Page 127 of Love Spells: And Other Non-Refundable Magic

“I like her,” my friend says. We make it another few steps before she adds, more quietly, “I like you with her.”

There are things that Maggie could mean by that, and once upon a time I would have needed her to explain exactly which one. I would have wanted to know what she saw, whether she thought I was behaving differently, whether there was some warning hidden inside the compliment that I was supposed to understand.

Instead, I let her say it.

And because she is, after all, my oldest friend, she lets me leave it there.

That night, I’m sitting on the couch with Mamá when Primavera messages me.

Fausto is yet again at the house and has spent the better part of twenty minutes moving between the kitchen and the living room looking for a charger that Mamá insists he left at his own house. The television is on, although none of us are paying enough attention to know what’s happening, and I’m scrolling through my phone when the Whisp notification appears.

I don’t need to open it immediately.

I know that. There are messages I leave unanswered for hours. Customers who can wait until morning. People whose problems belong to the part of my life I deliberately keep contained inside a screen.

Primavera hasn’t felt much like a customer lately, and it’s fucking with my brain.

Primavera1959

I think something is happening to me

There is something about the way this person moves through the world that I’ve become increasingly fond of, even though the only evidence I have of that world is whatever she chooses to put into words. It makes me smile immediately.

The Third Fairy

What kind of something?

Her answer comes in pieces.

Primavera1959

I keep doing things before I can talk myself out of them!

Nothing dangerous

Just things I normally would have spent three business days overthinking

I settle deeper into the couch.

The Third Fairy

Like what?

There’s a long pause before the next message.

Primavera1959

It doesn’t really matter, I guess.

Can I ask you something that’s not about me?

My first instinct is to redirect her.

TheThirdFairy

You can ask

Primavera1959