by Keary Taylor
I just wanted him to stand up for himself.
I wanted him to make them stop.
Because I knew what he was capable of. I knew the power he possessed. I knew he could do terrible things to them.
Not only that, but he was a far better person than them.
He was kind and smart and clever.
I would fight for him.
But I wanted him to fight by my side.
So that night, I quietly sat at dinner with Dad, just the two of us. He asked me repeatedly if something was wrong. I told him that I just needed to think through some things. So, he changed the subject and asked about our progress with learning magic. I didn’t mind telling him about that. We talked about fire-starting and transforming. We talked about history and the few details he’d managed to dig up about a witch hunt in Indonesia.
My father couldn’t really help with resurrecting magic.
But he could be there for me to help me process everything I had to handle. He could be an outlet, and that was exactly what I needed then. A distraction.
I went to bed that night, only to stare up at the ceiling for two hours.
Chapter Fourteen
Maybe Nathaniel understood me better than I gave him credit for.
He gave me my space over the next six days. He didn’t push me. He didn’t try to apologize. He let me deal with my thoughts, and I assumed he was doing the same.
We passed each other in the halls. We gave side glances in the library.
But we didn’t seek each other out.
Unfortunately, that meant David and the Society Boys thought they saw an opportunity.
One day a bouquet of flowers was waiting on my desk when I arrived in Latin.
There was a box of fancy chocolates from Paris on my desk during Writing another day.
I found an expensive purse and custom stationary on my doorstep one night.
None of them had a note or a name from the sender. But it was no question who they came from, which is exactly why he didn’t claim them.
David saw that Nathaniel and I were on rocky ground and was taking his opportunity.
When we both walked into the school at the same time, David held the door open for me. When I walked from one building to the other for my class, he held an umbrella over my head to shield me from the rain.
He even started talking to my father in the halls, laughing and making jokes.
I never said one word. I never acknowledged his presence.
But he persisted.
How did he know? He said he could tell I was a powerful woman. But how could he really know that? Because I’d stood up to him? Because I wasn’t scared of him and his Society Boys?
I was a powerful woman.
I had incredible potential.
But he had no idea what kind.
So why me? Why was he so fixated on having me by his side?
As the days stretched on, my heart started to hurt when I walked down the halls and my eyes met Nathaniel’s.
We hadn’t solved any of our problems. Nathaniel and I were both stubborn. We were both who we were. Was either of us ever going to get over this and make things right?
Until something clicked, until one of us figured out how to change something, we were stuck.
We were in a bad place, but I couldn’t stand the thought of him being alone for Thanksgiving. He didn’t have a family. The day would come, and he would be sitting alone in his solarium, eating some cheap meal out of a container.
Sometimes, I could be a big person.
So, when school was over, I walked down the hall to wait a few minutes until he was out of his French class. Five minutes passed. And of course, while I waited, I saw David walking down the hall toward me.
“Big plans for Thanksgiving break?” he asked. He leaned up against the wall, mirroring my position. To his credit, he left a two-foot gap between us.
“Just staying home with my dad,” I said, refusing to look at him.
“Your father’s a fascinating man,” David said. “I could talk to my father, see if he could get him on the board at the Boston Public. He knows how to open all the doors.”
“My father’s quite happy teaching,” I said, the temperature of my blood rising slightly.
“Just an offer,” David said. “I’m here to help, Margot. Anything you need.”
Finally, I did look over at him, just so I could glare.
He met my gaze, and just smiled. “We’re headed up to the Vermont house for Thanksgiving. I’m going to miss your beautiful face. Maybe next year you’ll be coming with me.”
My mouth opened to say something nasty, but just then the door opened, and students came out of the classroom, led by Nathaniel.
I wanted to rip all of David’s teeth out, one by one, when he got a smug smile on his lips and looked from Nathaniel, back to me. He pushed off the wall and held my gaze as he walked down the hall.
I glared at him, resisting the temptation to light his coat on fire. I could do it. But it might cause a scene.
Nathaniel stepped forward but couldn’t quite meet my eyes. Everything about his body language screamed doubt and worry.
I wanted to make him feel better.
But I was still angry that all of this was going on and he still wouldn’t stand up for himself or us.
“Thanksgiving is in two days,” I said. Even though he wouldn’t fully look at me, I fixed him hard with my gaze. And everything in me ached for him. I wanted to touch him. I wanted him to touch me. I wanted his tongue in my mouth and his air filling my lungs. “I can’t stand the thought of you being alone. So, you’re coming to my house. I don’t care if things are hard and weird. I’m going to be really angry if you don’t show up. So be there. Five o’clock.”
Finally, his eyes rose up to mine. I saw a nervous boy there. But I saw a spark.
I didn’t know what it meant. I was too angry and confused to evaluate it.
So, I turned on my heel, and I walked away.
Chapter Fifteen
I was nervous.
It was Thanksgiving Day and Dad and I were in the throes of getting everything ready. And I knew. I just knew that Nathaniel wouldn’t show up at the last second to eat.
