Page 92 of Deja New
“No matter what I did, I was never more than a magiciandoing card tricks. But Leah was already making a name for herself. She could make people appearwithin other people.She helped them see the dead. I could never do it so well, and—and I took that out on you.
“It drove me nuts that I couldn’t see your other selves, it just reminded me of my own failings, made my amateur statusthatmuch more obvious. And it drove me nuts that you couldn’t see them, either, couldn’t learn like the rest of us, couldn’t beenlightenedlike the rest of us, like I thought I was.” She could hear herself practically snarling and couldn’t stop. “I wouldn’t admit you were special, and you paid for it. When I apologized last time, I didn’t tell you the whole story. And I thought—I thought you deserved it. To know all of it.”
Silence.
“Do you promise you’re done?”
She thought it over, still kneeling beside the bed. “I... yes. That’s all of it.”
“Okay. My turn. Yeah, you were a jerkass, and not just when you were a kid. You were shitty to me when you were old enough to know better and that sucked, and you know it and I know it and everyone in the family knows it. But you made amends. We got right with each other. And then, mysteriously and to my intense aggravation, you were compelled to make amends again.”
Compelled. Yes. Exactly right.
“But, cuz, even if you hadn’t, your actions didn’t define me and your apologies didn’t, either. You were wrong about me. I was right about me, and that’s what mattered more to me back then. But you’re not the supervillain here. You’re the stubborn baseball manager who tells the hero—moi—that I’ll nevermake it in the big leagues. So I go out and work hard and make it to spite you and in the process end up rich and successful. You’re not Lex Luthor, you’re the B-villain who admits he was wrong at the end and respects the hell out of the hero. What you did, right or wrong, it helped make me a stronger person. Maybe even a better person.”
“Okay...” She might have to mull that one over.
He sighed, picking up on her hesitance and confusion. “In other words, I was just as self-involved as you, my ego’s just as fat as yours, we both got some things wrong about each other and some things right, I will fart on your face very soon now, the end.”
That made a little more sense. Not the farting. The rest of it. “Okay. Thanks for indulging me, I got home from Jason’s and couldn’t go to bed until I amended my earlier apology.”
Her eyes had adjusted quite well to the gloom by now; she saw him blinking at her. “So you got home from your weird date with Detective Chambers—”
“It wasn’t weird!” she hissed, still mindful of waking Leah. Then she thought it over for a second. Tombstone cleaning, prison visit, uncle dropping the C bomb and promising at least one murder, a delicious fuck, a bitchy blow-off all culminating in a bedside confession. No wonder she was exhausted. “Well, okay. It was weird.”
“And then you came up here to wake me up out of a sound sleep and remind me that you can be a self-absorbed jerkass but tonight, at least, you were an apologetic self-absorbed jerkass.”
“No, I took a shower first.”
He settled back and hauled the blankets up under his chin. “Good. Glad we got it all cleared up. But make a note, becausein another ten years I want a middle-of-the-night apology forthismiddle-of-the-night-apology. Just make an appointment or mention it in the Christmas newsletter so I know when it’s coming.
She giggled, something she hadn’t imagined doing even once during this conversation. “Done.”
“You promise?”
“Super done.”
“Go away, you controlling, aggravating, bitchy idiot.”
She wanted to hug him, but she’d disrupted his sleep cycle enough for one night. Instead she took the plate and quietly closed the door, and wasn’t too proud to lick her finger to get every one of those delicious pastry swan crumbs.
