“Bay!” he shouts.
Bay pauses.
Keep flying! Flee! Run away!
But that connection between twins, yeah, it’s not telepathic, and she might not have listened anyhow.
My sister flies over, hovering in mid-air above us.
“Hello,” she says, her tone wary, her gaze darting from me to Sage and back again.
“Hi, Bay,” he says in a tone that I don’t like at all.
“What’s going on?” Bay asks.
“I’m sure your sister can do a better job of explaining things to you.” He still won’t look away from Bay.
I wince and lower my gaze to the grass. “Apparently, all of this time, Sage thought I was you.”
“What?” Bay asks.
“Crazy, right?” I didn’t realize I never told him my name and—”
“What did you call her all this time?” Bay asks Sage.
I wince again. Even Bay is ignoring me some.
“Daredevil,” Sage tells her.
“Daredevil? Rosemary? I know they say that love can change a person, but she must love you like a moth does a flame for you to consider her a daredevil.”
“Well, considering I don’t know who I talked to when…”
“You always only ever talked to me,” I say in a rush.
Sage narrows his eyes. “Actually, there was one time… Who did I talk to about my nightmare?”
I blink several times, and my heart sinks. He never mentioned a nightmare to me.
“That was me,” Bay says. She glances between us again. “How did you realize—”
“Let’s not worry about how I found out about the deception,” Sage growls.
“Whoa now,” Bay says. “Rosemary is a wonderful fairy. You’re lucky to have her.”
“Am I? Lucky’s not the word that comes to mind,” he grounds out.
I’m a puddle. I’ve thought that before, that I was a puddle for him to lap up, but now I’m a puddle of misery, a puddle of self-loathing, and a puddle of disappointment.
The worst thing about puddles? They can’t talk. They can only cry, and I do so silently. I’m not even able to defend myself, not that I would know what to say if I could force myself to speak.
“Rosemary is gorgeous, if I do say so myself,” Bay says, sounding angry. “She’s kind and—”
“Kind? Is that what you call being deceitful?”
“Get over yourself,” Bay snaps. “She was so gone for you that she forgot to tell you her name. Is that such a crime? If she didn’t have a twin, this wouldn’t be a big deal at all. So you thought her name was Bay. So what? You just have the wrong name!”
“Or the wrong twin,” he says. “You’re the one the guys fawn over, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, so? You wanted to be with me, why? To win me? To be the one to date me?”
Sage says nothing.
“So you were using my twin,” Bay starts, her voice rising.
“Don’t turn this around on me,” he snaps. “I’m out of here.”
And just like that, he jumps into the air, flaps his wings, and flies off.
Chapter 18
My heart feels like it’s breaking. Love can change a person, Bay said. I don’t know if I love Sage. Yes, I’m head over wings for him, but it’s too early to call it love.
But it’s still love that tried to change me. Self-love. I’m not happy being the naïve one, the good one, the responsible one. Sometimes, you just want to change, you know? And that’s what I tried to do. I wanted to feel more free. Being the good one, the light one… that requires a lot of rules and regulations. For once, I wanted to experience the freedom of being daring, of being bold, of being more than just good.
To do that, I needed a push, and I gave myself a push. I modeled myself after my twin. It wasn’t that terrible of a thing, was it?
Maybe it was.
“He doesn’t deserve his wings,” Bay says hotly. “He’s a fool of a fairy, an ignorant—”
“Bay?”
“Yeah, Rosemary?”
“I don’t want to hear that.”
“Why not?” she explodes. “He hurt you, and he has to know better, has to know you better than that. Seriously? You couldn’t ever tell a white lie! If he thought you were me, that’s on him!”
“Do you want to know when he finally called me Bay?” I ask bitterly.
Bay hesitates, eyeing me. Then, she does something she hasn’t done since we were little fairies. She gives me an impromptu hug.