As I’d expected, there was a knock on the door an hour and a half early. I let Dad go get it. He knew Nathaniel was coming over. They chatted and seemed happy to see each other. And I didn’t look up as they came into the kitchen.
Dad put Nathaniel to work on the potatoes and then the glazed carrots. I kept working on the rolls and the cranberry sauce.
And then at five o’clock, we sat down together at the table. Dad said grace and we dished up our food.
Dad made easy conversation, talking about the coming weeks with finals and preparations for Christmas. He even eventually dragged Nathaniel and me into a gratitude monologue. I said I was grateful for a warm home. Nathaniel said he was grateful for education.
And we almost made it through without anything dramatic happening.
But I got down to my last four bites. And then Dad pounded his fists on the table, not hard, but hard enough, a knife curled into one hand, his fork in the other.
“Alright, you two,” Dad said, fixing us with a serious look. “I know neither of you wants to talk about what happened. But this is dragging on long enough. I’m getting tired of you both being so miserable.”
I looked up with wide eyes, and my heart instantly started beating hard.
He was going to go there.
He was going to drag us all through the mud.
“I’ve seen both versions of Nathaniel and Margot and this latter version is ridiculous,” Dad continued. Nathaniel’s eyes slid over to meet mine and I stared at him, his expression serious. “I know I’m supposed to be all protective of my daughter and give any man interested in her a hard time, but I’ve never seen two people who were more made for each other. So, I want you both to go upstairs and hash it all out, no matter how loud or ugly it gets, and get thi
s over with. Relationships are hard. So be grown-ups, and work through this.”
Dad leaned back in his seat and set to cutting into a piece of turkey. He kept his eyes down and chewed on his bite with vigor like he hadn’t just reamed us both.
Nathaniel and I looked at each other, sitting there ramrod straight.
“Now, please,” Dad said, a bit of a sharp edge to his voice.
I blinked twice, shocked at my father’s abrupt attitude.
But I pushed my chair back, as did Nathaniel. And silently and awkwardly, we left the dining room. He followed me up the stairs. My hands grew slick with sweat as I reached for my doorknob. My heart was racing.
We stepped inside, and I closed the door behind us.
I walked to the window, my arms folded over my chest. I stared out at the snow that was beginning to fall softly on the school grounds.
“I don’t want it to be like this between us,” I said, stating it as a fact, in case he didn’t realize.
Nathaniel didn’t say anything, and I really wanted him to say something. I looked back at him, and I knew it for sure, that I was glaring.
“David Sinclair has been pursuing me hard. He’s a shark and he smells my blood in the water,” I said. Nathaniel was looking at the books on my shelf, lined up in no organized manner. “He thinks we’d be a good match.”
“And what do you think, Margot?” he asked. Finally, his eyes at least met mine.
“I think he’s an arrogant asshole,” I said as the temperature of my blood rose a few degrees. “I think he’s used to getting what he wants, and this is turning into a game to him. He saw an opportunity because everything is all messed up between us, and he thinks he’s going to wear me down.”
“Is he right?” Nathaniel asked.
The heat in me flared. I took a step forward and I shoved Nathaniel a little. “No, he’s not right. Because I’m just heart broken and waiting. But I can appreciate that he’s not hesitating. That he’s going after what he wants. Nathaniel, I just…” I turned away from him, my hands rising into my hair.
I faced the wall, but I wasn’t seeing anything. I was replaying every scene between Nathaniel and the Society Boys.
“You could literally kill any of them by hardly lifting a finger,” I said with my back turned to him. “You’re capable of so much. And you let them walk all over you.”
“We are good together, Margot,” Nathaniel’s words slipped from him in a breath. They wrapped their way around my entire body, and I was instantly ensnared by them. “But you don’t know everything about me. You’ll never fully understand where I come from, Margot, not one hundred percent. You don’t know that all the times I did stand up for myself, all the fights I got myself into, all the times it landed me in juvenile detention, and it didn’t get me anything.”
I started to understand the scars covering his body. The ones I’d seen on his back. The ones I could clearly see across his knuckles, the one just over his left eyebrow.
“I can defend myself, Margot,” he said. He raised his hands up and let his hands curl into fists. And there, I saw the white scars stand out even sharper. His hands were covered in scars. “I could beat all of them to a bloody pulp. I once took on three boys who were four years older than me, because they were picking on me, and landed us all in the emergency room. When I was twelve, I got into a fight with a seventeen-year-old. We beat each other within an inch of our lives. I had to have a blood transfusion because I lost so much. I spent two years in juvenile detention. I learned ways to survive in there that you couldn’t even imagine.”
My heart was racing, and it jumped all the way into my throat when he pulled his shirt up and over his head. He let it drop to the ground.
His hand rose to a thick scar just under his right pectoral. “You’d be shocked what can be done with a toothbrush.” His eyes rose to meet mine. “And I stabbed the other guy four times with my spoon before the guards could pull me off of him.”
My eyes widened and my blood went colder as I pictured it all. Nathaniel fighting, every day of his life as he grew up. I imagine the violence in the group homes. The police he must have dealt with. The things he had to learn when he was locked up to defend himself.
