Page 12 of A Touch Enchanted

Our palms once again glowed blue, my dark to her light. She shifted in front of me while I turned my ear to the cacophony of voices around me. Most of them were concerned with eating or mating, which wasn’t that far off from my own needs at the moment.

But as I turned my focus outward, an undercurrent of fear began to beat within the hearts of the animals on the island. A sense of danger, the urge to run, filtered through me. As if I was in tune with their emotions, not just their voices and outward wants.

I pulled Violet closer. “Something’s coming.”

Sandy leaped in front of us and let out a low growl, telling me to get Violet to safety and she’d hold off whatever threatened us, but the fuck if I was leaving my dog behind. I grabbed her collar, and she nipped at my hand. A warning to stay back.

As the next wave approached the shore, it didn’t break and recede back into the sea. It kept coming, turning to vapor, then smoke as it rolled over the sand and rose over us like the black clouds of hell. I pushed Violet behind me just as the smoke wall crashed over our heads, throwing us into total darkness.

“Beanie.” Violet’s voice shook as she gripped my T-shirt. “Don’t let go of me.”

“I won’t.” I pulled her against my side, pushing all of my energy into her in case the curse tried to drag us back into the ocean. “I’m right here with you.”

Voices floated in and out of the smoke. I recognized the mental attack from Wes’s description. If the curse wanted to pick through my mind, it was welcome to it. I was a goddamned mess. I didn’t even want to be in my own mind right now.

The voices got louder, reverberating through my skull, until the smoke began to form pictures, dropping me into a memory from nine years ago.

“I’m leaving.” If it had been up to me, I wouldn’t have told her this way. I’d have taken her out to dinner, maybe a walk on the pier, and given her time to ease into the idea of me being gone. But Seth went and fucked everything up.

“What?” Violet paled. “When?”

“Day after tomorrow. My dad thinks one of his managers overseas is embezzling from the company. He wants one of us kids in there posing as an intern, to keep an eye on things.”

Cole couldn’t do it because he was needed here. He worked closely with Dad, learning the ropes for when he’d take over as CEO. God help us all when that day came.

Seth was going to do it, he had a mean case of wanderlust and had been itching to get off the island since the day he was born. But then he went and got himself tangled up with Audrey Raynor. Mainly just to piss off Wes. The two of them were so deep in their shit, though, neither one of them would be willing to leave now.

That left me. While Seth and I were both Virgos, I’d always been more closely aligned with our sign. I lived for spreadsheets, organization, control. I made plans and stuck to them. It made me the perfect fit for this job, and my family was counting on me to see it through.

I didn’t have anything tying me here, except a desperate, unrequited crush on the girl who’d only ever seen me as a friend. So I told my family that I wanted to go, that they could rely on me. And maybe the time away from Violet would do me some good.

She took my hand and clasped it between hers. “I’ll go with you.”

I let out a bitter chuckle and tucked a loose lock of hair behind her ear. “That’s not possible. I’m going to be gone for at least two years, if not longer, and your family needs you.”

“You can’t leave, though. Because …” Her bottom lip trembled. “I love you.” She squeezed her eyes shut, as if she couldn’t bear to look at me as she said the words.

My stomach bottomed out. The words I’d been waiting my whole life to hear, and it was too late. I’d already committed to Europe. Hell, I told my family I wanted to go, acted like I had the same wanderlust as Seth so they wouldn’t feel guilty for asking me.

I couldn’t back out now.

Why couldn’t she have told me this a week ago? I would’ve fought to stay. I never would’ve agreed to leave if I’d known. But how could I have not known? No one knew Violet better than I did. I might not have been able to name my feelings for her until recently, but deep down, I knew it went as far back as thirteen years ago when I put a cricket on her skirt. It never occurred to me that she might’ve felt the same way.

Fuck.

I rested my forehead against hers. “I don’t know what to say.”

She kept her eyes closed. Which was probably for the best. Otherwise, she would’ve been able to see just how deeply she cut through me. “I love you so much that sometimes I can’t even breathe around you. And I know you might not feel the same, but—”

“I don’t.” The lie tasted like the inside of an ashtray on my tongue. I swallowed, forcing out the next words. “I don’t think of you as anything other than a friend.”

I couldn’t tell her the truth. She’d insist on coming with me, and then what? Her family depended on her to help with their shop in the summers. If she up and left them, the guilt would eat away at her until there was nothing left. And I couldn’t take her away from the water. This island was her home in every sense of the word. Asking her to come with me would make us both happy in the short term, but it would be selfish as fuck.

“Oh.” She blinked and her face fell. I’d never hated myself more. “Okay. I understand.”

Both of us were playing a dangerous game of chicken. Daring the other to call out the lies we tried to sell. But in the end, it didn’t matter if I lied about not loving her and she lied about being okay with it. I was still leaving. I’d already made the commitment. I couldn’t back out on my family, I couldn’t take her with me, and I couldn’t ask her to wait.

So I had to let her go.

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