“Only if you want to tell me,” she whispers in my arm before drawing back, holding me at arms’ length so she can see my face.
I inhale deeply. “He said, ‘I really like you, Bay.’ But here’s the winger. He said it after we had sex.”
Bay’s eyes flash with anger. “That foul flier did use you!” she cries. “He’s just using all of this mix-up, which is just a mistake, as an excuse to push you away!” Then her jaw drops. “Wait! You aren’t a—”
“Not anymore.”
“How was it? Did it hurt? Did you bleed? I should’ve warned you that it could cause you to bleed. Did you use a condom or a potion or something to prevent you’re getting pregnant?”
“No condom, but I did drink a potion the next morning,” I inform her. “And I don’t really want to talk about this anymore.”
“Come on.” She loops our arms. “Let’s get out of here and go and have some fun.”
“Bay, I’m not really in the mood—”
“Don’t worry. It’ll be good for you and help you keep your mind off that foul fucker.”
I blink at her several times. “Now you’re using human curse words?”
"Fuck is actually a really fun word to say, and it has so many uses. Try it! He's a fucker. He fucked you one way and then fucked you another."
I shake my head. “I don’t want to.”
"You still like him. Why? What's so special about the guy? Yes, he's handsome, and the two of you make a gorgeous couple, but you aren't the kind to go after a guy because of his looks."
“I’m not the kind to go after guys at all,” I point out. “Maybe that’s for the best.”
“Girl, no. Stop wallowing. Let’s go.”
Bay flies me to her cottage. Her whole crew is here. Bracken's dark eyes still make me feel unsettled, and Holly's wearing a similarly styled dress to the one Bay wore two days ago. Still trying to be Bay 2.0, it seems.
Thistle is still as skinny as a beanpole, and what a surprise. Cosmo’s not wearing a shirt as he sits with his legs draped over an arm of a chair, swigging from a bottle.
None of her friends say anything to me, and I say nothing in return. They’re her friends, not mine.
This is only the second or maybe third time I've been inside. It's nice and cozy enough, but it also feels cramped too. I know Bay means well by having me over, but I'm just not sure I'm up for hanging out with fairies I don't know well and also don't want to get to know.
Just then, another fairy enters the room. Her hair is short, spiked up, and a shade of green that reminds me of spring. Her eyes, though, are haunted, and she sniffs. Her gait is a little off-kilter, and her grin has me squirming for some reason.
“Who’s this?” she asks, her words slurring together.
I lift my eyebrows. Alcohol can affect us some, but it normally doesn’t affect our speech.
Bay tilts her head to the side. “I thought you two met, but maybe not.”
“You’re double,” the fairy slurs. “You’ve got a doppelgänger! Wait, doesn’t that mean you’re going to die? Look away, Bay! Don’t look at its soulless eyes!”
I burst out laughing. I have the soulless eyes? She’s the one who does.
Bay laughs with me. “This is my twin. I told you about her, Spring.”
Spring. Well, that’s a fitting name given her hair coloring.
Spring blinks a few times and shrugs. “Make way,” she complains, bumping Cosmo’s legs as she stumbles toward a seat at the table. �
��I got the good stuff.”
Good stuff? I look at Bay questioningly. My twin shrugs, but Bracken’s cheering and leaning forward from lounging in his seat.
“Gimme,” he says, holding out his hand and flapping his fingers open and shut.
“Wait your turn,” Spring snaps. “You want any, Bay?”
“I’m good.”
Any what? I’m wondering.
Spring reaches down her cleavage and removes a small tear-shaped vial that’s filled with white dust. Thistle’s shoving the stuff on the table off to the side, and Holly’s drumming her hands on the table.
“It’s been too long,” she complains.
Too long since what?
Spring carefully draws a line of the dust on the table. She places a finger against the side of her nose, leans down, and inhales the line.
“What a rush,” she says dreamily. She juts her chin. “Who’s next?” she calls, lifting the vial up high.
