Hallow's: Witch's Brew

Twelve

Joji- Slow Dancing In The Dark

"What is that supposed to mean?" he grins. 

"I made your lasagna from scratch, Noah. I have six cookbooks. Two vegan ones. Two specific to pasta. And my favorite are the two volumes on grilling. Working on the third. I wasn't allowed to practice potions and spell prep for eight years," 

"Right, I remember that being a part of your sentence," 

"Yes, so the only other way to channel that urge was by cooking. I had a cooking show for a while. It's called Inside The Cauldron with Gaz Taylor. I traveled all over to cook some of the rarest dishes in the world. Ben was working on Clipped Wings two at the time and I kind of hated being around his co-star. She was stuck up as fuck," 

"Was he sleeping with her?" 

"No, he was sleeping with the director at the time. Jenna Reed," 

"Why were you okay with that?" he glares at me. I laugh loving the judgment. He's so cynical. 

"I wasn't," I sit at the bottom of the stairs. "When I was twenty-three I developed something called PCOS. Cysts in my ovaries. I ate a lot of candy and I was always fucking tired. My skin was gross. I had dark hair growing on my face. No amount of lasering got rid of it. I spent a lot of time alone. And had no sex drive. The idea grossed me out. 

"Debra, his publicist put me on a strict diet and shit only got worse for me. I got really depressed. I stopped eating altogether and I used work to stay out of the eye of the public. Ben tried to help me, but I didn't want to be helped. I got kidney stones and I was hospitalized for a bit. 

"And then I met my assistant Dean. He was a nurse at the hospital where I was being treated and he came home with me. He and his eccentric husband brought me back to life. I hadn't had real friends in a long time and they're fucking awesome. 

"Ben apologized and swore he'd never do it again. I didn't believe him, but I felt better. I started doing more and we were good. It felt like we were getting back to us. But I didn't find him... appealing anymore. I haven't been turned on by anyone and the fact that he slept with all these other women just didn't sit well with me. 

"I blamed it on the medication and the diet change but our relationship had been over for years. I just didn't want to admit it. My last attempt to save us was to give him what he wanted. I cleared the birth control and started IVF treatment and his response was fucking terrible. I knew I was never going to forgive him for that. So, here I am," 

"You two looked so happy on the cover of magazines," 

"None of that shit is real," I scoff. "The last cover of Vogue we did, I hadn't spoken to him in weeks before it. I barely spoke to him during the shoot. Debra wrote the answers to that entire interview. I wasn't even there for it," 

"Fuck," he shakes his head. "I mean what happened? You two were so close," 

"We were. We did everything together. But, I always wanted more and he wanted me to be home all the time. He wanted a trophy wife. Someone who he could control and I wasn't it. He changed so much. He forgot where he came from. His dad did too. If it wasn't a brand name or something Brad Pitt had they acted like it was beneath them. 

"I always had to dress a certain way. I always had to be two steps behind him. His image became everything and I didn't care for it despite having everything I did. He thought buying me a twelve thousand dollar bracelet would make up for him sleeping with his assistant. I don't know. Shit just got weird. We grew up," 

"It does seem like it," he smirks. I flip him off. 

"What about you? Tell me about Natalie," 

"You're not upset?" he asks.