The Book at the Top of the Closet

Chapter Eighteen

"Piper?" Liam repeats. I get to my feet as he walks over toward us.

"Liam, uh, there's something we need to talk about," I say, floundering. I flash a helpless look at Wendy, and she turns to her friends.

"Can you guys give us a minute?" She's barely gotten the words out before her friends scatter, eager to get away from the awkwardness.

"If you didn't want to keep seeing me, you could've said so," Liam says.

"That isn't it at all, look, I-"

"Do you even like guys?"

"Yes, it's just....I like girls too. I mean, I like Wendy. She's the first girl I've ever...the first girl I've ever kissed." For a minute we just stand there, looking at each other. Wendy hasn't said anything else, but she hovers nearby, fidgeting and shifting from foot to foot.

"Well I don't know how you normally act when you're dating someone, but I don't just go around kissing other people," Liam says.

"I know, I don't usually- wait, are we dating?" I can't help but let hope creep into my voice.

"I thought we were!"

"Liam, I'm sorry. I should've talked to you. I honestly didn't know where we stood, and I'm figuring some things out right now and-" I'm not sure where I'm going with this, so I'm grateful when Wendy jumps in.

"Uh, hey. I don't want to mess up anything you guys have going here but... I think Piper's great. If she wants to see where this goes, with me, and with you, I don't see anything wrong with that." Her voice is strong, but she's blushing like crazy. I can't believe she's not mad at me. I know how this scene plays out in movies, and usually someone storms off by now.

Liam stands still for a moment, just looking at us and then looking off into the distance. I'm afraid he's going to just walk away when finally he speaks again. "We both want Piper to be happy, right?" Wendy nods. I wipe the sweat from my palms onto my pants. Liam keeps talking. "And this wouldn't be, we wouldn't be....like competing, right? Because I don't think I can compete with-" he breaks off, gesturing at Wendy. She blushes again.

"You wouldn't be competing. I like you for different reasons, and it's kind of hard to explain but, I don't think how I feel about one of you takes anything away from the other." I look at both of them, these two people who make my heart race, and I feel something in my chest that is more than butterflies. Lions and tigers and bears. A whole ark of stampeding feelings. It feels like forever before someone speaks again.

"I never really thought you could be with more than one person and really care about them," Liam says.

"Some people do. Some people just look at love that way, like it isn't something you can run out of. Like it's sunlight, it's a resource you won't run out of." Wendy says this with a smile, and I'm a little shocked. I know I can't be the only person on campus who's heard of polyamory, but it's still surprising to hear someone bring it up in conversation.

"Is that how you feel, Piper?" Liam asks me. I nod. "I think I need a little while to think about this. To process it. Honestly, I think I want to do some research on how other people have made this work. I'm not good at just diving into things. Is it okay if I wait a couple of days to decide how I feel about this?"

"Take your time," I say.

"Thanks. And I guess in the meantime just, maybe give me a little space, and I'll give you two space too." Liam blushes now, obviously unsure how to tell me he's okay with me picking up where I left off with Wendy when he showed up. I give him a hug, and he kisses me on the cheek, and we go our separate ways. Wendy and I pack up our picnic and head back to my room, my head still spinning and my heart still pounding.

When we get back to my place, Wendy gives me a long kiss goodbye. I'm still dizzy with that kiss when I pull out my phone and turn it back on. I brace myself for more notifications about my pictures, but that isn't what makes my breath catch. In the time since I turned my phone off I have received sixteen texts, five voicemails, and innumerable missed calls. All of them from my parents.

#

Dear Diary,

I've started coming up with my own spells. The ones I've done that I found online have all sort of worked, but I feel like there would be something really powerful in crafting a spell myself. So far I've mostly come up with spells for helping me stay awake in class when I've stayed up all night talking to Sun, or spells to get me in the right mood to paint. It's hard to be completely sure if they're working, or if believing in them is what's causing me to have the desired effect.

This morning, I tried something a little more...obvious.

I was sitting in class, and this guy was droning on and on, basically restating exactly what a female classmate just said, only making it sound like it was his original thought. Screw that guy, right? And I know there's a lot of discourse in the witch world about whether cursing is okay, but I was tired and I hadn't had my coffee and this guy was really getting on my last nerve.

So I cursed him.

I wrote in red pen on a piece of paper: "Tost, Tost, Tost." And that's the irish word for silence, by the way. Anyway I drew this little symbol underneath it. It kind of just popped into my head and ended up on the page. It was creepy, but also kind of awesome. I crumpled the paper up into a ball and chunked it at the guy. He didn't act like he noticed at all, he just kept going but then...he stopped. Like. He started coughing a little bit, and he waved his hand like he was giving us all permission to move on without him, and I would've rolled my eyes except they were basically bugging out of my head because holy shit, I made him shut up.

I shut him up.

I'm a witch.

Hell yes.

-Aria