Page 54 of Love Spells: And Other Non-Refundable Magic

The admission catches me off guard.

“You were the oldest and you were almost required to help with me. You had hella more rules than I did, and by the time I was old enough to do anything interesting, they were tired.”

I laugh. “Finally, some acknowledgement.”

“I’ve always acknowledged it!”

“You absolutely have not.”

“Fine. Consider this my formal statement. Merryweather Marie Hawthorne suffered the profound injustice of having to remember to pack my lunch.”

“Thank you.”

She hooks her arm through mine as we start walking again. “But I also think you got really good at it.”

“At packing lunches?”

“At knowing exactly what you were supposed to do.”

Something in the way she says it makes me look at her. Rose keeps her eyes ahead.

“You loved being the one Mom didn’t have to worry about. You liked getting good grades. You liked having everything figured out.”

Around us, the market continues without waiting for me to decide what I think about my sister’s matter-of-fact statements.

“I think it made you feel safe.”

I don’t answer.

The uncomfortable thing is that she isn’t wrong. There has always been something reassuring about knowing what comes next, even with all my chaotic, cursed self. About understanding the rules well enough that I can follow them and arrive more or less where I intended.

I like that when something goes wrong outside my own love life, I’m usually the person who knows what to do about it.

But I think about the list sitting unfinished in my phone, and the four empty spaces beneath a pair of gold earrings I don’t need and will never buy.

Maybe that’s why the assignment is bothering me so much. There’s no correct answer, and nobody is going to tell me afterward that I chose well.

And without that validation, I’m not entirely sure how often I’ve let myself want something simply because it made me happy.

“Dumplings?” Rose asks, interrupting my thoughts.

I look at her. She’s watching the food stall across the aisle, where someone is lifting the lid off a bamboo steamer and sending a cloud of steam into the crisp fall air.

“Do you want some?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Rose pulls her arm out of mine.“Oh, fuck off, Merry.”

I laugh and follow her to the vendor, leaving the other four spaces on my list empty for now.

CHAPTER 16

MERRYWEATHER

“Why am I going to this?”