Page 23 of Unhinged Magic
Silence choked the room.
I walked over to the bed, even when I knew it was a bad idea. Sitting beside her anyway, I left a space between us. I lowered my voice, trying to pull myself together. “Talk to me. I don’t understand why you did that. Help me understand.”
She shook her head, pleading with me. “You won’t believe me.”
“Why would I not believe you, Skip? When in all the years I’ve known you have I ever questioned you?”
She stared at me for a long time.
There was so much more to this; I knew it. I needed to hear it all.
“I’m sorry,” she said finally, the words leaving her on a sigh. “It all happened so suddenly, right before...” She didn’t finish her sentence, but she didn’t need to. I knew exactly what she meant.
The memory of me admitting my feelings to her caused a familiar ache in my heart. But the words that had come from her next broke me. I still remembered the crack in her voice as she had said them.
'I’m sorry, I can’t do this.'
All this time I thought she had left because of my confession. Maybe I had been wrong.
Skye’s chest heaved as tears rolled down her cheeks. I fought the urge to push them away.
Sitting completely still, I let her continue.
“I left because I was sent to a boarding school, one that was not theusualkind.” She picked up a nearby cushion, tugging it to her chest and wrapping her arms around it. “It was forpeople who couldn’t handle their magic,” she added, avoiding eye contact.
I didn’t follow.
“But Ty was helping you with your fire element. I thought you were doing okay?”
When her gaze found mine again, I realized there was more to this than I knew. Her twisted irises mirrored both guilt and... shame?
“The spirits. I couldn’t handle them at first.” She readjusted herself, hugging the cushion tighter. “The evenings were the worst. They would fight to speak with me. Mom and Dad found me screaming in my bedroom every night. They tried to help, but you know how rare it is to see spirits.” She let out a long sigh, her shoulders releasing tension with every word.
I stared at her, trying to keep an open mind. I’d never met anyone who could see spirits before. It was rare indeed.
She continued, adjusting her legs again. “I had no choice and no prior warning. I couldn’t say goodbye, and Mom and Dad swore Tyler to secrecy. The only other person who knew was Scar, but it was months before I even got to speak with her. I wasn’t in a good place. Not for a long time.”
I sat numbly, taking everything in. All this time she had been fighting demons of her own.
She continued, words suddenly free-flowing from her. “I’m sorry I hurt you. That I couldn’t come home for his funeral.”
My fathers.
His death had come unexpectedly, and the days following were the hardest of my life. I’d desperately wanted her to be there for his funeral. Had felt her absence like a wound.
Skye kept speaking, finally looking at me.
“I wasn’tme.” She lifted the pillow off her lap, setting it aside. “It took me years to control these voices in my head. It’s not something I can just turn off. I had to live with it, learnboundaries, and figure out how to develop relationships with these voices. I spent months at a time in bed, exhausted. The mental toll on me was huge. I didn’t want to speak to anyone, didn’t want anyone to see me that way.”
Tears slid down her cheeks now, her crystal depths blurry with emotion.
Seeing her like this tore me apart. “I wish I could have been there to help,” I said, suddenly feeling guilty for my rudeness over the past days.
She shook her head. “I had a lovely mentor, a woman who guided me through it. It really helped having someone who knew what I was going through.”
Fuck.
“Skip, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
