Cold Kiss Part 16

"Wren."

I can hear so much in the single word, love and regret and relief and even anger, and I wonder if it will sound the same if I say, "Mom." Instead, I push the screen aside and walk in. We're only inches apart, so close I can smell the clean cotton of her shirt, the faint citrus of her shampoo, but the distance seems like miles. Just as I decide I should keep walking, she grabs me and pulls me against her.

"I guess we need to talk," she murmurs into my hair, and I nod.

"You're not off the hook here, you know," she adds as she sets me away from her. "I'm still angry."

"I know." I steady my voice. "So am I."

Her mouth twists as if she's trying not to smile. "Fair enough."

The fire is hypnotic, long fingers of flame reaching for the flue, the grate, flicking and snapping with the wind outside. Now that Mari's taken Robin upstairs and Mom and I are settled on the hearth, it's hard to know where to begin. I watch the fire instead, holding my palms up to let the heat seep in.

"So this is awkward," Mom says mildly, and I can't help but snort. "I guess I should have read one of those parenting books, you know?" She's looking at the flames, too, instead of at me, and I can't tell if she's joking or not. "Teenage Rebellion and You or something like that."

"I'm not rebelling, Mom."

"Aren't you? I made something forbidden and you decided to go ahead and do it anyway. Unless this isn't about the magic." She finally turns to face me, and maybe the fire is magic, too. As the flickering shadows move over her face, I can see myself there in the set of her jaw, and Robin in the hair falling across her forehead, and Mari and even Gram in the shape of her eyes.

"It is," I admit, wrapping my arms around my knees. "And it isn't."

"I'm too tired for riddles, kiddo." She gives me a wan smile, and tucks a stray feather of hair behind my ear. "It's been a long couple of days."

"I know, and I really am sorry. I didn't mean to make you worry. I didn't mean..." I shake my head and rest my chin on my knees. "I didn't mean for a lot of things to happen."

"Can you tell me what they are?"

"I'd rather not?"

She sighs. "But you're not pregnant, and you're not on drugs, and you're not wanted by the police."

"Right."

"You know, if you want to be honest from here on out, about our power and everything else, it's a two-way street."

I nod. "Can't we just start fresh, from right now? I promise you, I'm okay. Or I will be. I'm trying to clean up my own mistakes here, and that has to count for something, right?"

She sets her jaw, and the flames in the hearth jump a little higher. "It's not going to be that easy, Wren. I'm not just letting you off the hook free and clear because you had a bad day."

"I'm not asking you to!"

She levels a gaze at me, and for a second our power and our anger is tangible, crackling in the air between us. "Oh no? But you won't tell me what went on this weekend? You have to understand that it's hard for me not to know what you're going through."

"It's hard for me not to know, well, a lot of things," I say carefully, and glance sideways to watch her face. She doesn't smile but she doesn't flinch, either, and that's good, I guess. "Things about what I can do, what I am, what ... the limits are, I guess."

She swivels around to face me then, and we're like one person, reflected in a mirror-her arms around her bent knees, her chin propped on top of them.

"You know who you are, I hope." She tilts her head, thoughtful, as if she's testing the shape and weight of the words to come. "You're a bright, imaginative girl with a lot of special talents."

She's so not getting off that easy. I arch a brow at her. "Come on, Mom. Special talents are playing the violin really well and scoring goals every game. What we are is different."

"You're right. And different doesn't mean bad, all evidence around this house the last few years to the contrary."

I peel chipped dark purple polish off my thumbnail. "You know I remember, right? When Robin was born, before Dad left, when Mari and Gram were here all the time? It was a part of us then. It wasn't weird or wrong. I thought it was strange that other moms couldn't make flowers grow or put fairy lights up on the ceiling."

She's silent for a long time, remembering, I think, and the sadness on her face hurts. But I'm not going to let that stop me. If she wants honesty, then she can go first.

"Is it why Dad left? Or is that why you stopped, I don't know, being so open about what we are?"

She sighs and narrows her eyes at me. "This is not the conversation we need to have right now. You screwed up, and I'm not taking the responsibility for it, and I'm not letting you change the subject."

I scrub my hands over my face, trying to push down the need to shout, to throw something. "But that's what you always say! So when can we talk about it? This is my life, Mom."

She bites her bottom lip before she speaks again, and I can see the angry white teeth marks in it pinking up. "Your dad had really good reasons for leaving."

I don't know what I was expecting her to say, but it wasn't that. Good reasons? What does that even mean?

"Good? Good enough to leave and never call again? To act like Robin and I don't even exist?"

Mom tilts her head back, as if the answer is written on the ceiling. "It's complicated, Wren."

I bet it is, but I still want to know. It's a huge piece of my life that's been covered up with a sheet, sitting in the middle of the room all these years while we were expected to ignore it.

"Was it you?" What I really want to say is, Tell me it wasn't me. But I can't make my mouth form those words.