“Watch it,” Cosmo snaps. “You’re going to spill some.”
“I never spill any.” Spring giggles as Bracken yanks the vial out of her hands. “You know I like it when you’re rough,” she coos.
My stomach churns as Bracken, Thistle, Cosmo, and Holly all do lines.
Lines of fairy dust.
They’re getting high on fairy dust.
Soon, they’re a bumbling mess of fairies, flying over each other, talking over each other, laughing over each other, fighting over each other. How can they possibly even understand each other to know what they’re saying to fight? But they are, and it’s only serving to make my anxiety ratchet up even higher.
Bay, for the most part, is trying to get them to calm down some, but it’s not working. They’re too far gone, and what’s even sadder is that Spring is claiming she can see tiny green humans in the room.
Spoiler alert. There aren’t any.
I turn to Bay. “I think I’m going to go.”
“Go? Why?”
I shrug. It’s not as if there’s a nice way to say that I don’t care for your friends.
“Look, I know they’re a little… preoccupied right now, but that’s what you need, right? To have your mind occupied so you don’t feel sorry for yourself? We have some honey mead or some wild honey-infused wine. Do you want some of either?”
I shake my head emphatically. “No wine.”
“Why not?” she presses.
“Because,” I grumble.
“Because why?”
“Because Sage and I had some before we…” I blush and avoid eye contact.
“Is that why you did it?” she whispers gently. Not that she needs to whisper. Her friends aren’t paying us any attention, and I have to more or less read her lips to understand her because her friends are far too loud for me to hear her low tone.
“No. I wanted to.”
“Good. Then you shouldn’t regret it now,” she says, stabbing me in the chest.
“I don’t,” I protest.
She lifts her eyebrows, hand on hip.
“I don’t regret it much,” I admit.
“You shouldn’t regret going after what you want or who you want. I’m proud of you. You liked Sage, and you went after him. So your name never came up. It’s honestly not that big of a deal, and if he can’t see that—”
“He doesn’t know me.”
“He spent how much time with you?”
“But he also spent time with,” I say, miserable.
“I think I talked to him once.” She shrugs. “I didn’t realize he was your guy until another fairy called him Sage as he flew off.”
I blink. “Do random fairies fly up to you and tell you about their nightmares?”
"You'll be surprised by what random fairies will share with me," she says dryly. "Always guy fairies too. One said that he was worried that he didn't measure up to others, so he wanted me to check for him."
“Measure up?”
She pointedly stares at Cosmo’s crotch.
“Oh,” I breathe. “And you never talked to him before that?”
“Nope. At least not that I can recall.”
“I am so glad guys don’t do that to me,” I mumble.
“Why is that?” Bay complains.
“Why is what?” Cosmo asks. He reclined in his seat, his ass on the far edge of the chair. “Don’t think I didn’t see where you were just eyeing me,” he adds.
“Get over yourself,” she snaps.
“Guys will come up and ask Bay inappropriate things but not me,” I say in a rush.
“Oh, that’s easy. Bay oozes sex appeal.”
And I don’t.
They say that girls want the bad boys, the bad fairies. It seems like guys want bad girls too.
Including Sage.
“I’m out of here,” I say.
Without another word and before Bay can stop me, I’m flying out of the cottage. I don’t make it very far before I break down.
Those same words had been what Sage had said.
“I’m out of here.”
Will those be the last words he ever says to me?
Chapter 19
The tears start falling by the time I reach my dorm room. Delia and Wren aren’t home, but Orchid is, and she immediately flies over to me the moment I enter.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry.” I hug her tightly.
“You’re sorry? For what?” she asks, utterly confused.
She guides me over to my bed, and we sit on the edge of it.
I tug at my fingers, my hands in my lap. “After my date with Sage, I never told you what happened, and you saw that I was kind of, well, not kind of. I was ignoring him. No, not ignoring. Avoiding. And then with the craziness of the fire and everything… I know I can tell you anything, and I didn’t, and friends should lean on each other and not push each other away. I’m sorry.”
