Page 56 of A Touch Charmed

The fact that she was so afraid confirmed the truth I already knew about her supposed hook-up with Finn, but I still wanted to know why she did it. Why did she steal his phone and lie about sleeping with him? What was in it for her?

“I can’t believe you gave Finn another chance.” She sneered at me, but with a lot less heat than the day of the festival. “Do you know how many people he’s slept with?”

“Are you mad he’s slept with a lot of people? Which really isn’t any of your business.” I crossed my arms. “Or are you just mad that you’ve never been one of them?”

“I know you saw the pictures of us on Instagram before you blocked me. People told me they texted you. I’m sorry you can’t get over it seven years later, but it happened.”

As Olivia stood there with her shoulders hunched, hugging herself against a chill that had nothing to do with the weather, my magic glimmered inside me. A soft and gentle twinkle of light that soothed the hot edge of my temper.

It would’ve been so easy to blame Olivia or blame my stepfather for what had gone wrong between me and Finn. But while they’d lit the match, we were the ones who’d poured the gasoline. They never could’ve split us up if our trust in each hadn’t wavered. If we’d had an honest conversation long before the fight.

“The lie doesn’t matter anymore. It’s not changing anything between me and Finn. I just want to know why.” She owed me that much at least. “I thought you were my friend. You took seven years from me. What could you have been promised to make that worth it?”

I didn’t push or get angry. I waited. Her bottom lip trembled as she looked away. The guilt was catching up to her, and I had all the time in the world for it to spill over.

“It’s stupid.” Tears pricked the corners of her eyes. “My parents didn’t want me, a lot of girls at school didn’t want to be friends with me because they thought I was a rich snob, guys just wanted to fuck me. But Finn was always so nice.”

I understood what it felt like to be unwanted by my parents, to have people gossip about me instead of bothering to be my friend, but I never would’ve hurt someone who loved me. That was a choice she made. Whatever sympathy I might’ve had shriveled and died the moment she thought taking from me would fill her up.

I crossed my arms and stared down at her, even though she was a good five inches taller. “He was nice to you because he thought you were my friend. You get that, right?”

“Your father said he liked me.” She swiped a tear off her cheek. “He said he could tell by the way he looked at me. I thought it was my chance to have someone love me for once.”

My stepfather was a master manipulator. It didn’t surprise me that he’d picked up on her feelings and preyed on them. It still didn’t make what she did okay. I had no intention of forgiving her, but at least I had a better picture of what had happened back then.

“After all that effort, Finn still didn’t want you,” I said.

She flinched.

I shook my head. “Yet you never once attempted to tell me the truth.”

“Your father got me a job. If I’d told you the truth, he would’ve fired me.”

Ah. There it was. The classic way he kept people under his thumb. By putting them in a position where they couldn’t say no to him. He’d done it to me my whole life, so of course he did it to Olivia and whoever else had done him favors over the years.

All of that was about to end though.

“It’s not much fun when other people hold your fate in their hands, is it?”

She rolled blades of grass under the toe of her shoe. “I really am sorry, Thora.”

“I really don’t care.” I walked away without looking back.

As I rejoined Finn, I took his hand. They opened the doors to start letting people in. Clear and pearlescent light glowed between us. A puffy gray cloud hovered over Wes and Audrey. A few people pointed or openly stared, but we’d made the decision not to hide our magic.

Part of keeping the town safe meant keeping them aware. We didn’t want to give people an excuse to think this wasn’t happening or that we weren’t all in serious danger. The curse hadn’t attacked anyone without magic, and likely wouldn’t since it had been designed specifically to eradicate ours, but that didn’t mean they were out of harm’s way. Its end goal was to sink the island into the ocean. It would eventually take down everyone.

The hall smelled like burnt cheese and dried Bingo ink. The thin, coffee-stained carpet and paneled walls bounced noise around the room, making every whisper echo tenfold. Rows of gray folding chairs had been set out. There was an unspoken hierarchy to the seating arrangement that everyone followed on instinct.

People continued to whisper around us as Finn and I moved toward the front. Not a surprise considering what happened at the last town hall meeting. We took a seat next to Wes and Audrey. Cole and Donovan sat on their other side. Cole took one look at our glowing hands and sneered at us before looking away. Such a charmer, that one.

My stepfather stood at the podium in his pressed linen suit without a wrinkle in sight. He’d waxed his handlebar mustache to make it extra shiny. He frowned at Audrey’s rain cloud, then promptly ignored it as if he could make it disappear. His eyes narrowed when he saw me with Finn. I scratched my temple with my middle finger, and Finn snorted beside me.

I had no clue if my stepfather knew what Hank had told me. There hadn’t been gossip on the island about it, shockingly, which meant that everyone who knew had been keeping it to themselves. How it had ever managed to stay a secret in the first place amazed me, but there were plenty of people on this island who had baskets of dirty laundry firmly tucked away.

My mother sat on the stage with her hands folded over her lap. She looked a little paler than the last time I’d seen her. The fact that she still stood behind my stepfather after everything made bile rise in my throat. She knew Hank had told me, but she still wouldn’t meet my gaze.

She had chosen comfort over love. And after tonight, she wouldn’t have either.

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