Mom doesn't try to mask the hurt in her voice. "No, it wasn't me. It wasn't you girls, either. And if you think I haven't missed him every day since he left, if you think I don't still love him, you're wrong."

For a second, all I can see is Danny's face, dozens of them, superimposed on each other: Danny laughing, Danny with his bottom lip between his teeth as he draws, Danny leaning forward to kiss me, Danny pale and cold and still. I get it, or I think I do, but it doesn't help.

I can see my dad's face, too, as he leaned close to read to me before bed. When I close my eyes, I can feel the bony set of his shoulders when he lifted me up for a ride, and breathe in the dark, smoky scent of his shirts.

Whoever decided that love should hurt sucks.

It's been silent for too long, and I watch as Mom wipes a tear off her cheek. Whoever decided that life should hurt sucks even more.

"I'm sorry," I say. I hate that she's been carrying this around for so long, but so have I. "I don't get it. How can there be a good reason never to talk to your kids again? How can you still love him after that?"

It's a stupid question. I still love him, or what I remember of him. It's the foundation of what I feel for him, even if I've painted over it with rage and betrayal and confusion.

"You're going to have to ask him to explain it, I think," Mom says carefully, and turns her head to face me again. Nothing is hidden-for the first time in a long time, everything she's feeling is right there in her eyes. "And I can help you, when you're ready."

For a moment, my ears ring with pounding blood just like they did when Ryan told me Danny was dead. It's too unbelievable, too strange, words that make sense on their own but not strung into that sentence.

"Help me?" My voice breaks a little, and I sit up straight, blinking at her. "You know where he is?"

She doesn't even try to soften the blow. "I do. Well, I know how to get in touch with him, to be more precise."

"All this time?" I struggle to my feet, walking off the tingling thrills of energy coursing through me. "All these years, and you never said anything? What the h.e.l.l, Mom?"

"Wren."

"No, Mom!" I won't cry, I won't. I'm too angry anyway, an icy blue in my veins, crackling and brittle. "All these years I thought he hated us! I thought we weren't good enough! And you've been talking to him?"

"Come here." I didn't even hear her get up, but Mom is suddenly beside me, taking my hands in hers and turning me to face the fire. "Do it, let it go. It's not good to let it build up, believe me."

I'm not sure what she means at first, but then she uncurls my clenched fingers and spreads my hands out. I'm not even thinking when I close my eyes and just let it come, the way she said, and a moment later the fire hisses furiously as icicles plunge into the flames.

It's exactly the opposite of what happened that day in the bas.e.m.e.nt after Danny's funeral, and I can see that she knows it. For a minute I can't speak-the relief is so sweet, all that rage fired off into the heart of the fire. When Mom puts her arm around my shoulder, I don't protest. The mad is still there, but it's only simmering now, distant, in another room where I can't really feel its heat.

"It's not exactly like what you're imagining," she says, and leads me to the sofa, where she sits beside me and pulls my head onto her shoulder. "I've kept him updated about you and your sister, because he wants to know. He loves you both, but he felt that it was better for you to be without him. He did what he did out of love, Wren. Regardless of fairy tales, love doesn't always mean a happy ending."

I bury my face against her, but it's not my dad I'm thinking of. I'm picturing Danny as I left him on Gabriel's bed, frozen in place, still slightly dirty from his midnight wandering, his lips blue and thin, so different from the warm, lush mouth that I used to kiss.

If I love him, the right thing to do is to let him go. And hope that wherever he goes, he doesn't remember that I didn't love him enough to leave him in peace in the first place.

There might not be a happy ending for me, but I'm going to give one to Danny. I just hope it's not too late.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.

SUNDAY MORNING FEELS LIKE A STRANGE dream. Mari slept over, so there are four of us at the breakfast table, and watching Mari and Mom laugh together as they make waffles is a little surreal after all the times I wished for the exact same thing. Robin is sort of baffled, since she doesn't remember them this way at all, elbowing each other and goofing around, acting like sisters instead of stiff, uncomfortable strangers, but I can tell she's happy about it, too.

It's not perfect, of course. But when I went to bed last night, I stopped in the hall outside Mom's room, and I could still hear them talking.

"It's not something you can ignore," Mari had said, so softly I could barely hear it, not that I should have been pressed up against the wall beside the door eavesdropping in the first place. "Sam knows that, too."

Sam. My dad.

Mom's answer was nothing more than a vague murmur, too low for me to understand, and I wondered if they were talking about our power.

Whatever it was, I went to sleep that night thinking that Mom hadn't really let go of the man she loved, either. Maybe we weren't so different, after all. I wanted to let that comfort me, but Monday night loomed over everything else, a dark, distinct point on the horizon.

