by Nicole Thorn
I didn’t have anything to apologize for. He’d realize that when he came back to bed later. We’d talk it out like we should have.
The halls felt too empty and yet too full. Like people watched me from every angle, even when I got to the hallway with our rooms. I paced the length of it, trying to work out some of the energy boiling through me. My anger had heat searing through my chest, and my hands kept twitching. I wanted to run around. I wanted to lie down and sleep. I wanted… Zander to come upstairs so that we could fix this.
I went to our room, to that I could sit on the bed and wait for him.
A cart had been left by the bed. It had another, smaller banner strung to the front that said HALFWAY THERE in the same glitter and color. Two cloches sat on the cart, covering dishes up. I lifted the first to find cake underneath. Chocolate cake with colorful frosting that matched the banner almost exactly. I didn’t feel like eating, so I covered the cake back up, then turned to the other cloche.
A bottle sat in an ice bucket underneath. I stared at the bottle, my mouth feeling dry again. Zander used this against me. He said that I had been on the way to an early grave before him. It sounded like bullshit now. I could drink that entire bottle and nothing bad would happen.
But I don’t want to.
My hand closed around the bottle. It felt cold and my mouth turned even drier. I shouldn’t take even a sip of this drink. I’d been so good for so many months now. I’d done it, even when it felt like my entire world would implode. Even when I felt like the stress would kill me, I’d avoided taking a drink. I’d been good.
Being good is only a thing when being bad hurts someone. This won’t hurt anyone.
I pulled the bottle out of the ice and stared at it. It had a twist cork like a champagne bottle would have. It would be easy to remove, and then the drink would just be waiting for me.
No.
I twisted the string and the cork came flying out. The smell of the alcohol burrowed into my nose, whispering at me.
I took a sip.
An hour later, I laid sideways on the bed, the room spinning around me, laughing and drinking the last bottle that I’d found in the minifridge. Every bit of alcohol had ambrosia in it, and I felt the effect buzzing in my veins, getting me drunker. I loved it. I’d missed this feeling so much that I couldn’t believe I’d gone so long without it. I’d never felt truly happy like I did right then.
Someone knocked on the door, and I jumped, falling off the bed and giggling, out of control.
“Jasmine?” a familiar voice asked, sounding concerned.
I laughed at that, too. Concerned. Hilarious.
“Can I come in?”
“I don’t know,” I slurred. “Can you?” I fell to my side, smiling goofily. The room spun around me in lazy circles, but it didn’t matter. Zander would be back soon, and I’d fuck him. Then I’d go to sleep, wake up fine, and maybe I’d get something else to drink in the morning. Something that wouldn’t get me so drunk but just keep me happy all day. I missed being happy.
The door opened, and I heard Jasper’s sad, sad voice. He didn’t understand happy, not the way that I understood happy. “Oh no…” he said.
“Why so blue?” I asked, sitting up again and then falling over. Trying to sit up at the same time that you tried to stand didn’t work out well. I giggled some more, flopping around, collapsing against the bed. “Blue is bad. Blue is sad. Go for happy. What’s happy? Yellow!” I shouted this while pointing at him.
Jasper blurred in my vision. I couldn’t quite see his face, which reminded me of the thousands of other times I stared at him through bleary eyes. He still looked so, so sad. Like an upside-down puppy.
I used the bed to push myself up, onto my feet. They wanted to go out from under me, but I didn’t let them. I was a goddess and goddesses didn’t fall over, even when they had an entire minifridge. “Why are you sad?” I asked, each word a struggle to get out. I stumbled forward and would have fallen down, but Jasper caught me. He was a good brother like that.
His arms tightened around me as he sat me down in a chair. “Jasmine,” he said, shaking his head.
“You sound wrong. Jazzy,” I said, putting my finger on his chest. “You’re s’posed to call me… Jazzy.”
He dragged his hands down his face, still with that heartbroken expression. “It’s okay,” I said. “It can’t hurt me now. Imma goddess. Nothin’ can hurt me now.”
“No,” he said. “No, Jasmine, that’s not true.”
