More embarrassed than I’d ever been in my life, I scurried around him as fast as my feet could carry me and was out the door before he could say another word. But not before I heard the sound of a high-pitched, whiny, female voice drawl, “What was her deal? Littlefreak.”
I’d never heard Graham’s laugh, so I couldn’t be sure whether or not he joined in with the rest of his friends as they all had a good chuckle at my expense. I told myself it didn’t matter what they thought about me as I ducked into The Gallows with the pizza box, calling out to Aunt Colette as I moved through the maze of cluttered shelves. It did matter, of course, but there wasn’t much I could do about it.
Aunt Colette could likely tell there was something on my mind, but she didn’t push me to share. She distracted me instead. By the second slice, she had me laughing at crazy stories about her tenure with an Aboriginal shaman in the Australian outback, and an unfortunate incident with a kangaroo that had tears of utter hilarity leaking from both our eyes.
As we walked home that night, cutting across Salem Common toward Aunt Colette’s stately, three-story colonial on Washington Square, I reminded myself that Graham was eighteen. He’d be off to college in the fall and even if he came back to visit his family on breaks, since I was only ever in Salem for the summers, there was a good chance our paths wouldn’t cross again. I’d probably never see perfect Graham Graves again in my life.
* * *
I was wrong about that,too.
I would see him again, but not for a very long time. Not for almost a decade. And that time — two years ago almost to the day, in fact — would change my perception of him forever. It would, in a single stroke, flip the coin of my affections from idolized infatuation to irreversible detestation so completely, and so quickly, the shift nearly gave me whiplash. I would walk away from the encounter finally,finally, cured of my stale childhood crush and delivered, without mercy, into a state of sheer, unadulterated loathing the likes of which I’d never felt before in my twenty-plus years on the planet.
It didn’t help matters that I’d only recently moved back to town. That I’d endured some big losses that instigated said move, and was still finding my footing in their aftermath. That my grief was so thick, it seemed to coat my skin, to fill up my lungs until just breathing was a chore, until dragging my body out of bed each morning felt like a Herculean task. Even now, two years on, there were days the dulling film of mourning still followed me around like my own personal raincloud. Yes, they were rarer — a blip in my otherwise sunny existence — but not gone for good.
That night, though, the night Florence convinced me to come out for a drink, I was still in the thick of it. Still consumed by it. Still letting it eat me alive, body and soul.
It’ll be fun, Flo assured me on the phone.And you need some fun, Gwennie. I’ll introduce you to Desmond, my new guy! He’s pretty great. So are his friends. A few of them recently moved back to town, just like you.
If I’d known who she intended to introduce me to, I would’ve stayed at home with my demons. But I was trying to be a good sport, a good friend. So I did my best to scrape together an autumn-chic outfit, fluffed my limp auburn curls into something resembling style, and walked the ten minutes from Aunt Colette’s colonial on the Common into the heart of downtown.
The bar Flo picked wasn’t far from The Gallows, and I found it easily enough. The wood shingle over the door was shaped like a cauldron and readWITCHES BREW TAVERNin old-fashioned gold lettering. When I stepped through the front doors into the cozy space, I liked it instantly. It had a neighborhood pub feel. A homey atmosphere, despite its fairly large size. There was a band playing cover songs on a small stage in the corner, a stately, circular bar made of hammered copper at the center, and a shoulder-to-shoulder crowd waiting for drinks.
I weaved a path through the mass of strangers, looking for Florence’s dark glossy hair, and eventually spotted her at a table near the stage. She was standing with a small group of people, a mix of girls and guys around my age, with her side tucked tight against a lanky, bookish blond guy I assumed must be Desmond, her new boyfriend.
She didn’t spot me as I walked up. Her eyes were fixed on the man standing across from her. His back — which I couldn’t help noticing was particularly broad and muscular, even beneath the cool-as-heck vintage leather jacket he was sporting — was to me and he was speaking.
As soon as I heard his voice, I stopped in my tracks.
I knew that voice.
It had been years, but I knew that voice.
“—better not be your idea of another blind date, Flo, so help me god. I know she’s your friend and she’s new to town, so I’ll be nice tonight. But don’t expect a repeat performance.”
“You should be so lucky,” Flo said, narrowing her eyes at him. “She’s beautiful and she’s smart — not something you can say for many of your exes.”
“Uh huh.”
“Why are you such a jackass, Graham? Would it kill you to be kind? She needs kind, right now. She’s going through a hard time.”
I stiffened, hating her sympathetic words. Hating that I couldn’t even deny them. Iwasgoing through a hard time. The hardest one I’d ever had, to be honest, and that was really saying something after a childhood like mine.
“She just inherited an occult shop here in town. She’s in the process of renovating it,” Flo continued, only to be interrupted by Graham.
“An occult shop? Are you fucking kidding me? Jesus Christ, she doesn’t need kindness — she needs her head examined.”
I was already stiff but, at this, my spine went ramrod.
“Shut up, Graham!” Flo glared at him, elbowing her boyfriend in hopes he would wade in. Desmond shrugged helplessly and took a sip of his beer instead.
“Don’t look at me like I kicked your puppy, Flo. You know how I feel about that supernatural shit.” Graham scoffed, the sound brimming with condescension. “I mean, really… just what this town needs. Another freak of nature.”
Aunt Colette’s face flashed behind my eyes and my hands curled into fists at my sides. Aunt Colette, who loved her store more than anything. Aunt Colette, who’d left that store to me whensheleft me, four months prior, a loss so unexpected, it damn near crippled me.
She was not a freak of nature.
She was my home.