Page 94 of We Used To Be Magic

‘Can I? Very magnanimous of you.’

‘Don’t use words you can’t spell, Hughie.’

His eyes seemed to harden, then, but his smile didn’t falter. Edie tugged at my hand again, but I barely registered it.

‘Maybe I’ll apologise now,’ he said, turning towards her. ‘Edie, I’m sorry for insulting your sister.’

Edie said nothing. Hugo looked back to me.

‘And Ezra,’ he said softly. ‘I’m sorry that Edie hasn’t even thrown you so much as a pity fuck by now. Have you tried playing the dead mum card?’

My memory gets hazy after that. I know I must have lunged at him because when my vision cleared, I was holding his shirt by the collar and he was bundled against the wall. I think that people around us were yelling but I could barely hear it, could barely process anything beyond his rapidly reddening face, teeth bared with fury. Clarity was swift and awful – I let go and was backing away when I felt a white-hot shock of pain explode between my eyes. I staggered, raising my hand to my nose – it came away wet, red. Then Hugo’s face turned grey and he crumpled to the ground in a dead faint. We later found out that he’d broken his thumb by tucking it into his fist when he hit me. That’s about all I remember until the hospital.

‘Was that the end of it, then?’ I ask Edie. She looks up at me with a furrowed brow.

‘It?’

‘Us. Is that why you dumped me?’

‘I mean – I was angry,’ she says slowly. ‘The entire thing was gross, macho bullshit.’

‘Bit harsh.’

‘It’s not,’ Edie says curtly. ‘What he said to you was fucking awful, and I’m sorry. But it didn’t justify what you did.’

‘But it wasn’t even about me. The whole thing started because of what he said toyou.’

‘It doesn’t matter how it started! It ended with two broken bones and that isallon you, Ezra. Don’t you dare try and pin that shit on me.’

She turns away and takes another sip of her wine, cheeks flushed. I rub at my face and say nothing, discomfited. She’s right, of course, but I can’t bring myself to concede the point.

‘It was the cartilage in my nose that got broken,’ I say instead. ‘Not the bone.’

‘One broken bone, then,’ she says dryly. ‘That’s much better.’

I smile, relieved that she’s not actually mad at me.

“So, that was the reason? Me and my toxic masculinity gave you the ick?”

‘It’s not funny. And honestly, I don’t understand why you even care, still.’

‘Because it matters to me,’ I admit. ‘Still.’

Edie turns back to look at me, then, eyes intent and so, so green – they were the first thing I ever noticed about her.

‘That’s just it,’ she says quietly. ‘I used to think I knew.’

And then she kisses me.

It turns out that being kissed by Edie feels a lot like it used to even though nothing else is the same, least of all me. I can’t quite wrap my head around the contradiction of it all, actually – the fact that she left but she’s back, that she didn’t want me but now she does, or maybe she always did, but—

I feel her smile against my lips then, and I wonder if maybe this was always inevitable. If it was always us. If Audrey—

I abruptly pull back, then, breaking the embrace. Edie’s eyes are wide, her lipstick smudged, and I feel so sick with guilt that I have to look away.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I just … I need a moment to think.’

‘Think?’ she echoes, looking bewildered. And I am too, because I wanted this for so long. I’ve loved Edie for so long. But—

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