“Rosemary, you don’t have to tell me every detail about your life,” she protests.
“I know that, but…” I exhale and tighten my shoulders, hunching over, wishing I could curl up into a ball. “I don’t like who I’ve become.”
Orchid says nothing but starts to rub my back.
“Sage and I… I’ve never done this before. I don’t just mean I don’t on a first date. I’ve never… I’ve never had sex before Sage.”
Orchid pauses her rubbing before resuming without a word.
I’m so grateful that she isn’t hounding me for details like Bay had.
“Have you ever?” I ask.
Orchid shakes her head. “I haven’t. I want to make sure I love the guy first, and without the talisman, well, I haven’t even really been looking for a guy to have a romantic relationship with. Which is ridiculous. I’m not going to get the talisman back. That much is clear, so if I want to start dating, there shouldn't be anything holding me back, but…" She stops rubbing my back, shrugs, and drops her hands into her lap.
“Do you think I was stupid for…”
“I think that if your heart told you to, that you shouldn’t regret it.”
Had it been my heart? Or my hormones?
“Love is so very complicated,” I complain.
Orchid giggles. “Why do you think so many fairies have tried to make love potions for centuries?”
“I know, I know. And only one succeed.”
“Yeah, well…” Orchid shrugs. “Do you regret it? Is that why you’ve been avoiding Sage?”
“I don’t know. I mean, that’s not why I’m avoiding Sage. Well, kinda. I don’t know if I regret it.”
Orchid just nods encouragingly, but I can’t possibly be making any sense.
"He called me Bay afterward," I blurt out. "After we… I never realized that he didn't know my name, and he didn't know that Bay had a sister, let alone a twin… You know how we went on a date hours ago finally?"
Orchid nods.
“I told him my name, and he flipped. He claims he doesn’t know who I am, and he had talked to Bay once thinking she was me,
and I just… I made a mess of things.”
"I don't understand. So he called you the wrong name. Why can't he get over that? I'm sure you apologized, but it was an honest mix-up. He called you Daredevil all the time."
"I know, but… Sage doesn't realize this, or maybe he does, and that's why he's so upset, but the thing is… to get him to like me, I did act more like Bay than like myself.”
Orchid says nothing.
“I was jealous of the attention she always gets from guys, how they flock to her without any effort on her part, how they just all will do anything for her as soon as they meet her. She has some kind of an aura, you know? Something that draws them in. I wanted that but with Sage. Not every guy I’ve ever met, so I thought to myself a few times, What would Bay do? And I did it. So that he thought I was Bay… it’s a punch to the gut. It makes me feel like he really doesn’t know me. Maybe he wouldn’t like me if I act like myself, and the thing is, I did like who I was around him, but is that who I am? Or just my desperation to have him like me? I… I don’t know.” I cover my face with my hands and place my elbows on my knees.
Orchid blows out a breath. “That’s a lot to take in,” she admits.
“You’ve seen me around Sage. Did I act all that different from myself?”
“Actually, you hardly ever spent time around him while in earshot of me,” she says gently. “It kind of always felt like a him or me kind of thing. That if you were hanging with one of us, you wouldn’t be near the other.”
“Oh.”
“Rosemary…”
“Yeah?”
“It’s not easy for me to say this, and I hope it won’t upset you. It comes from the heart, friend to friend, okay?”
I nod. “You can tell me anything,” I assure her. “Although if it’s to tell me that I’m a moron, I’m already thinking it so…”
She smiles wanly. “That’s not what I was going to say.”
“Go ahead. I’m ready to hear whatever you have to tell me.”
“You need to learn who you are and who you want to be before you can hope to make amends with Sage.” She eyes me curiously. “Do you want to make amends with him?”
Light Fae Academy: Year One Page 9
