by Sarina Dorie
If Vega couldn’t have the comfort of forbidden magic, she was going to at least medicate herself with dancing and alcohol. When she lost herself in the pleasure of partying, she could numb the pain for at least a few hours.
It didn’t take long for this to become a habit, sometimes even on weeknights, though she didn’t stay out too late or drink too much on those days. She didn’t want her grades to slip.
She did have some boundaries.
On Fridays and Saturdays, she completely let loose. It helped that she could sleep in detention.
She rebelled against organic food. First it was beer and corn syrup, then it was hard alcohol and eating out of plastic dishes.
“Who wants to try nose candy?” a teenage girl wearing too much makeup asked at one party.
“That doesn’t sound like it’s organic.” It was definitely a bad idea. “I’m in,” Vega said.
Vega realized she could plan her life around stimulants, depressants, and dancing. Cocaine helped her stay awake and gave her energy during her classes. Alcohol helped her hate the world less.
Vincent’s mother wasn’t as dumb as she looked. She was onto something. Why hadn’t anyone ever told Vega alcohol helped people process grief?
She hardly ever thought about all the dead people she missed now.
November passed in a haze. December sped by in a drug-induced stupor. Sometimes Vega’s teachers gave her disapproving looks, but no one could accuse her of using forbidden magic.
One week before winter vacation, Vega jolted awake in a bathtub with Vincent, cold water spraying over her face. She was wearing a bra, but oddly, it wasn’t her own. Her skirt was on inside out. She snorted out a laugh at Vincent who was wearing her bra, though it wasn’t hooked closed.
Roberto stood over both of them, spraying them with the shower attachment, shaking his head in disgust. He was a massive rock affinity, his frame beefier than Morty football players. He had to be at least a foot taller than her. She’d never noticed how hot he was until now.
“Hey, Roro.” She couldn’t believe she’d just called him that. She giggled. “Whatcha up to?”
He dropped a wet washcloth on her. “Oh, the usual. Cleaning vomit and urine off my friends.”
She tried to cover her mouth with her hand, but she slapped herself in the face and laughed harder. “Did Vin pee in his pants?”
Roberto rolled his eyes.
The water from the shower was cold, but she liked it. She felt awake and alive.
The only problem was her mouth had difficulty forming words. “You know, I am so out of it right now, I probably wouldn’t remember if you took advantage of me.”
He crinkled up his nose. “Yeah, but I would, and I’d probably vomit on myself every time I remembered.”
“I’m soooo your type.”
He picked up the washcloth and scrubbed it against her face. “No, you aren’t.”
“What’s your type, then?”
He grabbed another washcloth from the counter and wiped the vomit out of Vincent’s hair. “Not so crushable. Also, I prefer someone smart.”
“I am smart!” She watched him feel for a pulse in Vincent’s neck.
His expression was relieved.
He turned back to her. “You’ve become stupid this year since . . . since. . . .”
“Since Ruth died?” A spike of anger shot through her. “I’m not stupid. I’m just coping.”
He turned off the shower.
“You know how smart I am? I know you don’t have a girlfriend.” She imagined her words were acid that could burn.
“Whatever.” He dropped a towel on her and one on Vincent and left the bathroom.
She remembered that conversation the next day, but she wished she didn’t. That was probably why she tried shrooms at the party that night.
On the plus side, they were organic. The beer and ecstasy weren’t, though.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Past: Cutting Psilocybin and Other Bad Habits Cold Turkey
Vega woke in the infirmary, every part of her body aching. The sun was high in the sky. She couldn’t remember what day of the week it was or whether she had school.
“How’d I end up here?” she moaned.
Nurse Margoyles pursed her weathered lips. “You’re lucky you have friends who care enough about you to check on you when you’re passed out. And luckier still they knew what a seizure looked like.”
Vega’s brain was foggy, and her head throbbed. She had difficulty sitting up, so she gave up.
“That boy was so drunk himself he shouldn’t have even transported you. Haven’t you young people ever heard of a ‘designated portal caster?’” Nurse Margoyles bustled around.
Eventually she brought Vega a tonic. “This will detoxify your system.”
Vega stared at it dully. It smelled like vinegar and made her stomach churn. It might have helped her headache, but she supposed she deserved this misery.
“You’ll drink this if you know what’s good for you.” Nurse Margoyles set it on the bedside table.
Vega didn’t want to drink it. She felt particularly cantankerous. When the nurse wasn’t looking, she pushed the tonic off the table, the liquid splattering to the ground.
“Good grief. Sometimes I regret taking a position at a high school,” the nurse muttered.
Vega covered her eyes when Mr. Reade eventually showed up. He was like a guardian angel she didn’t want, there to remind her how good she could be, but actually wasn’t.
His jaw twitched as he spoke. “Nurse Margoyles prepared a tonic to make you feel better, and she told me you purposefully spilled it.” His voice steadily increased in volume as he continued. “Do you realize what a waste that is? She specifically made it without any animal products so you wouldn’t get sick. Is that the kind of thanks you give her?”
