Neon Blue E Frost (speld decodable readers .TXT) 📖

I lie there with my palms and cheek pressed against the cool floor until it soothes the pain enough for me to fall back to sleep.

As I drift into darkness, I feel my Dala’s cold, ephemeral hand on my hair, soothing me the way she did when I was a child.

All I’ve left myself are ghosts.

Chapter 36

My very corporeal business partner is very pissed off when I show up well after noon the next day and tell her that Jou and I have broken-up, so we won’t be able to make dinner. She presses her lips together as she takes in my appearance. I’ve wrapped and covered my burned arms, after my stomach rejected both healing potions I tried to take. My time in the Earth healed the cuts on my chest. But I know the wounds from last night are showing. Under her scrutiny, I scratch my hair self-consciously. It feels lank, greasy. I need a shower. But I have no energy to take one, and I fear the touch of water on the burns. Finally, she says, “I’m here when you want to talk about it.”

I nod gratefully.

She rises out of the guest chair in my office. “I’m not sure where you’re hurt, but your aura is fucked nine ways to Sunday. Do you need me to drive you to the hospital?”

“No. I’ll brew myself a healing potion.” I can do more for myself than any gorgio doctor. Or I could if I could brew. My healing magic seems to have deserted me at the moment. All I can smell and taste is ozone. Maybe that’s the price for abusing my Element the way I did last night.

Lin pauses at the door and looks at me. “Zee, I know you hate anything that smells like pity, but I really am here. Whatever you need, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Some needle-time couldn’t hurt you.”

Yes, it could, because the needles open me up, and everything is too raw right now. “After the weekend, huh? I think I just need to get some rest.”

“Go home. I’ll cover for you for the rest of the day. All four hours of it,” she says with a glance at the clock on my office wall.

I decide I’m not going to get anything useful done, and take the escape route she’s offered me.

Home holds no comfort. It’s cold and empty. He’s not there. Not that I want him to be, but, still, he’s not. My hearth room is in tatters, and I don’t have the energy to repair it. Even my cauldron’s been knocked to the ground. I’ll have to purify and mount it all over again. I can’t face that now.

I wander around my house like a ghost. I can’t settle anywhere. Can’t rest. Finally I pull on my jacket and high-tops and walk into Porter Square. A breeze blows my hair around my face, but all I smell is smoke. There’s no Air.

Without Borders, or even Starbucks, there’s not much hope of good coffee in Porter Square and finally I resign myself to Dunkin Donuts. The press of sugar-high donut-eaters in the store is too much for me and I take my Styrofoam cup back outside and find a seat on the brick wall circling the entrance to the T.

I sip the hot coffee and look around blearily. A troop of kids in brown and yellow uniforms pass me, holding hands and chattering, as they’re herded down into the T by an adult wearing a bigger version of the same ugly uniform. A mother emerging from the T struggles with her stroller. A car honks in the street beside me as a gaggle of college students cross the street against the light. Life as normal. It’s all gone on, despite everything that happened last night. Nothing I’ve done has made any difference. Not to anyone but me.

I look up to the sky to stop the tears that are gathering in my eyes from spilling.

A plane taking off from Logan powers its way up through the clouds. Without warning, without me thinking about him, the demon stirs in my mind.

You promised we’d ride the wind.

I look down, away from that bright wonder in the sky, and roll my coffee-cup between my palms. I did. I know. Jou, I’m so sorry.

I feel him settle into the same position, echoing me, holding something loosely between his hands. But I can’t see what it is, or where he is. I only know he’s not here.

Call me back, he thinks.

My vision blurs and something drips into my coffee. I wipe my eyes hastily, wishing I still had my army surplus coat instead of the leather jacket that just smears the tears instead of absorbing them.

No, I manage.

Summon me. I’ll show you how. There’s no point in this, sweetness. You’re separatin’ us for no reason—

Oh, no. There’s a very good reason. I can still feel it in the ache of my burned arms. In the ache of my heart, where the wounds of last night haven’t even begun to scab over. Fuck, no.

He’s silent for a moment. You belong with me.

Not now I don’t. Maybe not ever. But that’s a decision I get to make. No one will ever make it for me. And no one will ever bind me and force that decision on me, not ever again.

I feel him sigh. Sweetness—

Don’t. This is just tearing me apart all over again. How do you break-up with someone who is inside your head? Can you leave me alone for awhile? Please? Please, Jou?

Yeah. I’ll see you tonight.

What does that mean? I start so violently I slop coffee all over my shoes.

It means I’ll stay outta your head during the day, but at night, you’re mine. You can’t keep me outta your dreams.

I think of the Shadow Man, and wonder if I ever could.

I sigh and rise off the bench. I should go home and try another healing potion. Or at least a painkiller, since my arms are starting to