I Wish

Chapter 57

The revelation that Ivy was spelling? I was unsure if that was the correct descriptor for Fae magic, but anyway, the knowledge that she had done something to my parents was really more telling about me than I would like. I didn’t demand straight away that she removed it, or the day after that, or even another week down the track. I just let it go on, like the removal of their choice to decide how long they wanted a visitor in their house was fine. I’d always thought when push came to shove I’d do the whole ‘choosing right over easy’ thing. Yeah nah, and all that time I spent being raised with dad's obsession with the Harry Potter series was a complete a waste of time on all our parts, because I’ve learned nothing. It was currently being proven that easy, and what I wanted was clearly more important, to the point it was losing my family just a little bit more of their autonomy. I… we’d been here for long enough right? Just separating from anything that they felt was dangerous, but Ivy had provoked more than one thought stimulating conversation. I’d thought that we’d moved here because they were worried that we’d get sick. It wasn’t that, or it was but rather it wasn’t just that. Scared people are desperate people, desperate people are dangerous. I didn’t know exactly what they were so worried about, but Ivy had and she hadn’t looked happy about it. In fact she’d looked at me like she’d wanted to steal me away again, and had been counting down everyday until she could do so. I wanted to think that she was exaggerating, but I’d thought she’d been overdramatic before. Then Isaac attempted to beat it out of me, it was like he existed solely to make sure I didn’t just write Ivy as crazy. I hated proof that I’d been wrong, especially when I had gotten it that wrong. 

“Are you okay?” Ivy asked quietly, cuddling into me one night as we lay in my bed, side by side and facing each other. She’d clasped my limp cold hands in between her own and squeezed them. This was nice, being able to have this. I must say that there was one thing that I preferred about the Spring Court, and it was the fact that my parents didn’t constantly barge in to try and catch us at something. It wasn’t that they were trying to block me or had a problem with it or anything, it’s just when it didn’t happen accidentally they started taking it as some kind of challenge. Because we were all a bunch of weird little freaks it became a game. Just something we did for fun.

“No. I keep telling you, I’m a really shitty human being and that's a fact,” I informed her tiredly, and I really was tired. Every day that I didn’t do something was more exhausting. How long was I going to be able to keep doing this I wasn’t sure. It’s true that what they say, guilt will ruin a perfect crime every time. This wasn’t exactly a crime, but it felt like the same principle. I knew that we could leave as soon as time caught up with itself we’d be fine but until then we were stuck. 

“Is this about the enchantment? Is that the thing that’s bothering you?” she asked huffing like I was being unreasonable or ungrateful, “Because I could take it off, if it's bothering you that much, and you want me to.” Now if I’d said yes to this then it would actually have made my little strop something other than a waste. I did not say yes, actually, I growled. Inhuman sounding, furious, and threatening that the response to that could be violence. If it wasn’t directed at Ivy, the cloud would become conditional. As in conditional to how fast they could run. There would be violence.  It rumbled in my throat, and she cooed in response. Glowing and looking like I’d won her a giant teddy bear at the fair, instead of growling at her like a particularly irate wolf-monster. With a great amount of difficulty I tried to rein back my frustration so it didn’t sound like I was angry at her.

“No I don’t,” I said simply, “And leaving you out of it entirely, that makes me a shitty, shitty human.” At least I wasn’t the only one irritated now. Few things got to her as quickly, or as easily, as when I talked badly about myself. Nothing. She hated it, because she was magically inclined to think that I was the best thing since sliced bread, and she did not care who was contradicting that. It was going to stop, because she was going to say something about it.

“We’ve had conversations about you talking about my lady like that,” she criticized half-heartedly. The fury simmering away in her eyes bellied the defeated tone she’d said them in. I snorted, and didn’t have the heart to tell her that I thought owning up to my f**k-ups was character building. A spade is a spade and all that. Personal responsibility, for yourself and not for the behalf of others, seemed to be some kind of hidden endangered species. “It’s not like we’re going to be here for much longer anyway, time’s almost caught up with itself,” she reminded me comfortingly, and it was hard to remain mad at her when she was clearly telling me what she thought I wanted to hear.

“I’m going to pretend that made me feel better,” I lied to her shamelessly because I wasn’t even going to pretend, I was just going to fake it and badly at that, “It doesn't seem like enough time has passed.” It didn’t, barring the guilt, things we're chugging along peacefully and unchallenged. Honestly, they were all starting to blur together. It had been nice, but it felt like an episode of the family six o’clock sitcom.

“Are you going to come with me?” she asked softly. I hummed, and scooted my legs forward to wrap around hers. Any excuse to wind up laying around in a tangled mess really. I was procrastinating on purpose, because it was nice to pretend that I was going to do anything else even just for a little while. I was going to follow her, there was no doubt about that. I just hadn’t made my mind up about whether or not I would stay. It was tempting, but I liked being home. I’d missed my family while we were gone. It was just my own guilt driving me away at this point, and the promise of a life that I could actually live with a beautiful woman that thought I was the moon and the stars.

“For a couple of days at least. I think we split time. Like we’re doing now, some time there and then catch up with what we missed here,” I said, continuing to play like I wasn’t biting, and waiting for her to explode. For Ivy to make it very clear to me that I was coming with her, and staying with her, whether I liked her to, or not. Something about it was just so reassuring, because all of this was just so complicated. I hadn’t leveled up for serious relationships and it was nice to have someone have so much confidence in pretending to know what they’re doing. It was pretending, she couldn’t actually think she had this did she? Actually that was offensive to both of us, and culturally insensitive to speculate about. I was going to stop doing that. It didn’t help me to feel less like a stain on the fabric of the universe when she broke into tears because she was so relieved. I hugged her, pressing her as closely to me as I could and unable to do anything else. I pressed kisses into her hair, which was a lot easier with the way she had curled herself into my body, and buried her face into my neck. While Ivy did this, with her body shaking against mine as she let out tiny sniffles that made my soul want to shatter like glass, I wondered what horrible thing she must have done to be stuck with me as her happily-ever-after. “We’ll be hermits for the whole first day that we’re back. I don’t want to deal with anyone, and if we see Kaede we either push him off a cliff or run,” I say in a poor attempt to comfort her. It worked far better than I had anticipated. I suspected that it was the threat of violence to that asshat. It certainly helped to cheer me up consistently.

“He can fly,” she says tearily, “We would have to kill him with fire.” I wasn’t sure if she was kidding, and I didn’t know if I wanted her to be kidding. What I didn’t know consisted of this, if we really killed him with fire I was learning to make smores. It felt like a fun way to feast hanging around the burning bodies of your enemies.

The thing was, Ivy hadn’t been wrong. Time was catching up soon, and those days that we were rapidly running out of all too soon, ran out. I knew that it wasn’t a case of not paying attention, I was all too aware of how quickly the days were passing. It was just when they were up, it came out of nowhere. It was the dead of night that we stole away in, and yes it was every bit as overdramatic as if sounded. I think my mother knew something was up, but they were asleep when we snuck out the back door. 

“Are you sure?” Ivy asked when we stopped by the treeline. I looked at her in disbelief, because oh my god. Is she serious right now?

“All over this effort to get me back here, or to stay, and you’re asking me if I’m sure,” I asked in a small voice before raising it exponentially, “Are you crazy?! Take the win and run.” I probably should have been better prepared for the searing kiss she laid on me, because she had just about found my tonsils and I’d had those removed when I was ten. 

“This is probably going to freak you out, but I love you so much,” she declared, and pulled me deeper into the dark, “Let’s go home little one.”