Elodie shakes her head. “I won’t. I won’t marry him. I don’t love him. I’m…I’m in love with…”
“Love has nothing to do with it,” Elodie’s mom snaps. “Now get your things, and your dad will help you bring them down to the car. We’re trying to keep you safe. Your safety is all we’ve ever cared about. Henry will take care of you, and he won’t ever move you away from us. You’ll always be here, and we’ll always be here. He’s a good man, and he’ll protect you. You’ll also be financially secure. He can provide you with everything you need.”
“Except the one thing I need!” Elodie yells. She actually yells. I think this is the first time any of us has heard her raise her voice. “Love! I don’t care about being safe. I want to take chances, I want to take risks, and I want to live my life! I want to love without fear, without holding back. I want to love, and if I get hurt, then I get hurt.”
Her parents gasp like she’s completely unreasonable.
The entire time she stood there and said those things, she never looked at me once. I don’t know if she doesn’t want to give us away to her parents or if she’s changed her mind because of what I said about basically being the world’s biggest asshole. Maybe I’m an even bigger shit than Henry. Why didn’t I leap out of my chair and declare my undying love to her when I had the chance? Why can’t I tell her how I feel right now?
I want to. I seriously want to get down on my knees and tell her that I know it’s her. Now that I’ve finally opened my eyes, I can see her. I can see Elodie, and I know I love her. I know I’ll always love her. A love like that needs time to grow, but I want to nurture it, and I want to go for it even if it means I might get hurt and even if it means it might not last forever because life happens, people change, and other bullshit comes up. I’ll always love her even if she doesn’t always love me, and if that time ever comes, then I’ll deal with it and still try and make it work. I’ll try until I die. Because even though the soul contract wasn’t truly a real thing, she really does own every part of me. Heart, body, and my bloody soul.
So why can’t I say it?
I’m just standing here. We’re all just standing here.
And then Elodie’s mom bursts into tears, and the moment is ruined. Elodie can’t look at me. She can’t look at any of us. Instead, she walks over to her mom and wraps her arms around her because those tears aren’t crocodile tears. They’re real, and Elodie does feel bad. She’s too kind to hurt her parents. She loves them too much, and they love her too much. So much so that they can’t let her breathe and can’t bear the thought of her being hurt even though it’s an inevitable part of life. They’d rather see her safe and unhappy rather than happy and what they deem as unsafe because emotions can be volatile and fickle, and people can change their minds. They obviously want to protect her from that ever happening.
“Dad, we can go get my things,” Elodie says softly. “We’ll talk about this at home. All of us.”
I’m not sure if that means me.
And I’m not sure what that means for me.
For us.
Is there even an us?
I can only stand there as dumbstruck as everyone else while Elodie fetches her bags and hands them off to her dad. She calls for Jeffers as she walks up and wraps her arm around her mom’s waist. Her grandma takes the leash Elodie clipped onto Jeffers’ collar, and they walk out together.
Without me.
No one speaks after the front door closes. No one. The house feels like it’s filled with ghostly spirits who aren’t entirely here, except we’re all very much here and real. And all that very much happened.
Elodie is very much gone.
“You bloody nincomboob!” Granny curses in my general direction. “You had better figure out how to make this right. Elodie is the one for you, and she took the brooch with her!”
I have no idea how Granny could know that. Did she? God, where did it end up?
“She put it in her pocket,” Ash supplies helpfully.
“When you were passed out,” Toren fills in.
“It could be dangerous. We forgot to discuss if the curse is escalating,” Kirian says.
Leandra yelps. Right, I’d be scared, too, if I were her. As it is, I’m scared, and I’m not her. I’m scared I’ve mucked it all up by saying too much of one thing and not enough of another, all while mucking and muddling, doubting and shuffling. Elodie wouldn’t have minded the doubts and shuffles if I had just told her the rest. She’d give me all the time in the world. But I basically made it sound like I thought what we did was a mistake or that it was doomed.