It's hard to shake the shadow of it, even sitting at the kitchen table with a plate of fresh waffles drowning in b.u.t.ter and syrup in front of me. But I make the effort, hanging around to make up for my disappearing act, and Robin's grat.i.tude bubbles over in funny ways, sweetening the orange juice in my gla.s.s and gleaming on the basket of tiny baby pumpkins Mom brought, shinier and deeper in color all of a sudden.

For once, Mom says, "Pretty," when she spots them, and runs a finger over the fat one on top of the basket. Robin blushes, and at the counter, Aunt Mari smiles over her coffee mug.

I want to hold on to all of it, but I have to check on Danny, and Mom doesn't stop me, even though I don't say where I'm going. I'm a little surprised, but she just follows me to the front door and lays her cheek against mine. Robin and Aunt Mari are settled on the sofa watching a movie while Mari brushes Robin's hair.

"Home by dinner," Mom says. "And school tomorrow, no question. We'll deal with consequences later."

It's more than I could have asked for, even if cutting school isn't really a big deal in my head. Not compared with everything else I've done.

It hurts that I'll never be able to tell her what happened. At least not anytime soon.

It's hard enough for me, when I get to Gabriel's, to see Danny still lying on Gabriel's bed, in the same position. Nothing can be that still for so long. Nothing living, anyway.

I lie beside him on the bed, fitting myself up against the cool, motionless length of him. My hand rests over his heart, but I don't expect to feel the thump of it there anymore.

And then I start talking. It's natural-talking is what we used to do, endlessly, on the phone, walking home from school or the cafe, curled up together on the sofa. I don't think he can hear me, but it doesn't matter. There are things I want to say, and I don't want to hide anything from him anymore.

"Becker misses you," I tell him. The words are m.u.f.fled because my mouth is pressed against his chest. "He feels so guilty, Danny. And he's so messed up now. I go to see him sometimes, and so does Ryan. He misses you, too. We went to see Becker together once, but it was too weird. There was this big empty place where you were supposed to be instead."

I only pause to brush at the tears on my cheek. They're making a wet spot on Danny's T-shirt. "I thought I was doing the right thing, you know? Well, maybe not. But I wanted it so much. I just wante you. I missed you. I still miss you, so much. It's not fair."

I can't say anything after that, because I'm crying too hard, but after a little while I layer another spell on top of the one that's keeping him there on the bed, still and silent. A minute later, Gabriel pushes the door open a few inches, and I look up with my cheeks still wet.

"Everything okay?"

I just stare at him until he backs away. I mean, I know it's a lot to ask, having the girl you like cuddling her undead boyfriend in your room, but if Danny had woken up raging and dangerous, I'm pretty sure Gabriel would have heard the commotion.

I know I should have a little more sympathy for him, and when I finally get up and go into the living room, I remind myself how generous he's been. He looks awful, with his tired eyes focused so carefully on me, and for a minute I want to curl up with him. Let him lay me down on the sofa and hold me, let everything pour out into the worn fabric of his Rutgers T-shirt and let him smooth me out with his hands.

But there's not a lot left. I'm so hollow inside that I barely do more than nod when I leave, and all night, sitting up with the spell books and working on what I have to do, I have to push both faces out of my mind, Danny's and Gabriel's.

I'm up so late that I'm almost late for school on Monday, and Gabriel sits on the bench next to me in the princ.i.p.al's office during homeroom. I'm trying as hard as I can to close myself off, because I can't be sure he won't peek inside to see what I'm feeling, no matter what he says about respecting boundaries.

"Detention, you think? Or a day's suspension?" His voice is low and a little rough.

I don't even look at him, although I can't help seeing the sharp angle of his jaw out of the corner of my eye. "No clue."

Judging by his frustrated huff, he's not happy with that answer. And I'm ashamed of myself, because I don't want to hurt him, but I can't keep arguing the same things over and over.

Except he won't let them go.

Case in point: "I know you don't want to talk about this, but-"

"So stop bringing it up," I hiss, glancing up from under my lashes when the secretary looks at us sternly.

"You don't understand how dangerous this could be," Gabriel says, even lower now, leaning sideways and crowding into my s.p.a.ce.

"And you don't understand that it's not your problem." I shift as far away from him as I can, and he stiffens.

"What happened, Wren? What did I do?"

The door to the princ.i.p.al's office opens, and the secretary says, "You can go in now."

Which means I don't have to say, You made me want you, and I don't trust myself not to screw that up, too, which is the only truth that matters.

We get off with a warning, which I'm grateful for since I need to be home after school finishing the spell. I expect the day to drag, but I'm so preoccupied with catching up in my cla.s.ses that it's lunchtime before I know it. The instinct to go hide in the library is pretty strong, but I can't do that. If I'm going to make things right with Jess and Darcia, I have to actually talk to them.

I'm not expecting Jess to be waiting outside the cafeteria doors, though. I choke back a flicker of startled power that threatens to explode out of me, and only clutch my books tighter to my chest as I walk up to her.

"I tried calling. And texting."