The sun was setting over Miami, sending millions of tiny explosions of red and yellow sparkling out across the bay. Kim was standing out on the patio of the condo, working the grill with an extendable spatula in one hand and a refreshing beverage in the other.
Calum was curled up snoozing on one of the lounge chairs nearby, but he suddenly perked up, fully awake, radar ears twitching. He collected information for a moment, then leapt down and scampered across the floor, disappearing into the house.
He returned a few moments later, being carried by Willow.
"Hey! You're home! Yay!" Kim said. "Just in time. Nothing's burnt yet."
"What's all this?" Willow asked, eyeing Kim's spatula suspiciously. She delicately deposited Calum back on his chair, where he immediately curled up and closed his eyes.
"I'm grilling!" Kim said. "I've got like a BBQ tofu thing happening! I figured you'd be hungry and it's not like we can go out to a restaurant together. There's also a pitcher of mocktails if you need a refreshing beverage. It's my own special recipe: pomegranate juice, ginger beer, and mint. I call it Fancy Nancy's Chill Pill."
"Wow. We have a grill?"
"We do now."
"Are you sure you know what you're doing?"
"I mean, not, like, 100% sure? But if I screw up it's nothing a little magic won't fix."
Willow eyed the pitcher of drinks Kim had made, but stayed hovering by the door, not coming closer, and not sitting down. Kim watched her. Something was off.
"I had the weirdest freaking day," Kim said. "What about you?"
"Umm. Normal, I guess," Willow said, looking out at the water. "I'm tired. Garrett St. Clair did my shoot. He was like possessed."
"Oh I love him!" Kim said. "I miss working with him. Tell him I said Hi next time you see him."
"I can't," Willow said. "He can't know we've been hanging out."
"Oh right. Duh. So listen: I know you have a thing tomorrow and I know we're totally on the DL but: I wondered how you'd feel about a top secret visit to a witch friend of mine in Hollywood. Do you know Maria Holmes? She's very cool and discreet and totally safe space for us. There was some MESSED UP STUFF going down in London today. I was just minding my own business, taking selfies, and suddenly this crowd of men, like hundreds of them, started attacking and harassing me! Like out of nowhere! And I don't know what that's about but it affects all of us, you know? I mean if we can't take selfies, what's next, right? So I wanted to get Maria's opinion and see if she's heard of anything else like that happening. Are you up for it, do you think? You said your thing tomorrow was only 3 hours, right?"
"Actually...my thing tomorrow got moved," Willow said.
"Oh! Really?"
"And actually...I need to head back to Florence early."
"Awww. OK. Well maybe I'll just go and fill you in later you."
Willow hesitated. "And actually...I'm heading back tonight. I just came back to say goodbye and get my stuff."
Suddenly Kim and Willow were staring at each other from opposite edges of an impossibly deep canyon.
"What?"
"Cassio asked me to come back to Florence tonight. I said I would."
"So you're leaving now? Like right now?"
Willow nodded.
"But you had a thing tomorrow."
"It got moved."
"It got moved or he moved it for you?" Kim said sharply.
"Kim."
Kim closed the lid of the grill so she wouldn't have to look at her stupid ruined BBQ tofu anymore. She felt like such an idiot.
"I just. I thought." She had so many different sentences zooming around inside her head she wasn't sure which one to grab first. "Can someone just explain to me what is going on in this world! Men say Jump and the women all jump! Where's the freaking agency? Where's the freaking volition?"
"Kim. I'm sorry you had a difficult day and men were being weird around you but this is not that. Cassio is my husband. He wants to see me. What am I supposed to do, lie?"
"You don't have to lie, but do you have to go back right away? Schedules change all the time. You could just delay for a few hours. You could at least stay the night and then go back in the morning. Say you're tired or whatever."
"It's still lying."
Kim felt her cheeks burning with shame. She looked at the grill, at oblivious sleeping Calum, at the sun setting on the water, at anything that wasn't Willow.
"What," Willow said. "You're making a face. Talk to me. What do you want me to do. Tell me what you want me to do here."
"I don't know! Nothing!"
"What is it?" Willow insisted.
