Page 141 of The Witch is Back

Taking the hint, she picked up the next envelope. Another birthday card. “‘Dear Emmaline,’” she read. “‘You’re twenty-two and pissed I’m sure that I’m still not back. Or maybe not. I’d hoped I might be able to tell you everything, but still I can’t find the words. I know whatever you’ve done, you’ll have done for good reason. I’m not coming back yet; I haven’t found a way. But I want you to be happy. I hope the birthday is good and that someone is giving you cake. Bastian.’”

The stack got smaller as she read each one. The cards got longer, filled with descriptions of what he was doing, the places he was visiting, the obvious undertone of a secret he longed to share but couldn’t, a secret he struggled with deciding if she’d been part of or not. The fact that he missed her so much. He composed whole paragraphs to childhood memories, writing on paper that he included in the cards when he ran out of room. Sometimes he’d write of how much he ached to be with her again, but how he felt trapped. The troubled young man torn between duty and emotion. And throughout it all, it became clear that he’d never considered her a burden, only a friend he craved to speak to, except he thought they might never get back to where they’d been.

The birthday card for her most recent birthday was the final one. She flipped it out. It was short, like his first. “‘Emmaline,’” she said. “‘I’m coming back. My mom is sick and it’s because I ran instead of facing everything, facing you. All I want is to have my sweet, shy friend look at me and welcome me home, but I know it’s more complicated than that. I just hope one day we can be friends. I’ve never stopped believing in you and I doubt I ever will. I’ll be seeing you. Bastian.’”

Pain was a dull thudding inside her as she carefully put the card on the top of the stack. He couldn’t have told her more clearly that he’d considered her a friend, but just a friend.

“I understand,” she said with quiet dignity. “I’ll go.”

But as she went to rise, a telekinetic force pushed her back down. Even as she gasped, Bastian said, “There’s one more.”

Her eyes went to the table. Empty.

When she looked back, he held out one last birthday card. Had he already planned ahead for next year?

She didn’t want to take it. All it would say was how great a friend she’d proven to be, that he’d enjoyed them as lovers, but thank you for setting him free.

Maybe not, the hopeful part of her whispered. Courage.

With an unsteady breath, she took the card from him. Their skin grazed with an electric shock.

She fumbled to open the card and saw three words.

I love you.

When she looked up, he was kneeling in front of her. “Huh?” was all she managed.

He took her free hand. “I never stopped,” he said in a tight voice at odds with the tenderness in his face. “I never stopped caring about you. Thinking about you. Every year, I wrote you a card I’d never send, hell, I don’t know why. I just knew I needed to wish you happy birthday. I always had.” He gripped her hand tighter. His eyes had never been so blue. “I never stopped loving you, Emma. Despite the contract, the hex, everything, I never stopped missing you, wanting you. I could yell at you for putting up that wall, for not trusting me, for being a coward and sending me away, putting us both through this, instead of being a reasonable adult and talking to me.”

She sent him a squinty-eyed look that was probably lost due to the tears that were gathering. And also, he was right. Not that she’d say it again, or he’d lord it over her for the rest of their lives.

For the rest of their lives...

“I could,” he continued, “but I did the same thing, so what would be the point? I could’ve stayed and figured out a way to break the hex, a way around the clause. Hell, Emma, I’m almost a master at mind magic. I could’ve stalled until I broke it. But I couldn’t face what it meant if I had to talk to you, accepted that you knew, what that meant for us that you’d betray me.”

“But I did, didn’t I.”

“No.” He gripped tighter to her hand. “I want to be very clear about this—I don’t consider what you did a betrayal. You were stupid and you should’ve come to me, but I understand why you didn’t. I didn’t come to you either. We were young, forced into something beyond us. Puppets. But you were stupid again when you were an adult and deliberately didn’t tell me the truth just to shut me out.”

A tear slid down her cheek. “I know. And I’ll never do it again. I vow it.”

He looked at their tangled fingers. “I want you to know you put me through hell.”

Her heart ached. “Bastian...”

When he looked up, his heart was in his eyes. “I thought you didn’t care about me. Wanted to be rid of me.”

“Never.”

“My mom told me I should take some time to think, and that I needed to let you think as well. I wanted to give you time, give us time, so that when I came to you, you’d know that I wasn’t reacting—I was acting out of my own free will. That I was choosing you, Emma Bluewater, stubborn, sassy, shy, all the incredible, infuriating sides of you.” He brought their hands to his lips, pressed a fervent kiss there. “The only person who made me feel like being imperfect was enough. How could I choose anyone else?”

Emma slid off the chair, almost boneless, in the process just missing Hallie, who’d emerged from the tent.

“It’s always been you,” she whispered, tracing his features. “I’ve never met anyone who challenges me, who scares me, who amazes me or makes me feel the way you do. Like I could take on the world. Like I’m the best version of me.”

“Stop, you’ll make me blush.”

She laughed, a bright sparkle of noise in what had been tragic gray. “Imperfect,” she said. “But perfect for me.”

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