Page 15 of Truly Madly Magically

Emerson looks as if she has images in her head she would rather not. Rebekah just looks speculative.

“Yes. Any Beltane we like.” All the Beltanes since we broke up, actually, but who’s counting?

Emerson considers me. “Then you wake up the next morning and get right back to hating each other for the other three hundred and sixty-four days out of the year?”

“Just because people have sex doesn’t mean they don’t hate each other.” I have to say it like that. People. Because I don’t hate Zander, even when I want to.

“It’s called hate sex, Em,” Rebekah says in that languid way she has, designed to needle her older sister as only she can. “You should try it.”

Emerson rolls her eyes.

I can tell my friends don’t understand. I expected that from Emerson and Georgie, because they’ve always been more private and possibly choosy when it comes to sex. Assuming Georgie even has sex. But I expected something from Rebekah. She went out and lived an entire non–St. Cyprian life for ten years. She used to send me hilarious morning-after texts, with details.

“I don’t know why you didn’t tell me,” she finally says.

I could feel guilty about that, but why bother with guilt when I can be mad instead? “We both had our secrets, I guess.”

She laughs. “I’m not sure my psychotic teenage attempt to raze the town of St. Cyprian with the literal flames of my fury is the same as you banging your ex, my cousin, on the down-low, Ellowyn.”

What I would like to burn to ash here and now is this conversation and the fact that I have to have it. What I would like to say is that it was nothing, but I don’t bother to try. I know those words won’t come.

“Four months,” Emerson says. “And you haven’t told anyone? Please tell me you got the necessary checkups, though?”

I can see a rant brewing on her face, likely about women’s health care and access thereto.

“I went to a doctor.” Then, as she frowns, I clarify. “A human doctor.”

The expressions on my friends’ faces are really something then. Like they’re disappointed in me.

The surge of indignation feels cleansing. “I am partly human. So is this baby.”

“Barely,” Rebekah says as she pushes herself off the bed.

“You and the baby are also partly witch,” Georgie says, reaching out and giving my arm a squeeze.

“Mostly witch,” Rebekah throws at me. “You are both mostly witch, no matter what mean kids said while being mean, the way kids are, a million years ago.”

“It wasn’t only kids, Rebekah,” I tell her, and it feels a lot like ripping off a scab, the pleasure and pain of being able to say it out loud. Not only because it’s true, but because it makes Rebekah the unshameable look slightly abashed.

Georgie squeezes my arm again, but this time it feels reproving. “No matter how much witch, you are a witch and so is your baby, and that means you should see a Healer as well.”

I’ve been telling myself Jacob would sense if something was wrong, but that isn’t the same as having a full workup, I guess. “Our Healer said everything was fine last night.”

“That was about the attack, not the pregnancy,” Emerson says with great authority. “We need to make sure everything is okay. That you’re eating right and taking the right supplements.”

“Emerson.” I stare at her. “I am literally an herbalist. I make medicines and sell them as teas to witches and humans alike. When it comes to supplements, I am covered.”

“We need books,” Emerson says to Georgie, ignoring me. “We need to plan and prepare.”

Georgie nods, waves her hand, and a stack of books appears on my bedside table, towering so high that it would topple over if another stack didn’t appear beside it. As if books will solve this problem.

“I’ll see a Healer,” I say, and manage to make it sound as if I’ve been planning an appointment since conception. “Obviously. Not Jacob though.”

Emerson frowns at me. “Jacob is the best Healer—”

“I know how good he is,” I say, laughing. “I’ve known him since we were kids, Em. How are we going to sit around talking about what toppings to put on our next pizza order from Redbrick after he’s all up in my womb?”

Everyone flinches at the phrase up in my womb, as I hoped they would. A girl’s got to make her fun somewhere.

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