Page 66 of When Sorrows Come

“Do you? Because this looks like a pretty severe case of cold feet, and while that’s normal and okay and even expected, you need to chill out before he comes looking and realizes something’s wrong.” Stacy settled her hands on my shoulders, looking at me gravely as Kerry slipped out of the room. “Your abandonment issues are not new to me. You’ve been my best friend since I was a kid, and I know how your head works. When something seems like it’s too good for you, you run away from it as fast as you can. You ran away from Shadowed Hills when Sylvester wanted to take care of you—”

“Which we now know he only did because I’m his niece and he felt obligated,” I muttered.

Stacy sighed. “—and as soon as you started feeling like you could be really happy at Home, you went and found yourself a human to fall in love with, because you had enough self-hatred from dealing with your mother to feel like anything involving a human couldn’t possibly end happily ever after. Don’t you argue with me. I can see you getting ready to start, and you’re not going to win.”

I shut my mouth.

“You’re getting nervous because you’re getting close to actually marrying the man, and once he puts a ring on your finger or a tiara on your head or whatever weird bullshit it is they do at pureblood weddings—and believe me, I’m so excited to watch you get subjected to it that I could justspit—you’re going to have to admit what the rest of us have known for years.” She finally took her hands off me and stepped back, giving me space to move. “Which is that the boy is stupid in love with you. He makes you better. He makes you care enough about yourself to actually takecareof yourself once in a while. Do you know how long it’s been since I’veseen you voluntarily sit down and eat a sandwich? I wasn’t even surprised when we found out that your secret superpower is recovering from whatever sort of abuse you want to put your body through, but I was a little disappointed. Maybe if some of the bruises you got would last more than five minutes, you’d at least pretend not to think everyone who loves you is a fool!”

“I never said that,” I protested, blinking and resisting the urge to gape at her.

Stacy glared at me. “Yes, you did. Every time you forgot to eat for three days, you did. Every time you stopped sleeping because you had to do something that might finally make your mother proud of you, you did. Every time you decided you could challenge someone five times your size to a fistfight in an alley. Every bad decision that reminded us how much you think you’re expendable was another reminder that you think we’re all liars or losers for daring to love you. Honestly, I’m not sure which is more insulting.”

“Stacy, I...” I rubbed my face with one hand. “I’m sorry,” I said finally. “I’m trying to do better. Iamdoing better. You’re right, because Tybalt makes me feel like I have to do better to be as good as the person he sees when he looks at me. But not just him. Quentin. He’s my squire. He depends on me to take care of him, and that means taking care of myself once in a while. And May.”

“You built yourself a family.” Stacy offered me a wan smile. “I just wish the people who’ve been there since the beginning had been enough to provide you with the foundation you needed.”

My mouth moved silently, not finding the words I needed to tell her how much of my foundation she was; how essential she was to me, even when she wasn’t in the room. She was a constant. Sometimes the only constant, it felt like, the one brick in the wall that, if removed, would bring the whole thing crashing down. The words, if they even existed, refused to come, and so I stepped forward, wrapped my arms around her, and pulled her tight against me, hoping she’d understand.

Stacy sighed heavily and wrapped her arms around me in turn, and that was that. I almost didn’t hear the door open behind us.

“You figure out how to tell Toby she’s being an asshole without getting stabbed, or is she in the middle of a murder right now?” asked Kerry genially.

Stacy pulled away, smiling as she wiped her eyes. “No stabbing,” she said.

“No stabbing,” I confirmed, turning.

Kerry was already fully in the room, as relaxed as ever. The only time I’d ever seen that woman look like she wasn’t sure she belonged somewhere, we’d been in the process of crashing a local high school prom, having used way too many illusions and way too much eyeliner to blend in with the human kids around us. It had seemed like a great idea when we’d been safely in Shadowed Hills—go out for a night, get in touch with the mortal side of our shared heritage—but in practice, the lights had been too bright, the music had been too loud, and everyone had talked way too fast for our comfort. We’d ended up sneaking back out again, spending the rest of our rare night of freedom at the local Denny’s, charming the staff into bringing us bottomless pancakes and coffee.

The woman in the doorway behind her looked a lot less sure of herself. She was dressed much as I was, in a T-shirt and jeans, her tiger-striped arms bare to the world. The stripes continued up the sides of her neck and onto her face, where they cupped her cheeks like fingers. Her hair was a mass of brown-and-gold streaks, surprisingly similar to my own, just more densely pigmented, and she couldn’t have seemed more nervous if she’d been facing a man with a chainsaw.

Given where she spent most of her time, she probably would have lookedlessnervous if faced with a chainsaw.

“Hi,” she said. “I know you probably didn’t invite me, and I wasn’t sure I should come, but I promise I’m not going to try to kill you on your wedding night, so I guess that’s probably better than nothing—”

“Julie, get in here,” I said, beckoning her forward.

The door slammed behind her as she hesitantly approached.

“You’re right. I didn’t invite you. I didn’t inviteanyone, technically, since May and Stacy handled all that. Maybe I invited the two of them—”

“Nope,” said Stacy cheerfully.

“—but I don’t think so,” I continued. “Tybalt wanted you here because he cares about you, and if I’d been consulted at any point, I would have said I wanted you here, too, as long as you didn’t try to kill me. And you’ve already said you’re not going to do that, so we’re doing pretty well so far.”

Julie blinked, looking baffled. “But Itriedto kill you.”

“Several times, and I’m not going to lie—I was pretty pissed about that for a long time. And then I stopped and asked myself what I’d do if someone killed Tybalt, and I didn’t feel like it was my fault.” Technically, he’s died a couple of times since we met. But he’s a King of Cats, and sometimes they bounce back. I felt my expression sour. “I’d do a lot worse to anyone who did that than you tried to do to me.”

“I tried tokillyou,” Julie repeated.

“I’d tell you to join the club, but most of the members are assholes, and I don’t think you’d care for their company.” I smiled warmly. “You’re fine, honestly. I’ve missed you.”

“And you’re gettingmarried,” said Julie, in much the same tone that she’d been using to remind me of her attempted murder. “To myuncle. Who youhate.”

Stacy laughed. “You’ve missed a lot, sugar. I don’t think they ever really hated each other the way they tried to let on. They had a lot of mistrust and pent-up stupid to work through, but it was never real hatred.”

“And now they’re so sweet on each other it’s kind of sickening, and I’m the baker,” said Kerry. “He gets all flowery and romance novel from the Austen era when she’s around.”

---