“I got into a fight my junior year of high school,” Nathaniel said. “I’d been trying to stay out of trouble that year. But some guys wouldn’t leave me alone about being foster trash. I lost my cool. And it didn’t go beyond fists and a couple of stitches. But my school counselor came to me and told me if I screwed up one more time I would be tried as an adult. Next time, it would be hard prison time with a longer sentence. And I’d never get out of the system.”
I couldn’t stop looking at him, in an entirely new light. There were dozens of scars over his whole body. Before, I’d thought he’d been the victim of abuse. And he had been. But it had also taught him to fight for his life.
Nathaniel could defend himself against the Society Boys. But at what cost?
“So, I vowed to stop it all,” Nathaniel continued. I saw something haunted in his eyes then. I saw his past. I saw the pain, but I also saw the anger he’d let control and protect him for so long. “I focused on school. I kept my head low. I took a few blows. And I worked my ass off to bring my grades up to perfection so I could get out.”
He took a step forward, but we were still half a room apart. “I won’t fight David and his boys because I don’t know what will happen if I open that door again. I don’t know who I’ll be. I’m sorry it makes you angry, and I’m sorry if I’m disappointing you, but if that’s the kind of man you want me to be again, Margot, I just won’t do it.”
Emotions pricked the back of my eyes. My lower lip trembled a little bit. I was angry. I was angry at myself for not understanding. I was angry for the way I was acting.
I took a step forward, and gently, I brought my fingers up to touch one of the scars that ran across his chest.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and the words trembled just as much as my lip did. “I’m sorry I was disappointed and angry with you. And I’m sorry David keeps picking on you.”
I stared at his chest, because I had a hard time meeting his eyes then.
“But I can’t just stand there and take their shit,” I said. And then I did look up at him. “I have a temper of my own and I can’t stand bullies. So, when they act like they do, I can’t not say anything.”
I took a steadying breath, and I held Nathaniel’s eyes. “I understand now, why you couldn’t do what I wanted. And I’ll never ask you to be different than you are again. But I also need you to not try and stop me when I need to call them out on their shit. When I might need to get into fights of my own.”
Something lightened in Nathaniel’s eyes then. He lifted a hand and covered mine with his, pressing my palm into his bare chest.
“So, we’re in agreement?” he asked. I liked the way his chest rumbled with his words. “You won’t get angry when I don’t react to the Society Boys, because I don’t want to kill any of them? And I won’t try and stop you when you need to put them in their place?”
I took half a step closer and I couldn’t resist when my eyes fell to his lips. “Exactly,” I said softly as I nodded.
“I can handle that,” he said, his words getting quieter. His other hand rose to lace his fingers into my hair.
“Deal,” I said.
And neither of us waited one moment longer. Our lips were on each other in the next breath.
The kiss was desperate. We’d both been starving and withering away for weeks now. We needed each other like we needed air, like we needed water. My hand rose all the way up his bare chest, which ignited a string of fireworks all down my body. My hand rose up into his hair, which had grown longer and a little wilder in the past few weeks.
I smiled a little against his lips.
“What?” he asked, smiling as well.
I shook my head. “Nothing. I just happen to like your hair like this.”
He smiled too, huffing a tin
y little laugh into my mouth.
Greedily, his hands slid down to my hips and he lifted me clean off the ground. My legs wrapped around his waist, and everything in me screamed more, more, more. Like I weighed nothing at all, Nathaniel walked with me wound around his body to the bed before he tipped onto it, his body pressing mine down into the mattress.
My tongue sought his out. My neck extended, my head falling back as his lips moved to my jaw and then down to the hollow beneath my ear. My back arched as his hands ran down my leg. And I couldn’t stop touching him. There was so much bare skin under my hands, and I couldn’t get enough. I needed more, needed to feel him.
After weeks of deprivation, I was nearly insane with need.
“Margot,” Nathaniel breathed into my mouth, even as his hips ground heavenly into mine. “I missed you so much. Never, ever again.”
I nodded as his kiss trailed down to my collar bones. “Never.”
My eyes drifted open. And I instantly froze.
Every single book in my bedroom was floating. And every bit of earth—flowers, specks of dirt, and my entire wood desk and nightstand—were lifted off the ground at least a foot.
A curse slipped from my mouth, and everything related to earth came crashing back down to the ground.
With Nathaniel’s start, all the paper came back down too. About thirty books clattered back to their space.
The two of us shot straight up, staring around at my bedroom in bewildered wonder.
“What in Zeus’ name?” my father’s voice called as he ran up the stairs. He didn’t even knock. He stepped through my bedroom door, looking around for the source of the noise, noting that everything was in slight disarray.
And then he looked at Nathaniel and me. In my bed, Nathaniel with no shirt.
“I might want you two to make up,” he said, glaring a little darkly. “But I’m not exactly looking to become a grandfather just yet.”
Instantly, Nathaniel climbed off the bed and scrambled to pull his shirt back on over his head. “My apologies, Professor Bell.”
My dad just huffed a laugh. He shook his head. “Professor Bell. I think by this point you can call me Arthur.”