Some of them Witches

Chapter 27

"Who's Nathan?" Virginia asked as soon as Marianne opened the door to Hometree. She was sitting at the window seat, the idyllic frame of magenta flowers doing nothing to soften her hardened expression.

"Violet just couldn't wait to tell you, huh?"

"That I'm the last to know?"

"It's not like I had a way to talk to you," said Marianne, hanging her keys on their little hook by the door and removing her shoes. "You made sure of that."

"Violet told me he spent the night here."

Shit. Marianne leaned back against her kitchenette countertop, hands folding over her chest defensively. "He's Miller's brother. He came over after what happened at the rally to check on me and after all that I really didn't want to be by myself."

"So you fucked him?" Virginia's expression was serene but the tone of her voice was razor-sharp.

"And if I did? You left me. Through a fucking text message I might add." The anger came back so naturally.

"That gave you the right to bring him here?"

Marianne felt each word land like a stone. Miller was right. This place was not hers. "Guess I got too comfortable and forgot whose house this is."

Virginia looked baffled. "Do not turn this around on me. This isn't about whose name is on what."

"Then what is it about?"

"This is our home. I may have felt it and started it before I met you, but-- if this place is where I belong, it's because it's ours, and I thought you felt the same."

"Then why did you leave?" asked Marianne.

"I told you."

"I would have come with you."

"I know."

"I thought you weren't ever coming back."

"So did I."

"I thought you were dead and every day, instead of waiting for you, I was actually waiting for someone to say it. That there was no other way you'd leave me," divulged Marianne.

"I tried. You even saw me try." Her voice was so tired.

"Oh, Vee."

"Why didn't you tell me before?"

"I was going to tell you after you were more settled in. Nothing happened, really. It didn't mean anything."

"You thought I wouldn't come back with you."

Fuck. "That's not true."

"Look, I'm not crazy. I'm not saying you cheated on me or that I don't deserve this but you show up out of nowhere and use your-- your goddamn--" she waved a frantic hand generally toward Marianne, "you know what, and then you go on and on about your magical conundrum but I thought-- I really thought it was actually about us and now I see I was wrong because you seem to be getting along just fine without me."

"That's not true," she repeated. But it was, in part. Once Marianne found out Virginia and Violet were still in communication, it was as though she had flipped a switch. If the only thing that could hurt Marianne more than Virginia leaving was her moving on, then she would beat her to it. She would not wallow and whither away. She would prosper in spite of her. The entire thing felt like walking on glass, but to go after Virginia and find her happy without her would have been to swallow it. Though it frightened her to no end, there was no denying that seeing the state Virginia was in when she found her had been a kind of relief. Marianne had now succeeded in hurting Virginia in exactly the way she herself feared being hurt and there was no way to take it back.