Page 36 of Witchy Woman

“Hazel, I need a moment with her.” Ash turns to my sister. “Please.”

“Are you okay with that?” she asks me quietly.

Nowshe’s considerate of my feelings. Now, when she’s already done a world of damage.

I nod.

Despite not wanting to face this conversation, despite being forced before I was ready, I know I’m safe with Ash.

She leaves, closing the flap of the tent behind her to give us some semblance of privacy. But I know those old biddies now. We’ll be the topic of gossip for days.

“I knew there was something different between us.” His body trembles. “I knew what we have is more than anything I’ve ever felt in my life. The way I’m drawn to you, the way I’ve memorized the cadence of your voice. My entire being is yours and I’ve barely touched you.”

I take a small step backward. I’m not ready for this.

I can’t.

“Do you know how often I think about touching you? Goldilocks, I swear to fuck I am a man possessed by the idea of simply holding your hand. And here you are, knowing exactly what we are to each other. I suspected, sure, but with how hard you pushed me away I was half-convinced I was insane. Were you ever going to tell me?”

I take another small step back.

“Say something!” he begs, hope and desperation dripping from every word. “Anything!”

“You’re my soulmate,” I whisper into the tent. I admit the one thing I’ve been trying to avoid since the moment he first touched me. Because it doesn’t change anything.

It doesn’t matter.

His hand covers his heart, rubbing at his thick flannel as if he could soothe the ache on his own. “I knew it.”

We stare at each other. Absorb the heaviness, the weight of us.

“How long have you known?” he asks.

I’m not surprised he has questions. I just really don’t want to fucking answer them. I don’t want to keep hurting him. I just wanted to stay away.

But no! Grandma had to force me to open this stupid booth, and he had to keep coming around after I kept trying to set boundaries.

“Since the first time you touched me. Since fall.”

“For months?” Betrayal flashes in his eyes. He takes a cautious step forward. Just one, but it feels like so much more. “You’ve known for months, and you...You really were never going to tell me. You were going to keep going on with your life and never say a goddamn word. Why?”

Anger swoops up into my throat. “Because it’s what I decided to do. I’m an adult and I made a decision about my life. I don’t answer to you!”

“No.” He advances again as if he needs to be close to me. Needs the reassurance of my presence and warmth just as much as I need his. But he’s still a few feet away. “You sure as hell don’t answer to me, Goldilocks, but you made a decision aboutourlives. You don’t get to make decisions that include me without even the courtesy of a discussion.”

“Do you feel so much better now?” I step forward, closing the distance one extra foot, scrabbling for control over this conversation. “Do you feel better knowing that you’re my soulmate and I didn’t tell you? That I didn’t want to tell you? Is it better than me suffering in fucking silence? Is both of us suffering with the weight of this really that much better?”

His chuckle is low and full of pain. “As if I wasn’t already suffering. At least now I know why.”

I blink back the stinging in my eyes. The pain in my chest begs me to run to him. To let him hold me and take care of me. To soothe away this awfulness.

He’s there, wiping away the first tear before it can even fall. Electricity pulses from his skin through mine, wrenching a gasp from both of us.

“You don’t get to make decisions for me anymore. Going forward, we make decisions together,” he says.

I shake my head. I know I’m right. Aren’t I?

I won’t turn into my mom. And what if it was the opposite? What would it do to him if I were the one he lost?