Page 36 of Dragon Fires Everywhere
She seems so concerned. So worried. I don’t want her to be. I don’t want anyone concerned or worried overme. I am fine. Don’t I seem fine?
But now I have to drag out the corpse of something I was getting over—or would have been in the process of getting over onceI had time to think about it—and rehash the whole thing.Maybe the dragon should have stayed cursed.
The wind chimes outside my window crash around, and I scowl at the noise. I don’t have toseethe curl of his massive dragon tail to know he’s responding to that thought. But I don’t take it back.
“It’s not untrue that Sage and I grew apart,” I tell them. “There was just... an inciting incident when I got back.”
“Like?” Ellowyn demands.
Maybe I’ll come up with a dragon curse myself, I think, doubling down.
I swear I canfeelthat dragonish grin of his like he’s pressing it into my skin.I’d love for you to try.
With his voice in my head, I focus on it and use my magic to create a block. He won’t be able to talk in my head anymore until I let him in.
I hope.
“I came home early and went over to Sage’s to surprise him,” I tell my friends, trying to sound calm. Because I don’t wantto explain that if I sound upset, it’s not Sage I’m upset with right now. That feels far more complicated. “Turns out thesurprise was he was with someone else.”
There are three different sounds of outrage, so I rush to explain. “I think the shock of it was more about the fact he wasactuallydoing that, not that I was hurt.” That is actually true, though I hadn’t planned to advertise it. But now it feels like I don’t havea choice. I look at each of my friends in turn. “I didn’t love him. I tried to. I tried very hard to, but I didn’t. So itreally isn’t a tragedy. I’m not hurt. I was surprised, maybe a little offended. But I’m fine.”
“Then why didn’t you tell us?” Rebekah asks.
I want to throw a tantrum or challenge a dragon to a duel, but instead I smile. Gently. “Because I know none of you likedhim.”
They all exchange those usually-behind-my-back glances that make me want to scream. But I don’t.
Rebekah is eyeing me. “So that means you couldn’t tell us he’s a disgusting, cheating, lying worm?”
“Why does it matter?” And some of my frustration must leak through then, because Emerson moves from the end of the bed tosit next to me.
“Because it means we don’t have to be nice to him if he’s a lying cheater,” Rebekah says, as if that’s obvious.
“Because it means he’s not just boring, he’sslime,” Ellowyn adds.
Emerson reaches over and wraps her arm around my shoulders. “Because it happened to you.”
I have never once doubted my friends. I love them. I know they love me. But I don’t love the feeling of people...havingfeelingsabout what I do or how I do it. I don’t like themhaving reactionsI have to deal with.
Azrael’s voice from earlier echoes in my head.Your mother really did a number on you.
And I hate that in this moment, it makes sense. Because I know my friends don’t judge me the way my mother does. But becauseshedid, I don’t wantanyreaction to what I am or what I do.
It’s whyIput up the mask and walls. Not because I don’t think they’ll react kindly, but because I want zero reactions.
“It doesn’t matter.” They start to protest, but I refuse to let them. “It really doesn’t. It sucks because it’s embarrassing,not because I lost some great love of my life.”
“Let’s come up with a curse.”
“Rebekah,” Emerson scolds, but she’s smiling.
“Just a tiny curse? Like on his penis,” Ellowyn says, then grins. “Get it? Tiny.”
And I’m able to smile a little at that. It’s not that I feel better. But they know, and they’re supporting me without pilingon how much none of them liked Sage. How much they knew better. That’s preferable to waitingfor them to find out on their own.
Not that this everhadto happen, much less because of an interfering dragon.
Still, it did.