He actually yelled at her. He rarely raised his voice to anyone.
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
“Do you prefer she immobilize you and give you a shot in your behind? Because that’s what she’s going to have to resort to next.”
She sighed in resignation. “No. I’ll drink her tonic.”
“Do you have any idea how lucky you are to be alive right now?”
“Not really.”
His face turned red as he continued to yell. “I understand you’re suffering right now. I realize you are still hurting because you lost your boyfriend, and now you lost Ruth, but this needs to stop. Your grades are dropping. The principal notified your parents of your hospitalization last night. Principal Gordmayer is considering expelling you. Is that what you want?”
Vega considered his words. “Did my parents come to visit me while I was unconscious?” She was certain other students had parents who would fuss over them and visit if they had a seizure. A little spike of longing filled her.
He drew in a deep breath, looking as if his patience was close to breaking. Good. She didn’t need his pity. Or sympathy. She didn’t need anything from anyone.
“Is that what this is about?” he asked. “Are you trying to get your mother’s attention?”
“No, I don’t care about her.” She crossed her arms.
“I highly doubt that.” His voice softened. “It must be hard to have parents who hate you.”
She flinched at those words. She shook her head, but she knew it was true. Her mother hated her and blamed her for Callisto’s death.
Vega blamed herself for her sister’s death. She hadn’t meant to summon a Fae as a child.
She swallowed the painful lump in her throat.
“Get it through your stubborn head that this behavior needs to stop. The only one this hurts is you.” He grabbed her face in his hands, his eyes ablaze with anger. “Your friends are dead. You are not. Do you think they would want to see you waste your life like this? Do you think they want you to be miserable and kill yourself like this? You are alive, and that is a wonderful gift.�
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He released her face, stepping away. He was shaking with anger. Vega had never felt so confused.
Nurse Margoyles’s heels clicked across the floor. She handed a tonic in a metal cup to Mr. Reade. She made a skeptical face at him that said, “Good luck.”
Vega choked down the tonic.
Mr. Reade took the cup from her and examined it as if to be sure she had drunk it. “No more parties and drinking. The principal has put a spell on you. She will know the moment you leave the school. Do you understand? She will expel you. Then you’re going to be stuck on your parents’ beautiful estate with people you hate.”
“Unless I go to Baba’s.”
“That’s right. Unless you go to your grandmother’s house. You can learn all the forbidden magic you want. And then you’ll be her problem.” He turned and stalked away.
That was it? He wasn’t going to say something compassionate and inspirational? She felt so let down by that speech.
After he was gone, Vega realized he’d lost his patience with her. She’d pushed him to the limits, and she’d disappointed him. She seldom saw her own father at home, and when she did, she didn’t care nearly as much what he thought of her. As for her mother, Vega had given up trying to do anything right in her eyes.
Mr. Reade’s good opinion of her was an entirely different matter. She did care what he thought. She’d disappointed him.
She felt so let down by herself, she could hardly imagine what he thought of her.
Why did her life have to be one big sucky experience after another?
* * *
Vega wrote Vincent that day.
I’ve decided I’m not going to go to any more parties. I’m going to get my grades up and not do drugs or drink. Also, the principal will know if I sneak out, and I’ll be expelled.
That evening she went to bed and lay awake, unable to sleep. She didn’t expect Vincent to tap on her window and call her name from the other side. She was on the second story after all.
Vega sat up, finding Vincent levitating next to her windowsill. She sighed in exasperation. He waved. He reminded her of Peter Pan.
“Vega, what the hell?” Stacy, her roommate, demanded. “It’s one thing for you to sneak out. It’s another for a boy to come to your room. I don’t want to get a detention.”
“I know.” Vega opened the window. “Vincent, you have to leave. You’re going to get us in trouble.”
“Since when do you care about being naughty?” He grinned in his easygoing way.
“I care!” Stacy said. “You are not coming into this room. I want to sleep, not get our room raided by the principal while you’re panty raiding each other.”
Vincent raised his hands in a placating gesture. “I’ll stay outside.”
Vega put up a sound-barrier spell ensuring it was impermeable so it would keep out the cold. She wrapped a blanket around herself.
Vincent crawled up on the window ledge and made himself comfortable. “So I thought maybe we could talk about winter break. Christmas.”
“You have a one-track mind, don’t you?” She didn’t understand why he had to tip their relationship into something serious.
“Vacation is in a few days. I need to know if you want to spend it with me.” The moonlight illuminated his hopeful expression.
“And your parents? I’ll be spending it with them too?”
“I guess.” He took one of her hands in his. “I mean, we can go to the beach house on the lake without them for a few days if you want. There was supposed to be a party—”
“No parties,” she said firmly. She didn’t want to slip into bad habits.
“No problemo. I’ll cancel it.” He tugged her closer. “I didn’t like going to all those parties anyway.”
He hadn’t seemed to mind them. “You should have said something if you didn’t want to go.”
“People grieve in different ways. I just figured, if it was what you needed, I wanted to be there for you.” He wrapped an arm around her, embracing her awkwardly. “I wanted to be there to protect you.”
