Page 1 of Every Shade of Shadow

CHAPTER ONE

Sun blares through my threadbare curtains, or it’s the Second Coming. Could be either. Not that anyone has been coming around here lately. I mean, one measly orgasm—just one. Is it too much to ask, o’ omnipotent one?

Sadly, there are no spells for a sneaky climax. Not that I’d take the easy way out.

In any case, I’m done with sleep, or lack thereof.

I groan, rolling over and clutching my pillow. Last night replays in my mind, a mess of sweaty, fumbly hands. You’d think a guy I picked up at a bar wouldn’t need a map, but alas, he was rather clueless about female anatomy, because no, that is a butthole, and no, I don’t get off having my clit worked like a faulty light switch. I was going to sprout into a beanstalk if he kept at it.

Whatever the case, he gave up and fucked off, which is, sadly, not an uncommon occurrence. There was no way I was going to let him take my virginity anyhow. No matter who it is, it never seems ‘right.’

They’re all the same, and while it would be nice to lose said V-card given I just hit the big two-one, I don’t want my first time to be with Bobby No Clue with a dick shaped like a bent banana.

The deeper issue is why they always bail. Logic dictates there must be something fundamentally wrong with me. But I’ve pulled out a mirror and there’s nothing untoward about my vagina. It doesn’t have teeth, for instance. That’s a plus, right?

I drag myself from bed with a sigh and shuffle to the bathroom. Bruises mottle my hips and thighs from bumping into tables all day. I stare at my reflection, pale skin and rat-nest hair, and hate what I see.

There are no spells to fix split ends either. Splitting someone in half with perpetual flame? Sure, but a quick blow-dry? No can do.

You’re an idiot, I tell myself, but it doesn’t have the required zing I was hoping for.

Men like the chase, the conquest, but once they have me, it's over. I'm too inexperienced, too naive. Try as I might, I can't give them what they want. What they need, apparently, and vice-versa—provided they’re not running for the door when they meet Toothless. They front up at the pearly gates and I inevitably deny entry because what? I’m hoping for magic, that rom-com toe wiggle when the planets align?

Fuck that, but it doesn’t mean I have to settle.

I've only been with a handful of men, but it's always the same. Awkward fingers, their pleasure, my frustration. It’s an endless cycle of misery.

I turn away from the mirror.

The thought of waiting tables today makes me want to scream. Doesn’t help the café is the size of a shoebox, which means I’m constantly running into things and scuttling about mumbling apologies. Breakages come out of my wage, so there’s that, and my asshole of a boss, and the fact I’m being evicted in a week.

Gran would be devastated if she knew the bank was taking her apartment, the one she raised me in, but she’s been dead for two months now. It’s a firm no-go on resurrection spells either. Trust me, I’ve turned her grimoire inside out looking.

She’s dead, my parents likewise before I could even remember them. Others I know who lost a parent at least recall what they looked like.

So yeah, Death and I aren’t exactly strangers.

My life is a mess, but what else is new? At least the ache between my legs is familiar, as constant as the worries that keep me up at night.

I'm stuck, trapped in a cycle of longing and regret. Always searching for something just out of reach. Something I'm starting to believe I'll never find.

I pad over to check my cell. The notification light is blinking, as I knew it would be. Another message from the art school. My loan payment is overdue—like, more overdue—and if I don't pay within a week, they'll cancel my enrollment, which yeah, is the real icing on the clusterfuck cake.

I toss my cell onto the couch.

God knows why I even decided to go to art school in the first place. I kind of liked it in high school, but I doubt I’m going to be the next Kandinsky. My grades reflect as much.

I lean my head against the wall, eyes closed. What's the point anyway? I'll never be able to afford the supplies, never mind the extra tuition every other kid in this city seems to have. Just another dream crushed under the burgeoning heel of reality.

The apartment is dim and stuffy, the air conditioner wheezing its last, which is wonderful in this New York heatwave. I haven't paid the electric bill in months. Any day now the power will be cut.

I rummage through the fridge, coming up empty.

A knock at the door startles me.

I creep over and peer through the peephole to find Sabrina on the other side, arms laden with grocery bags.

Of course.

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