Cracks

004 | mauvelous circles

The most precarious part of a witch's life is when they are not only young and untrained, but without any resistance to exposed magic.

Avery knew he fell into that category.

And Rachel helped to make it a little easier, her professional background being thaumatic research, though to Avery, those words together were nonsense. She'd seen that, sighing and explaining that she knew a few possible ways of dealing with it safely from her former job. When Avery was eight, and with Yu Na's permission of course, she pierced a cuff lightly infused with iron to his ear, a device designed to thin magic in order to make it easier to resist. Blinking, Avery kept his eyes averted from the woman that had become somewhat of an aunt to him. Mrs. D'amico sighed again, voicing her tireless frustration and disappointment.

"Avery, we've been over this." He let out a deep breath, already having heard the speech a thousand times before. Avery knew she was trying to help but honestly, he was fine. Everything was going alright, she didn't have to pester him about it so much.

"But—"

"No buts." She gently grabbed onto his chin, pulling it up so that they were face-to-face, the lull in costumers, an excuse for a lecture. "You're crossing over the line from being helpful to hurting yourself. Lord knows how this is impacting school."

She gave him a look, "You're a smart kid. Don't throw all of that awa—"

"Mrs. D'amico," Avery said, cutting her off but not able to help the small smile that slipped onto his face at the impending quasi-falsehood.

"School's fine." Rachel kept looking at him, her face saying she wasn't satisfied but her body doing nothing else to declare that. Avery bit his lip, wondering how much longer she was going to do this and how much longer he had to assure her that he was absolutely fine. Finally she sighed, letting it go with one final stare of guilt.

"Good, you know how much we care about you. It would kill me if you gave up on your own chances."

She eyed him, her face suddenly lighting up at a thought, one that unbeknownst to her, her husband had uttered just an hour before.

"School finishes up in a week right?" He nodded. According to his textbooks, most K-12 schools switched to a year round calendar a few decades ago, shortening summer break, something about learning retention. For Chicago, that meant school ended halfway through July and picked back up again in August.

"Don't the AAE results come out sometime soon?" Avery mentally face-palmed, having barely forgotten.

"Honey, I think they came out a few days ago", Mr D'amico called from across the room as he wiped off a table. She turned her attention to back to Avery in expectation, fire and excitement in her eyes. It irked Avery to no end in a way. How she always believed he would do well at everything. This time, Avery did voice his sigh, running a hand through his hair to move some of his bangs out of the way.

"I don't want to talk about it."

        "What do you mean? Did you get into somewhere far away?" There she went again, Avery thought.

It wasn't even possible in her eyes for him to fail. At worst Avery got in somewhere. Boy did he wish he'd gotten in somewhere farther away instead. Tier schools were, at first, all boarding with strict rules regarding leaving campus. Given he actually went in two weeks time, Orientation would mark new limitations in his freedom to work or visit home, despite Tulsa being in northern Chicago. A weight sunk in his gut, panic riling up his heart rate. He'd get to finish the year out but he'd miss his high school graduation. Suddenly, it all seemed too real.

His stomach started to hurt, but that was likely due to his intake for the day consisting of three cups of coffee. "It's uh, in the..." he swallowed.

"city." Rachel's face lost its animation.

"Tulsa?" Avery jerked from surprise with the quick hug he was enveloped in. She let out a loud exhale.

"You know what—this could be a good thing for you." He chose to stare at the floor, not agreeing.

"I don't know if I'm going to go." A moment of silence ensured and Avery didn't have to look at her to know Rachel had a barely-concealed look of disagreement.

"Avery, this opportunity is once in a lifetime.  Isn't there something interesting, something enticing that you could see yourself spending your life doing?" Tension coiled inside of him, words coming out in a terse whisper.

"Witch hunting's not exactly an interest of mine." Mr. D'amico from across the room gave him an odd look. Unlike his wife, he was unaware of Avery's inclinations. Rachel shot Avery a warning glance as her husband spoke.

"Military and military adjacent jobs can be stable and lucrative, I wouldn't write them off just yet." Avery swallowed, mouth tasting odd.

"All that training and combat's just not for me."

"Well, what does interest you then? Tulsa has a lot more to offer beyond that." Rachel said, smoothly moving away from the sore subject. Avery was drawing a blank. Before today, he'd never considered higher education, or the occupations it could lead to.

"I don't really know."

She grabbed onto both of his arms, unable to stop the slight urgency from bleeding into her voice. "You have a chance many other people would kill for." The lack of guilt Avery felt about that made him feel bad. "Please Avery, don't throw away this opportunity, it'll break Yu Na's heart." That was probably true, despite its inquisition affiliation. Avery's stomach sunk. All day he'd been trying to convince himself otherwise, but unfortunately she had him there.

"I'll help Yu Na when you go." Rachel D'Amico flashed what she hoped was a warm smile, despite the worry starting to creep into the forefront of her mind. She guessed it was time her inquisition hiatus came to an end.

"Why don't you take off early today, think about this a bit and talk to Yu Na." The way she said it wasn't a suggestion.