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Her phone dragged her unwillingly from a deep sleep. Nate had left when false dawn crept through the window. He’d kissed her, waking her enough to whisper he was going. She’d fallen back to sleep almost immediately and would still be asleep if her phone wasn’t ringing insistently.
She fumbled for it, her eyes still closed, and managed a grunt.
“Wake up, lazy bones!” The combined voice of the twins resonated too loudly in her ear. She groaned, covering her eyes with her arm.
“You’re not ill.” Josh snorted. “You’re just being lazy.”
“I’m awake,” she grumbled. “Besides, how do you know I’m not already up?”
“Because we’re downstairs. Matt is on his way up with some water.” They laughed and rang off.
She frowned, trying to make sense of their last sentence.
“Hey, can I come in?” Matt’s voice came through the door.
“Yeah.” She scrubbed at her face, still trying to shrug off the heavy feeling of not enough sleep. He came in, a small cup of water in his hands.
“Still in bed?”
She heard the twins laughing from the stairs.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Waking you up. It’s after ten.” He dipped his hand into the water and flicked it at her, laughing.
She gasped, sitting straight up.
“Wake up the Crowder—” He stopped abruptly. “Get dressed, we need to pick up Nate. Seems he’s overslept too.” He was shutting the door behind him before Lily could process anything.
“What the hell?” She brought her shirt up to wipe her wet face.
Nate’s shirt.
She had Nate’s shirt on, and Matt had seen it.
She collapsed onto the bed, covering her face with her hands. His whole demeanour had changed from being upbeat and teasing to closing right down. He knew Nate had been with her last night, and he wasn’t happy with it.
They’d been so adamant it was perfectly fine sharing her. They’d been fooling themselves. It wasn’t natural to share your girlfriend with your best friend. They’d been idiots to think otherwise, herself included.
Her stomach sank, and a lump formed in her throat. This wasn’t going to work. They’d end up hating each other and hating her.
She didn’t want to face Matt, didn’t want to face any of them. She had no idea what she was going to say, but she wasn’t going to apologise; she hadn’t done anything they hadn’t agreed to. But his reaction had made her feel guilty, as if he’d caught her cheating on him. It was an impossible dream that had come crashing down.
—***—
THEY WERE TALKING TO her mother when Lily came down. Matt saw her first, and she caught his gaze. His face was closed, and the shuttered look in his eyes cracked her heart.
“About time,” Josh announced.
Matt walked over and dropped a brief kiss on her forehead before moving away. It was perfunctory, expected of him, but it was reluctantly done and what was left of her heart shattered.
“Lily, can I have a quick word.” Her mother didn’t wait for an answer and walked into the kitchen.
“We’ll get Nate, pick you up on the way back.” Matt didn’t look at her as he headed to the door.
She couldn’t look at the twins, and dashed into the kitchen, closing the door behind her. She leant back against it, covering her face as tears flooded her eyes.
“What’s happened?” her mother asked.
“Nothing, it’s okay, it’s nothing.” She tried hard to stamp on the tears.
“Tears are generally not nothing.”
“He’s just upset with me.”
“What on earth could have caused that in the twenty seconds he was up there?”
Lily closed her eyes, not able to tell her the truth. “It’s fine.”
“Well, obviously it’s not fine.” Her mother got a tissue and handed it to Lily. “Has he forced you to do something you didn’t want to do?”
“No. No, it’s nothing like that.” Lily shook her head and blew her nose.
“You should talk to him then. Men don’t speak the same language as us, he’s probably misunderstood something you’ve said.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” It wasn’t that, but there was nothing more she could say and not give the game away.
“There’s something else, something more important.” Her mother folded her arms.
“What?”
“You’re not taking your tablets. You’re going to have seizures again, or worse your magic will show. How are you going to explain that?”
Lily opened her mouth, but her mother held up a hand.
“Lily, they can’t find out. Not ever! No one must ever find out.”
“It’s okay, I haven’t had one since I stopped the tablets.”
“And what happens if you lose control like you did in the hallway?”
“I won’t.”
“You won’t be able to stop yourself.”
“It’s going to be all right, Mum.”
“You’re so naïve, and it’s my fault.” Her mother rubbed her forehead.
“What?”
“You don’t know anything. How much danger you’re in. You have to take the tablets again.”
“No. I’m fine, honest. Drew is—”
“Don’t,” she snapped, turning away from her. She gripped the edge of the counter and looked at her sideways. “Don’t mention him in my house.”
