Shadows of Ourselves (2016 Original Edition)

THIRTY-FOUR: Out of my Hands

In the two weeks that followed Crayton's death, I spent most of my time alone in Riley's back shed, painting into the wee hours before I dragged myself to her parents' sofa and dropped into sleep like death for hours, my hands cradling my face as I slept, stained with blue and gold paint, the colours following me into my dreams.

I painted snakes and shadows, dark eyes and empty hands, blood and glass biting flesh, magik bleeding into the night sky.

I painted it into making sense and then I painted it all away.

I told Hunter I needed space, told Riley I wanted to try and go back to normal, or a better version of normal, for at least a while. I told myself I was better—but I wasn't better enough to do some things.

I couldn't forgive my mother. I'd been driven to near death that night, and it had put a lot of things into perspective. They say time heals all wounds, but it also gives your scars time to settle, gives you time to run your smooth fingertips over severed skin again and again trying to think your way out of the memories of how you got them.

My mother had lost everything. But I'd lost things too, and I didn't use it to destroy the people around me. I could feel the ache of every hit I'd ever endured at her hands and all the nights I'd spent raking my mind over razor blades and ropes and pills, trying to work up the courage to end it all because she'd shown me that love was a dangerous thing.

I ignored her calls, and then threw my phone away altogether. Clarity would come with distance.

I'd decided to live. To let people in. To stop running.

I'd decided to stop hating myself so much I got trapped believing that everyone would leave me. I'd decided to stop believing the lie that I couldn't survive it, even if they did.

And there were other things to focus on. The future. The bond. We could never break it now. We'd take it, and each other, to our graves with us someday. Maybe we'd even find each other in another life, down the line...

All of that bullshit.

I'd decided, for clarity, that when there were spirits imbuing your friends with deadly elemental powers, mystic bonds chaining you to handsome sorcerers, predators made of pure shadow come to life, that you couldn't worry about the little shit. The human stuff—heartbreak, depression, grief—still seemed terrifying. But it wasn't the worst thing out there, by far.

And I couldn't keep holding onto fear. I needed room for other things to grow in my life.

I wanted magik—I wanted it in ways I couldn't explain. Once you'd felt this, you couldn't not crave it, need it, feel as if it was all that was keeping you alive, in some moments. And all that was trying to kill you. Nothing comes without a catch. But I knew there was no way I would be able to turn my back on it. Bond or no, this was who I was. It was who I wanted to be. A Charmer. A fighter. I always was a problem child, you know.

And today, today I'd agreed to meet with Hunter and talk about our future. We had no second chances, no set amount of time. All of this could be taken at any moment. I wanted to spend some of it with him before then.

I wasn't ready to lose, but I wasn't ready to stop playing the game, either. Sometimes I still wish I was, but maybe the fact that I'm not is a failsafe, something written into my code to keep me from crashing, my own wishes be damned.

"It's freezing out here," Hunter said, leaning over the metal bench I sat on.

I hadn't heard him sneak up behind me, but I wasn't surprised, either. There was no way he could scare me anymore—it would be like scaring myself. He felt like an extension of me, like a limb I'd been trying to walk without. Now that he was here, I felt complete. I don't mean that in a cheesy, he's the only one for me kind of way, either: I'm being entirely literal. It was like a physical thing. You know the reason you can't tickle yourself is because of touch-knowledge? Your brain knows where your hand is going to go, what it's going to do, before you do it—all of those nerves are faster than you, even when you don't realize it. But I think before Hunter, before the bond, my touch-knowledge wasn't complete. Like something was blocking the transmission of that knowledge from my nerves to my brain, and so every moment, every new feeling, emotion, and sight, was a shock. A blow that shook my foundation. Only when the link between us had formed, that block had been scrambled into non-existence, and the blows of the world were more like a caress now.