She was pressed up against the wall, hugging more of the ledge than she was hugging him. She squirmed away. “I don’t need anyone’s protection.”
“Dude, I know you think that. But if it weren’t for friends who cared, you would have ODed so many times. And now those people don’t want to be around you anymore. You’ve pushed them all away. It hasn’t been easy watching you mess yourself up.” He took her by the shoulders, his eyes so earnest it hurt. “But now you have a chance to get clean, and maybe they’ll give you another chance.”
Aside from the almost-overdosing part, Vega had no idea what he was talking about. “So people hate me because I turned into a party animal?”
He raked a hand through his hair. “Amber hates you because she found you making out with Duran. Jody doesn’t like you because Amber is her best friend. But even before, you creeped her out when you were drunk and told her you wanted to eat Ruth. She didn’t know if that was some kind of weird sexual reference or cannibalism or something else, you know?”
Vega’s eyes widened with horror. Had she given her secret away? It was her mother’s worst nightmare. It was her worst nightmare. And she didn’t even remember doing this.
Vincent rushed on, probably trying to make her feel better. “I told Amber that people say things they don’t mean when they’re drunk and out of control. But they don’t get it. Their parents never get like that.”
If Vega hadn’t felt so humiliated and ashamed of herself, she might have felt bad for Vincent that he thought drunken confessions were the norm. She tuned into the rest of what he was saying.
“Mitch is friends with Duran, so he feels weird about you making out with Duran when you were both drunk. Plus, he’s Jody’s boyfriend, and she doesn’t like you, so he doesn’t want to be near you. Also, you vomited on him.”
Vega stared at him in utter shock. “And Roberto?”
Vincent cringed. “He doesn’t want anything to do with you either.”
Her heart felt as though it were shriveling up, all hope escaping out of her reach. “Because of what I did with Duran?” Or because he thought she was a creepy cannibal?
“No, because you made fun of him. You told everyone he’s a virgin and doesn’t really have a girlfriend.”
She was a horrible person. It didn’t matter whether she was drunk and high or sober. She was miserable and made everyone else miserable. She hated herself. As she gazed at Vincent, it completely disgusted her he was so nice. So accommodating. So forgiving and sappy.
Her loathing for herself solidified into something tangible her anger could sink its teeth into. “What is wrong with you? Why would you want to invite me to your family’s home after all this?”
“I know this isn’t you. It’s just the grief.” His eyes were so sad.
“No, this is me. I’m a selfish, horrible person, and you’re just too stupid to see that. Why would I want to spend time with someone who puts up with all this crap?”
He swallowed. “I’m in love with you.”
“No, you’re not. You’re in lust.” And she was in lust with him. Who wouldn’t be with his good looks?
“I am not! I’ve never once pressured you to sleep with me.” His voice increased in volume slowly, his anger ramping up as he shouted. “All those times at parties I had to watch you flirt with my friends, dance with other guys, and make out with complete strangers—do you know how hard that was? But I knew you were grieving and just needed to get through this phase.” He took a few deep breaths and lowered his voice. “I’ve waited for you to figure things out and be ready for a real relationship. You’ve put off answering me about this long enough. I want to know if you’re going to spend the holiday with me.”
She covered her face, hating how much she’d hurt him. She despised herself knowing she was going to continue to keep on hurting him if she dragged this out longer.
“I’m not ready for a boyfriend.” She wished she’d never slept with him and given him the wrong idea. Out of all the jerks out there she could have had a one-night stand with, why had she accidentally picked one who would actually care about her enough to want more?
“How long do you need? I’ll wait for you. Just tell me what you want.” He pried her hands from her face and squeezed her fingers, his eyes full of desperation.
Vincent was handsome and athletic. He was sweet and kind—in a pathetically enabling sort of way. In the past, he had been attentive to her dietary restrictions and so thoughtful about making sure she had food she could eat. When Ruth had been alive, he had been a platonic older brother to her. Had Ruth still been alive, he would have been a perfect husband for her someday if he’d fallen in love with her.
Vega could see he was perfect. What was wrong with her that she couldn’t love him?
And then it dawned on her. “I’m sorry. You just aren’t Kenji.”
He drew in a breath. His expression couldn’t have been more hurt. “Oh.” He drew a circle in the air outside the window.
The starry night sky outside shifted to pitch blackness, that hole looking as empty as the void Vega felt inside herself.
He pushed himself off the window ledge, levitating in the air for a moment. He turned back to her, looking like he was about to add one more heartfelt comment, but he was sucked backward into the portal he’d created.
Vega closed the window and broke the sound-barrier spell. Lying in bed, she tossed and turned. She wished she’d handled that better, but she didn’t know how she would have done so. Probably Baba would have told her to apologize and admit her faults.
The following evening Vincent returned. She knew someone was there from the tap-tap-tap on the windowpane. Down below the window, Vincent stood there. The moonlight washing over his skin made him glow with ethereal beauty. He had never looked more like a siren.
She opened the window. “Go away! You’re going to get me in trouble.”