“I’m not taking the tablets. They made my nose bleed.”
“Rubbish.” She smacked her hand on the counter. “This is my house, Lily. You will do as I say while you’re under my roof.”
“I can’t take them, you don’t understand,” Lily cried out.
“Don’t tell me what I do or don’t understand.” She rounded on Lily, her voice rising. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I will move us if you do not take them.”
Anger rose in Lily. “I know nothing because you lied to me. I don’t understand because you won’t explain it to me. Your excuses for keeping it quiet from me? For deceiving me? For keeping me from my father? They aren’t good enough.”
“I had my reasons and keeping you safe was one of them. You’re a witch. You have this evil, unnatural side to you. I’ve kept you safe from that. Kept you safe from him, all of them,” she shouted, pointing at Lily.
“You think I’m evil?” Lily lost her breath, it was like someone had punched her in the stomach.
“No. Yes. No.” She shook her head. “Locked away inside of you, or at least it was locked away, you have this evil, unholy ability. Lily, how many people can make a wind blow like that? Break the mirror with just a thought? How is that natural?”
Tears burned in her eyes, her fisted hands shaking by her sides as she stared at her mother.
“Take the tablets. We can forget all of this. We can move to Ireland, start afresh, just the two of us.”
“He’ll follow me.”
“Not if you tell him you don’t want anything to do with him. You’ve not needed him all these years. Haven’t I been enough? Didn’t we have fun together?” Her mother’s eyes filled with tears, and it tugged at Lily’s heart.
“Of course, Mum. I’m not saying that, I just...I want to know him too,” she pleaded, trying to make her understand.
“He’s not a good person. He’s going to darken you, drag you down. Don’t let him,” she begged.
“You don’t know that.”
“Of course, I do.” Her voice rose again. “He did the same to her. He killed my sister.”
“She was hit by a car. He wasn’t driving the car, was he?”
“He might as well have been.”
“That’s crazy. The driver was responsible, not Drew.”
“I’m trying to protect you,” she shrieked. Her face twisted with anger, her hands clenched into fists, and for the first time Lily was frightened of her.
The doorbell rang, and Lily dragged in a deep breath. “It might be the boys.”
“Lily, please,” she begged. All traces of anger were replaced with desperation. “Don’t throw away the sacrifices I’ve made for you all these years.”
“I’m not. I don’t...” It was tearing her apart. “I need to know, Mum. I need to know what I am, what I can do. It’s part of me.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“Yes, it does.” Lily opened the kitchen door. “I can’t go back now that I know. I don’t want to go back.”
Her mother closed her eyes, her shoulders slumping. “Wasted, it’s all been a complete waste of time.”
“Not if you can accept me for what I am. Can you?” Lily held her breath, studying her mother’s face. Everything balanced on the knife edge of her reply.
“Go on, Lily. Don’t keep them waiting anymore.” She turned away to switch on the kettle.
Lily’s breath left her, and she stumbled from the room. She had her answer.
Lily grabbed her jacket and bag. A heavy throbbing pounded her temples, her eyes still gritty from crying. A part of her died inside. Everything was collapsing around her.
Opening the front door, her misery was compounded when only Jake was there.
He gave her a strained smile. “You ready?”
No, she wasn’t. But there were only two options: stay or go with him. Either way was going to be painful.
He beckoned her to come out, his smile faded. “Come on, Lil.”
She stepped out, closing the door behind her. “Where’re the others?”
“Matt and Nate had something to talk about, and Joshua stayed behind. Lazy bum.” He tried to sound upbeat but failed.
“They’re fighting, aren’t they?” Tears gathered again. She stuffed her hands into her pockets and kept her head down as they walked.
He was silent for a few seconds before he swore and slung his arm around her shoulders, pulling her into him.
“Jake, someone might see.”
“I don’t fucking care,” he growled.
They reached the turn in the road, but instead of going towards Nate’s he directed her onto the green. They crossed to a bench by the duck pond and sat down, his arm still around her shoulders.
“They were fighting.” He brought his ankle to rest on his other knee.
“Do you know why?” she whispered, staring at a lone duck as it swam in circles.
“Yeah. Well, sort of. Matt started hollering that Nate had taken advantage of you by pushing you into having sex with him too soon.”
Her cheeks heated, and her throat went dry. “He didn’t. I mean we didn’t.”
“That’s what Nate yelled at Matt after he punched him.”
“I can’t do this, Jake.” She pulled from his hold to lean her elbows on her knees, her face buried in her hands.
