Page 4 of Dragon Fires Everywhere
There’s no reason her car should behere.
I turn back to Sage’s door, theofffeeling digging deeper, making my breathing a little unsteady as my heart trips over itself.
Her car being in this neighborhood could mean a million things, I tell myself.
But it’s like I know, even though I refuse to consider anythingdirectly.
Because I don’t knock. I use magic to open the door.
And it’s the sound of laughter—hers and his—that hits me first. The image of them grappling on the couch isn’t as bad as thatlaughter, because anything “intimate” between Sage and me was supposed to beserious. We had to engage in endless conversations about consent and power dynamics, with many asides involving lectures on the importanceof extensive communication.
We didn’t laugh much, is the thing.
I stare. I could just... go home. I could pretend I’m not back in town, that I never saw what I’m seeing right now, includingCailee’s tattoo of Daffy Duck right there on her ass. I’d like to do just that. I’d like to mutter a spell to forget the wholething.
But I’m rooted to the spot.
Sage once scolded me for daring to kiss his cheek in the kitchen. And here he is...humping awayat a woman in hisliving room.
Amarriedwoman.
With the TV playing some action movie when he claimed he watched nothing but select PBS documentaries, and only when he couldtake notes.
Whilelaughing. Like sex isa delight.
That last part is the betrayal that feels like a knife in the gut. Not thefactof it as much as thelighthearted execution.
I slam the door closed behind me with a surge of magic, and the two tangled, half-naked bodies scramble off each other.Cailee with a shriek, Sage with a choking kind of sound as he struggles to get his pants back up.
“Happy Thanksgiving,” I offer, pulling out the ditzy smile I’ve perfected over the years. “Did I miss a breakup conversation?”I look from Sage to Cailee. “Or a divorce hearing?”
They both make a lot of noises, but no words, and it’s like that shiveryofffeeling has coalesced into something else. Like the spine I’ve pretended I don’t have since last spring, when Sage approachedme at a high school dance. When I told myself it was time to grow up and stop inventing fairy tales about what my life wasgoing to be like. When I gave up on the wild, impossible passion I’ve longed for all my life. When I chose to agree with mymother, at last, that nothingspecialwas coming for me.
I saw what I needed to see. Now I need to... not be anywhere near these people.
But much as I’d prefer to simply catapult myself out of here, I feel like all the magic just seeped out of me and is currentlylocated somewhere near Cailee’s contextually disturbing tattoo. So I turn on a heel and walk out instead.
“Georgie!”
Sage is on my heels. I can’t imaginewhy, but he is. He catches up and darts in front of me.
He’smussed upwhen I’ve never seen him anything butperfectly pressed, withnot a hair out of place.
“It’s not what it looks like,” he blusters.
Such a ridiculous statement that it makes me laugh when I’m pretty sure I ought to be crying.
“Georgie.” This time he says my name in hisfirm teachervoice, which, no, he never used in bed, where it might actually have been hot. “We need to talk about this.”
I look at him. Really look.
I think about my friends hinting at me that he wasn’t right for me. That he was punching above his weight. I think aboutthem trying so hard to understand him or what I saw in him, but they’re not Pendells. They didn’t grow up with a steady stream of commentary about what’srealisticand what’sacceptableand what itmeansto not simply be Historians but to bePendells, who have always stood fortimeless order.
But now the truth is like a big, hot, bright light glaring in my face. I was always out ofhisleague, exactly as my friends neverquitesaid out loud. At least not to me.
Andhe’sthe one cheating.
I don’t even feel angry. Just gross. Slimy and weird and a little sick to my stomach. Why does everything feel so off today?
