Page 97 of Zero Happily Ever Afters

Kenzo huffed. “You can’t forgive me.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because I just apologized. And it was terrible.” Kenzo cycled through every well-rehearsed speech he’d practiced, every bullet point he’d mentally prepped, and yet, the second the time came, he word vomited his feelings. “You’re not allowed to just forgive me.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“No, you can’t apologize to me!”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s…” Kenzo stifled an angry shout. “This isn’t going at all how I planned. Just know you can’t just accept an apology right away.”

“Oooooookay,” Caleb meekly dragged out the word as he studied Kenzo. “And why can’t I just accept an apology again?”

“You have to process the apology, think it over, then decide. You can’t just forgive someone. Especially someone who treated you like shit for years. Who made it his mission to smash apart your dreams, your goals.”

Rage funneled from Kenzo, hurled back onto himself mostly as his emotions twisted into disgust and regret. Part of him wanted Caleb to reject his crappy apology, spit in his face, call him every cruel word in the world, tell him he waited too long to be a decent human being. Another part of him wished he could be as forgiving as Caleb.

“Hmmm. So I’ve been thinking over the apology.” Caleb had a pensive expression. “Well, here’s the thing. I’m a fast thinker so I—”

“No! You’re not that fast of a thinker. I’ve seen how long you take on tests.” Kenzo scoffed, opening the door and allowing Caleb to go first. “Let’s just put a pin in all the mushy gushy feelings bullshit. We’ll revisit this awful apology. Maybe I’ll have a better one.”

“I’m not being very mushy gushy.” Caleb blinked. “Am I?”

Kenzo realized he was the one weighed down by feelings, by desires to mend a broken friendship, by confusion on the right way to fix what he’d ruined, by Caleb still being too nice. It annoyed and frustrated Kenzo, yet more than anything he wanted to have Caleb’s kind smile back in his life, his wordy nonsense, his absurd optimism.

Kenny wanted his best friend back.

“Whatever.” Kenzo jabbed Caleb in the side. “I need you to pay attention to the list of things you’re doing wrong when it comes to channeling your roots. It’s a long list, so we’ll likely be at this all night.”

“You know, I actually perfected a root, right?”

“Yeah, and I don’t see you throwing out perfected banishment on the regular.” Kenzo pushed Caleb forward. “Probably because your technique is sloppy as fuck, and you need a real teacher.”

I wasn’t even there—that he knew of—and Kenzo still found a way to cut down my teaching methods.

Still, seeing all my students in one setting, enjoying their time away from the academy, recovering, healing emotionally and physically, it helped ease the guilt I had. It also helped exhaust my telepathy since this party had given me a fucking headache. I was able to quell my overpowered branch and settle in for the evening with Milo and Benjamin.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

May hit, and Gemini Academy finally announced a new plan for next year. Yep, they’d officially washed their hands of this school year, declaring students and staff would be better off finishing with online classes. Not that I complained too much, considering it gave me more time to tend to Milo’s recovery while also working on controlling my fully formed telepathy.

The blue filter slowly covering my windshield as I drove reminded me of another very time-consuming adjustment.

“Stop casting,” I said to Benjamin.

He clutched his coloring books, eyes darting back and forth at the traffic that zipped around us on the busy street.

“You’re worse than Charlie,” I said. At least with Charlie, I could put him in a crate and cover it with a blanket while playing classical music since it soothed him on trips to the vet. “If I did that to you, someone would probably have a fit.”

“Do what?” Benjamin asked, eyes still on the vehicles that whipped around us in what he considered a bad game of bumper cars about to turn into a ten-car pileup.

“Nothing, never mind.” I shook off Ben’s fear. “Just chill out.”

I’d decided to watch him since the commencement Gemini Academy had planned would take the better part of the morning,and Ben’s tutoring sessions were scheduled for noon. The building where Ben socialized with other kids and climatized, or whatever Milo called it, was right down the street from where admin had emailed the announcement would take place. Funny enough, it was also down the street from Cerberus, which wasn’t all that funny the more I dwelled on it.

Milo had set up those lessons to offer Ben some type of outlet back when the future Milo foresaw involved more days at work. He’d never predicted the worst would happen. He certainly didn’t predict vanishing from the public’s eye for over a month now.

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