“Oh, fuck. We thought you’d say that.” He leant forward, wrapping his arm around her again.
“It’s not fair on you, on any of you. You say you’re okay with sharing me, but that’s just words. Reality isn’t so easy. I can’t be with any of you. I can’t split you up.” She didn’t lift her head, tears dripping into her hands.
“You won’t,” he whispered it urgently, his mouth close to her ear. “You aren’t splitting us up. Those two morons are the problem, not you. They’ve never had to share anything, not space, not toys, not clothes, they don’t know how to share.”
“Sharing me and sharing toys isn’t exactly the same thing.”
“No, of course not. We didn’t mean you’re a possession to us. What we meant was they aren’t seeing the bigger picture yet. Matt is focusing on something which, to be frank, is none of his business.”
“It is his business. I’m his girl too, or I’m supposed to be.”
“No, it’s not. When you’re with Nate, you’re with Nate. When you’re with us, you’re with us, not them. They need to respect that.”
“Jake, answer me honestly, please.” She turned her head to watch his eyes. “How would you feel if I told you I had sex with Nate?”
Drawing a deep breath, he lifted his hand to touch her cheek with his fingertips. “We, I wouldn’t think about it.”
“But if you did?”
“I wouldn’t.” He held her gaze. “Yeah, I want to be your first. So does Joshua, we all do. Obviously, that isn’t going to happen, but you’ll still be my first.”
“I don’t think this is just about firsts,” she whispered, another tear dripping down her cheek.
He wiped it away. “Please, don’t give up on us yet. Let them get their heads on straight.”
“It’s because their heads are on straight that they have a problem. If I was to reverse this, put myself in their position? If I had to share you with another girl? I couldn’t do it, I’d want to kill her.”
“You can’t reverse this.” Josh crouched in front of them, startling Lily. She hadn’t seen him coming up to them. “You can’t reverse this because you don’t have what we have. You don’t have another part of yourself. You haven’t grown up glued to your cousins. You don’t have a sister, Lily. You can’t even begin to imagine the bond between the four of us, because you’ve never had it.”
“But they’re fighting.”
“Well, not now they aren’t. Matt has stomped off to sulk at his place, and Nate has locked himself in his room,” Josh said.
Lily groaned unhappily. “See? This isn’t going to work. I’m coming between them.”
“You aren’t coming between them. This isn’t the first time they’ve argued and it sure as hell won’t be the last. It’s not the first time Matt has sulked or Nate’s stomped off. Hell, even we’ve argued with them a few times. We argue, Lily, we’re bonded, not fucking perfect.”
“Oi! Speak for yourself,” Jake said.
“Well, yeah, we’re perfect, but they sure as hell aren’t.”
Lily chuckled despite herself, and Jake kissed the side of her head.
“They need to talk this through and that won’t happen until Nate descends from his high horse and Matt stops sulking. But they will.”
“And if they can’t agree?”
“Won’t happen,” Jake insisted. “They always sort it out.”
“They’ve never had something like this before,” Lily pointed out.
“No, but they know what’s at stake. They’re idiots, no denying that, but they aren’t complete imbeciles.” Jake snorted.
“What’s at stake?”
“You.” Jake shook her shoulder gently.
“They know if they want to keep you, they have to work it out,” Josh added.
“But they shouldn’t have to!”
“You don’t think much of yourself. And you think way too highly of them.” Josh moved to sit beside her, wrapping his arm around her waist.
“We’re right,” Jake agreed. “You are worth it. We knew this was going to happen, we even warned them but, well, you know what an arrogant asshole Nate can be. And Matt’s a dreamer, head in the bloody clouds.”
She leant back, breaking their hold on her. “It’s just too much. Everything is in the air with Jonas and Drew. Mum’s going ballistic because I won’t take the tablets or stop seeing Drew. Now this has happened.”
“C’mon, let’s go out. Just the three of us. We’ve got your present anyway. We’ll leave them to it. They’ll come around, Lil, you’ll see.”
“Will you borrow the Land Rover?” She wasn’t sure it was a good idea to ask Matt.
“Nah, we’ve got better transport than that old banger. C’mon.” Josh stood up and held out his hand. She took it and let him pull her to her feet. Jake got up and took her other hand.
She wasn’t sure it was going to be okay. She wasn’t sure of anything. Her heart hurt. Her head throbbed. Her mother thought she was evil. Her father could be lying, and she was about to lose the best thing to ever happen to her. Her boys.
