Page 77 of Best Hex Ever
“Dina?” A nurse had popped her head into the waiting room. “He’s awake.”
She rushed to him.
“Hi, sweetheart,” Scott said, lying in the hospital bed, his cheeks pale, a bandage on the right side of his forehead. “I’m okay.”
“Fuck, Scott. I was so scared.” She kissed him, and buried her face in his neck.
“Me too. I woke up in the ER but they wouldn’t let me see you until I’d had the scan. I’m all clear, no internal bleeding. Apparently, cuts on the head can bleed a lot, which makes themlook worse than they are. I reckon I terrified the librarian who found me.”
She shuddered to even think aboutit.
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
“It stings a little. They had to give me a couple of stitches. Do you reckon I’ll have a cool scar?”
She smacked his chest. “Don’t you dare make me laugh right now.”
“The paramedics said I was lucky that I hit my head where I did. A few more centimeters to the left and I might have done some serious damage.”
What if he’s not so lucky next time?Dina thought. The hex was escalating, working hard to see that Scott was hurt. If she didn’t leave now, it would surely kill him. She couldn’t live with that.
Dina cupped his face, doing her best to memorize every feature. She kissed his cheeks, his eyes, his lips. She ran her fingers through his beard. Tears fell freely down her cheeks.
“Sweetheart, what’s going on?”
She loved him so much—how was she supposed to do this?
“It’s all my fault,” she said, her voice muffled against his hospital gown.
“What is?”
“Why bad things keep happening to you. Why you keep getting hurt.”
“Dina, it was just a rickety old ladder that some maintenance person forgot to fix. You certainly aren’t to blame for any of that.”
She looked up at him, and Scott brushed the tears away with his thumb.
“Please just listen to what I have to say,” she whispered. Not willing to let go of him for a second, Dina tucked herself into his side, her arms curled tightly around his neck.
With a deep breath, she began speaking.
“When I was younger, someone hexed me. They didn’t mean to, but they did. They hexed me so that everyone who falls in love with me will get hurt. Do you understand? All of this is because of the hex. All the accidents you’ve had since you met me. Since you fell in love with me”—her voice broke with a sob—“and it’s never going to stop. It will only get worse from here.”
Scott shook his head. He looked like he didn’t want to believe her. She let him have a moment, watching as the truth of her words settled into his bones, his lips thinning.
“Can you reverse the hex? Or break it?”
“I’ve tried so many things. Nothing has worked.”
He took a deep breath.
“Christ, Dina. Why didn’t you tell me about this? How long does it last? Maybe it just runs out of power after a certain point. Did the others stay around long enough to find out?”
He was angry. He was mad at her for not telling him. She deserved that.
She hadn’t considered it might run out of power before. But no, it was too dangerous to risk it. Besides, if it had lasted all these years she doubted it would fade out of existence the moment it had a chance to really get to work.
“I don’t think so,” she said.
