I Wish

Chapter 53

I looked at Ivy, and I mean really looked at her. Attempting to scrutinize her from human standards to see if I could spot something that pointed out that she was obviously supernatural. Obviously not human. Her hair was in a pretty braid, thrown Elsa style over her shoulder. Black pants, boots and an overly-large green knitted hoodie was thrown over the top, but nothing about any of it gave the idea that something wasn’t quite right. Her eyes sparkled and shone, but not with something that was unmistakable as magic. 

“Why are colours still spiraling off you?” I asked finally in a strangled voice. They had before, at the tea party to end all tea parties. It had gone away though, it had definitely gone away though… right? I was fully uncomfortable with the fact that I couldn’t say for sure one way or the other. I was doing my best to break old patterns, and refused to let that hold sway for one second longer than I could manage. She smiled brightly, like once again something was going to plan. I wanted to groan, to go absolutely white and flop to the floor like an anime character. Nope. Repeating a process I know doesn’t work is dumb. Repeating… a thought process… I know doesn’t work… is dumb. 

“Your brain’s refusing to see my wings, but that’s wearing off. Exposure and all,” Ivy said with a shrug, “Are you going to flip out now?” The last part came out resigned, and I could see her just bracing for it. As if it was just something that was going to happen and there was nothing to be done for it, whether she liked it or not, like a thunderstorm.

“Depends, are my parents going to be able to see this?” I hissed at her, panicking over the idea.

“No little one,” she chuckled, and I was so relieved by her answer that I didn’t even protest the nickname. Even if I did grumble both half-heartedly, and internally. Did I look like I came in a Kinder surprise egg? I could feel the blood suddenly rushing through my body, as if it had frozen while waiting for that to happen. 

“Good, if we stay here any longer, mums going to come looking for us and nobody wants that,” I told her, and we began walking towards the house. She was beaming, like the high beam of smiling. Tangling a hand deftly with mine. Mum wasn’t waiting for us at the door, like I was expecting. She was sitting in the living room with a cup of coffee, legs crossed and cooly regarding Ivy like she was deciding how best to eviscerate her.

“I gave you as long as I was willing to give you to come clean,” she said before I could speak, from her spot on the armchair, “But no child of mine will be treating their significant other like that. What if she thought she wasn’t welcome?” I wanted to reply that I’d been worried she wouldn’t be, not because she was a girl, but because she was Ivy. I enjoyed her, when we hadn’t been fighting like cats and dogs, but that doesn’t mean that anyone else in the house wasn’t going to have an issue when she opened her mouth.

“Everything was going so well,” I said, and it wasn’t even an excuse. I could hear the tone in my voice, I was straight up whining here. I collapsed on the couch and pulled Ivy down beside me, when I glanced at her I wanted to wince. Ivy looked every bit the queen she was. Posture perfect and correct, gaze challenging, and a polite smile on her face that dared… dared my mother to come at her. Oh… oh boy, this could be… I tried to think how to put it but all I could picture was a couple of rampaging monsters and the house in the middle of burning beyond recognising that there was a house here. 

“Mum this is my girlfriend Ivy, Ivy this is my mother,” I said introducing them, and the second that the word girlfriend left my mouth I knew that I’d made the right decision. The hostility drained right out of Ivy, and she squeezed my hand in a way that told me that if we were alone now she would have squealed with happiness. Like a fan girl at comic con. 

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet some of Rose’s family, I’ve heard so much about you,” Ivy informed mum, and I could tell by the genuinely happy way she said it that she was replaying the word girlfriend in her head.

“I would have worked to make it happen if someone fessed up that you existed,” mum said, pulling no punches in my direction. 

“Yes, but I was too busy having this one single good thing all to myself for just a little bit longer,” I grumbled knowing that unless I could come out with something my mum felt was acceptable then I would be subtly ribbed about it all night, and also not so subtly. 

“Okay, fair enough. So tell me about how the two of you met?” Mum said before Ivy could put her two cents in about being a good thing that I was hoarding. Which I was grateful for, because it probably would have been something along the lines of I told you so, and I didn’t want to deal with that. 

“Oh, I was at the local rainforest park. There are glow worms, did you know? It isn’t too much of a trip with the right frame of mind, and I didn’t think that there would be anyone else there.  Rose wandered pretty much straight into me,” Ivy replied and that was surprisingly vague and yet accurate at the same time, “We got talking, and I must say that it’s really been an adventure.”

“Ah, so all those little night trips she was taking were to see you,” mum said, and I spluttered.

“You knew?” I asked her, and my voice sounded like someone had done their best to strangle it. 

“Of course. I’m your mother and I’m not stupid, but you are an adult and I had assumed that this far out the chances of you coming across anyone were slim to none,” she replied looking like the cat that got the cream, “I figured that you’d finally reached your limit to being confined, and I didn’t see the harm in letting you decompress before you exploded.” Well now I felt like an i***t, I thought I had been so clever. It just goes to show that my life was very much not a teenage movie.

The two women, despite having very little on Ivy’s side that she could accurately talk about and no way to lie, chatted quite comfortably with each other. I chimed in every now and then, but for the most part I sat there listening in the background while they, hopefully, learned to get alone. I was so comfortable and warm. It was good to be home, but it was even better to be home without missing Ivy. At some point Ivy wrapped an arm around me, and I sort of just leaned into her shoulder and literally fell asleep. Then and there, just gone. Of all the horrible things that could have come from this, the one that actually occurred was probably the most terrifying of all. They took the time to become friends.