I didn’t have a place in your orbit anymore.” I swallow, wrapping my arms around myself. “It’s all I wanted. To come home, to have you back. There, I’ve said it. I know I should have come over sooner, but I... I was scared. For good reason apparently. Look at us!” I sniff again. “I got over Tom years ago. Butus? How could I ever get over that?”
“Well, maybe youshouldhave made the effort when you got back nearly two whole months ago instead of—”
“It’s like we can’t even hear each other,” I say, shaking my head. How did we grow so far apart? “Just go,” I say, furious at her, at myself, at the tears tracking down my cheeks. Every moment with her flashes between us: the sleepovers and film marathons, the walks to school on the old dirt track, the times we snuck peeks at the book and read the stories aloud to each other. All those moments, so rose-tinted, as though lit up by fairy lights,now lay cracked and broken at our feet. “Go back home. You’ve got everything you ever wanted. Go and enjoy and forget about me and you. But you have to know, I’m not leaving. I’m finishing up what I started here, this renovation, this winter... This is my home too.” I realize, for the first time, that this is true. “I’m sorry it’s creating gossip. I’m sorry the town has so little going on that I’m causing such a stir. Now you know how it is to have the last name Morgan.”
“Carrie...” Jess says, taking a step toward me, her hand reaching out, as though she finally sees it. Sees that I couldn’t have reached out to her. That just being here in this town is like crossing a vast ocean and I just needed her to take the last few steps to meet me. But she retracts her hand and stumbles back to the doorway. Standing there with both hands splayed across her belly, she gives me one final look.
“Go,” I gasp, covering my face with my hands. I’m not sure I can stand any more arguing. This feels like a breakup, like a knife slipped between the ribs. Why is losing a friend always so much harder than losing a love? Especially when I’ve hoped, for so many years, to return here and find our way back to each other. I realize now how foolish that hope was. When I pull my hands away from my face, she’s gone.
I don’t let myself fall apart, not like I used to. I pace up and down the living room, pulling in breath after aching breath. As I walk, I flex my fingers, forming them into fists, clenching and unclenching my jaw. Even after all these years, even after the miles and miles I’ve put between us, one conversation with Jess rips it all open. Like it’s fresh and pulsing and I’m bleeding all over again. Like I’ll never stop bleeding, never stop grieving the loss of her.
The loss of us.
There’s a tap on the window, and I startle. Matthieu’s face appears, his eyes widening when he sees mine. Then he’s through the door, standing next to me, pulling me into his arms.
I cry like I did on my wedding day. As though the whole world is raining with my tears.
“I came back to tell you something,” Matthieu says quietly, “to explain, but... Carrie, what’s wrong? What’s happened?”
I sniff, pressing my face into his chest, warm and safe. And even with Jess and Tom and everything, it feels so right. So right for his arms to be around me, so right that I don’t register surprise that they’re there. That he’s here. “Nothing. Everything... I can’t explain. It all happened so long ago, and she just came over, and I should have had a handle on it, but I didn’t, and...” I gulp and take a steadying breath. “Me and Woodsmoke had a bad breakup a while back, and there was never any closure. Let’s put it that way.”
“Who came over?” he asks, smoothing his hands over my back.
“Jess,” I breathe. “My former best friend. I guess—I guess the real person I had the breakup with.”
Matthieu says nothing. He gently pries me away, putting the smallest distance between us so he can stare down at me. He brushes a hand down my face, running a thumb through my tears. I close my eyes, shudders rippling through me like waves. “Oh, Carrie. Loving someone—caring for them and losing them... it is a distinct kind of grief. One that’s hard to shake.”
Fresh tears course down my face, and he sweeps them all away. His touch, achingly gentle as he wipes at my cheeks, leaves a faint trail of heat along my skin. I sniff again, leaning into his warmth, and he brings his face down to mine. His mouth moves carefully, hesitantly, as his kisses cover my tears. I keep my eyes closed, focusing on that, on Matthieu, on his scent, all pineand frost and midnight. And the tight knot inside me begins to loosen.
“Matthieu,” I whisper, bringing my hands up to his face.
“Carrie,” he says back. And then he brings his mouth to mine.
My heart explodes.
Everything around us, everything else boiling up inside me, fades away, leaving only him, only his mouth, his touch, the warmth of him wrapping around me. It’s as though I’ve been lost in a blizzard with no end and no beginning. And now suddenly I’m no longer cold.
His hands move to my waist, pulling me closer, tracing slow circles with his thumbs along my ribs. The circles move lower, curving down my sides, to the small of my back, and I press my body into his, wanting more.
He comes up for air, his lips slightly parted as he stares at me, transfixed. “I’ve wanted to do that since the moment I first saw you.”
I smile, the ache in my chest easing as I look up at him. Sniffing, I rub away the last of my tears and look at him. With the work nearly done, I don’t want this to end. It feels too much like it could be a beginning.
“Kiss me again,” I whisper, and he presses his mouth against mine. His arms encircle me, and we give in to thissomethingbetween us.