"I just don't get what you see in him," Kim said.
"Oh come on," Willow said. "I can't believe you're seriously doing this."
"The last time I was here, that morning with you, that morning I left. You had that boyfriend, what was his name. Dirk. And you said you regretted being with him. That you were just playing a role. That you would have rather been with a woman. And then I come back and you're with Cassio? And he's running some shady foundation named after me? Like what is his deal? Something is up with him, I swear. Do you even love him?"
"Kim, Cassio is one of the most powerful men in the world. It all happened very fast. We went on 3 dates and suddenly he was proposing. You were gone, and the world was crashing down around us. I made a choice, and it worked out well for me. He keeps me in the kind of life I want to live. I'm not about to undo it all now." Willow paused for a moment, deciding whether or not to say something else. "And besides. What does love have to do with anything. You love your husband and your daughter but you're here with me."
"Don't you dare throw that back at me now!" Kim said.
"So you're allowed to make your choices but I'm not allowed to make mine? I said I wanted to be with you and you left. For all I knew I was never going to see you again."
"YES OK I LEFT." Kim shouted. "I'M SORRY. I left to be with my family. And I thought about you all the time. Like constantly. And it was so difficult to repair everything. To put my relationship with them back on track. And now I'm gone again and it's ruined all over again. And I don't know what I'm supposed to do. They're probably mad at me again, and all the witches in my world are mad at me, and you're mad at me, so it's official, literally everyone is mad at me, all the time, about everything. Yay, mission accomplished. We finally know what my talent is."
Kim was silent for moment, crying now, then continued, quietly. "I love my husband and my daughter very much. When I'm with them I want to be with them. But when I'm with you I want to be with you. I didn't choose to come back to this world, but maybe things happen for a reason. I don't know. Everything in my life is complicated and difficult and weird, but being with you makes me happy. I'm sorry if that makes me a terrible person."
"You are not a terrible person but you have options I don't," Willow said. "Any time you want, you can leave. You can go home to your family and start again. I don't have that luxury. Am I supposed to risk everything I have with Cassio for you? What happens when you get bored? Are you really going to stay here in KKHollywood? Abandon your husband and daughter and your life there? Forever? Is that what you want?"
"No. I don't know. I don't know what I want. I don't know what to do," Kim said, wiping tears from her face.
"Well uncertainty is not part of my brand," Willow said, simply. "So we better go."
"We?" Kim said, then covered her mouth as she watched Willow lean down and scoop Calum up. Fresh tears began streaming down Kim's face. Because of course Willow was taking Calum with her.
"Do you want to say goodbye?" Willow asked. It took Kim a moment to realize Willow meant Calum.
Kim walked over and bent down and gave Calum a kiss on the head. She stood next to Willow, so close, not touching, not sure what else to say. Willow smelled like freesia and sea salt and Kim wanted to hang on to both of them and refuse to let them go. But she didn't.
"I'll see you around," Willow said, in a way that sounded like it might be a question.
Willow turned and walked out. Kim stood there, shaking, until she heard the front door close.
Kim breathed for a moment, inhaling deeply, letting the tears dry on her face, then turned and launched a Fire emoji at the grill, obliterating it. She shot Fire emojis at the lounge chairs and side tables, vaporizing them, and when there was no more furniture to destroy she summoned another Fire emoji, channeling all her anger and rage and frustration into its creation, and held on to it. She watched it and glow crimson and vermillion and amber, swirling and hovering in the space above her hands. She wished the enchanted flame bore any heat at all, wished she could feel it burning her, wished she could inflict a pain on herself other than the one she felt. Screaming, she launched the fireball out across the water, out into the sky, at nothing, at everything.
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Ughghghgh. OK that did not go well. Kimye shippers it looks like you were right to be concerned about this Killow situation. What will happen next? Is there still hope for Killow? Is the door now open for a Kimdon rebound? Was Kimye the OTP all along? I DON'T KNOW! WE'LL SEE! Next up: Kim has to finish that little errand for Kris and Kourtney. Maybe we'll find out why she they were making such a big deal about it? Please vote and comment and give me your reactions! Thank you!