Page 87 of Scars Like Wings

“Sweetness, is that why you asked to talk? Your anxiety?”

Her furrowed eyebrows and frown blurred as my eyes became teary. The question and the worry she had for me was almost too much after a day like this. I sat down on a bench in front of a dessert and coffee shop. It was peak witchcore with its dark red brick and the black cauldron sign hanging above the door. The smell of coffee, chocolate, and sweet baked goods wafted from the store for blocks onward. It was comforting, but I still had to try to swallow around the lump in my throat. I shook my head, looking away and toward the road.

“Byrdie?” My name from her golden accented voice snapped my eyesight back to her. I had never heard my name sound so beautiful. Quinn had moved the parchment elsewhere and replaced it with the biggest glass bowl yet. But her hands were braced on the counter, her eyes locked on me. I could feel the heat of it, even through the phone. “Are you okay, sweets?”

“I’m… I’m exhausted, Quinn.” It wasn’t the full truth and failed to really encompass all of my feelings, but it was definitely a start and far from a lie. I was emotionally, mentally, and maybe even spiritually drained.

“Is it work?”

“Not quite.” I shook my head again. I took a breath to steady myself and keep the tears at bay. “It’s honestly long and complicated. It’s about my tattoo.”

“Oh.”

“I found out more about it, but it’s… It’s notjustabout it anymore. It’s about my mom now and something she left me and magic and Maisie and?—”

“Hey, hey, hey, sweetness. Take a breath.Respire hondo, yeah?” Quinn said. She inhaled and motioned for me to follow her. I took a shaky breath in, held it with her, and then exhaled at the same time again. She did it with me a few more times before I felt the tears recede along with the quake in my breath.

Quinn continued. “We don’t have to talk about any of this if you don’t want to. Don’t feel obligated, especially if you are tired of it and it’s making you feel this way. Let’s talk about something else instead.”

“Like what?” I sniffed.

“Well,” Quinn shrugged, reaching for four eggs. She began cracking them into the bowl. “I’m assuming you aren’t at work. Talking at a library is very illegal from what I hear, especially for a Library Manager. Probably breaks one of your sacred codes or something that would make getting arrested seem tame?”

I chuckled. “No, my boss let me have off for the day after what happened.”

“You have afan-fucking-tasticboss. Must be nice.” Quinn took some softened butter and poured it into the bowl with the eggs.

“She’s pretty great. She’s less of a boss to me, and more like an Aunt. Her and her partners all are.”

“I love that. You must have known them a long time?” Quinn poured in some brown sugar next.

“Yeah, since I was about fifteen. I wanted to live at the Archive from the time I first set foot into it, but instead, I settled for working there. I had to beg and plead to do it because they didn’t want my education to fall by the wayside for a job that could wait. But I wore them down. I was able to work, go to high school, pay for my bachelors and my masters at a huge discount,and start a career all in one swoop. You know what they say, have a job you love and you never work a day in your life. They left out the importance of good benefits in that saying.”

“I think that would have been a hell of a mouthful,” Quinn snorted. “But I love all of that for you.”

Quinn used a regular-sized whisk to stir her mixture a bit before adding in what looked like pumpkin purée. While she was pouring in a dark liquid from a small glass bowl, I asked. “Okay, so what are you doing?Youare clearly not at work.”

“Hey, now, I will have you know that baking cookies in a house before you show it damn near guarantees a sale. The smell makes it more homey and enticing.”

“Well, aren’t you a plethora of fun facts today, starlight?”

“I love when you talk academic to me, baby, with those SAT words.”

“You are such a flirt.”

“You are so into it.”

I rolled my eyes. “What are you baking inyourhouse, crazy?”

“Once fall comes around—which is, like, August basically by Starbucks standards—all I want to do is drink and eat pumpkin anything. I’m one of those weirdos who literally has pumpkin creamer, pumpkin wine, pumpkin cookies—I think I have a pumpkin body wash that Nat bought me. I have a problem. Anyway, I say all of that to say that I’m making pumpkin bread prepared two ways, but all fresh with some homemade pumpkin purée I made at the top of the month. So, one loaf will have two kinds of chocolate chips on different halves and the other will be plain with powdered sugar on top.”

I moaned. It sounded so good. “That soundsfireas fuck, babe! You will have to bring me some!”

Quinn had lifted the parchment sheet of flour mixture hot dog style and was pouring it into the rest of the batter as she mixed. Still, she looked up from her work to give me thatdamn smolder. “I would do anything to hear that sound again, sweetness. And I like how you say fuck, too.”

I felt my face heat. Quinn knew how to get to me. “Most people make fun of the way I curse. Maisie always says it sounds like Bubbles from the Powerpuff Girls trying to be angry.”

Quinn almost spilled flour all over her kitchen as her smolder was replaced by her bursting into laughter straight from her belly. It was deep and loud, making my heart swell. I wanted to make her laugh like that more. It felt like I had won something special. “Oh, I can absolutely see that! You are so adorable, it’s perfect!”

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