When We Were Magic Sarah Gailey (each kindness read aloud .TXT) 📖

Her fingers slide back across my cheekbone, along my neck, her thumb brushing my earlobe.

And then she’s kissing me.

Her hand is in my hair, and her mouth is on mine, and our eyes are closed and I can taste the tip of her tongue, soft and a little sweet. She’s kissing me, Paulie is kissing me, and I’m kissing her back, and she shifts her weight a little and drops my hand and grips my waist and it’s good, it’s so good but—

It’s wrong.

I pull back and keep my eyes closed. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. It’s the worst thing I could say, but it’s also the only thing I could say.

“I’m not,” Paulie whispers. I open my eyes and she’s a few inches from my face, smiling like she can’t help but smile. She leans forward to kiss me again and I let her because I’m a bad person, because it feels good and because I like it a lot when she kisses me. I let her kiss my mouth, and I let her trail kisses along my jaw to my throat, and I press my lips to her collarbone. Because I’m weak. Because it’s easy to give in when someone makes you feel good. And oh god, she feels good, and her hands and her mouth feel good, and her thigh is sliding between mine and her hair is in my hands—

But then my back is against the blanket Paulie brought, and I have to stop because it’s wrong. What I’m doing is wrong.

“I can’t do this,” I whisper against Paulie’s hair.

“Yes you can,” she whispers against the bent-back cup of my bra.

“No, I mean—I can’t do this,” I say again. “I’m sorry. This is—”

She looks up at me, her thumb pausing just below the undone-button of my jeans, her hair tousled in a way that makes my breath catch in my throat. “Please,” she says. “I know I’m not the one you want, but—I need this right now.”

I take a deep slow breath, and my conscience battles with the feeling of her breath against me. I could do it. I could make this decision with Paulie, a choice we both know is a bad one. Not bad because of what it is, but bad because of who it is. Her eyes search mine, and in that frozen moment, I can feel the tug of the wrong decision, pulling at me like a tide.

I could do it. I could sleep with Paulie, and it would be great, and I wouldn’t even start to feel guilty until the next time I saw the person I really wanted.

I could do it.

But I won’t. She deserves better than that from me.

I scoot out from under her. She sighs and sits up, leaning her back against the tree stump and scrubbing her hands across her face.

“I’m sorry,” I start to say, but she holds up a hand.

“Don’t,” she says. “I know.”

“No, I—it’s not you,” I say, and I feel like a cliché, like an idiot. “Honestly. You’re amazing, and I would totally—I would be so into this. I really would. But it wouldn’t be right. I made this mistake with Josh.” I bite my lip too hard, flinch, keep talking. The words come fast. “I think that using him like that, and lying to him about being okay with it, I think that’s what made my magic go all crazy. I think that’s why he died. And I wouldn’t feel right about using you the way I was using him. I don’t know if you would get hurt the same way, I mean. I don’t know if you would get hurt physically? But it was wrong, the way I used him. Even if you would survive it, I couldn’t do that to you.”

“Yeah,” Paulie says. “I get it. I’m great, but I’m not her. This isn’t news.”

The words take a second to sink in. “Wait, what?”

“I’m not Roya,” Paulie says. She runs her hands through her hair and grimaces at the pomade that comes away on her palms. She wipes them on the dry grass at the edge of the blanket. “It’s okay. I shouldn’t have put you in that position.”

I half smile. “It was a pretty decent position to be in,” I say, and she lets out a grim laugh. “Wait, so—how do you know about me and … ? I mean, not that there is a me and Roya, but how did you know that I—”

“That you’re fucking crazy about her?” Paulie asks. “Are you looking for a reason other than ‘It’s the most obvious thing in the goddamn world’?”

“Yes … ?” I fidget with the blanket. “But we don’t have to talk about it. Paulie, I’m really sorry if I gave you the idea that—”

“You didn’t,” she says sharply. “I just … Things are really fucked up right now and I needed an outlet, okay? It didn’t mean anything.” I flinch, stung, and she revises quickly. “I don’t mean it that way. I just mean—look, I’m not heartbroken that you said no, okay?”

I can’t tell if I believe her or not. It would be so egotistical to think that she was desperately in love with me or whatever, but also, I don’t want to go the easy route and take her at her word. I want to trust her, but I don’t want to do the wrong thing if she doesn’t really mean what she said. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do. I hate this.

“Really,” she adds, scooting closer to me and draping an arm around my shoulder. “I just thought you looked really hot and I was getting a little bit of a vibe and the coyote thing was awesome and I thought maybe we’d have fun. But I don’t want to do anything that will leave you feeling guilty or messed up. And our friendship is more important than how great of a kisser I am.” She plants a very wet kiss