I stared at him. Jasper loved me so much. He’d gone through so many terrible things to make sure that I never got hurt. He’d been a good brother. The best brother. He’d been so happy when I got sober. Everyone had been happy when I got sober. “Things can… still hurt me?” I asked, confused.
He pushed his hands through his hair. “I came upstairs because Zander seems off. I thought maybe something happened.”
“Zander’s stupid!” I said. “He tried to take credit for me getting better and then he said I wanted to push you away. I don’t need him! I don’t need you, either!”
Jasper winced. “You think… you think you’re better?”
“You don’t?” I asked.
He just stared at me.
My stomach lurched. Again, if not for Jasper, I would have made a fool of myself. He held the trashcan under my mouth while I threw up. Three times. When it ended, I slumped to the floor, curling up on my side. Jasper used a rag to clean my face off while I tried to stop shaking. “I’m better…” I mumbled. “I’ve gotten better. Right? I’m better? Jasper?”
“No,” he said, looking down at me. “No, Jasmine. You’re not better. I don’t know what happened between you and Zander. I don’t know what’s going through your head, but you’re not better.”
“I didn’t try to push you away,” I said. “You were a buzz kill, always trying to temper my fun, but I didn’t try to push you away. You got control of your powers before me, but I didn’t try to push you away. And Juni! I didn’t push her away, either. She woulda held me back, but I didn’t push her away. I love her, and she got cool powers too, but I didn’t try to push her away. I never tried to push you away.”
Jasper lowered his head, staring down at his shoes. He still looked so heartbroken, because… because…
The first clear thought since my first sip of ambrosia broke through. Perhaps my body had finally started to process the alcohol.
“I disappointed you,” I slurred, still swaying.
Jasper had his eyes closed and his head lowered. “It’s okay, Jazzy. Let’s just get you into bed.”
“No! I can do it on my own. I can do everything on my own! I don’t need you!”
He looked me right in the eyes. “I think you do, Jazzy.”
I did need him. I needed all of them, but I’d only disappoint them. Just like I’d disappointed Jasper. I’d disappoint everyone because even as a goddess, I’d never be the right amount of cheerful, helpful, or anything. I’d never be what they needed me to be because I didn’t bring anything to the table but that cheer. I never had.
I burst into tears.
Zander
“Y ou’re going to break the floor,” Juniper warned me when I wouldn’t stop tapping. I kept on going, not caring what damage I did to the green room. Kizzy eventually put her hand on my knee, stilling it.
“I’m fine,” I lied. “Can we just get back to eating?”
“That’s what I would prefer,” Verin said, picking at his cake as he paced in front of the couch. “We can eat, and then start plotting revenge for all the suffering we’ve been through in the last few days.”
“Months,” Kizzy scoffed. “And I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to keep a cap on your anger over there, fella.”
“I did. Eros isn’t dead. Is that not enough?”
Verin didn’t feel what my brother had. Even if I only could get echoes from a god, I still knew the aura around it. He hadn’t wanted to do it, but he needed to. That didn’t mean I wasn�
��t angry with Eros though. I would be angry for a long time, and whenever I remembered what Juniper looked like while she sat on that kennel. I started to wonder if my whole life would mostly be pain of some sort. I got my own and then had to feel everyone else’s.
“We need to stay calm,” Kizzy said. “We’re halfway through this and we haven’t failed yet. We only have to win five more trials and we’re done.”
“Great,” Juniper sighed. “We just have to hope that they don’t kill us. No problem. No problem at all.”
Verin handed her a carrot stick to chew on before he set his plate down. “It won’t be a problem. We struggled, but we’ve all passed so far. Even if the trials start getting bloody, three of us heal instantly. Don’t get your head cut off and you’ll be all right, luv.”
Juniper shivered as she nibbled on her ranch dipped carrot.
“We’ll be fine,” Kizzy said, directed at me. “Halfway there, as that stupid ass sign says.”
“The trials aren’t his problem,” Verin said.
I glared at him. “Stop.”
“Nah. I would have stopped, but you’ve been wibbly for about two hours now. You came back without the other one.”
“Jasmine,” I said. “Her name is Jasmine.”
“She’ll earn her name back when she stops behaving in ways that make me want to flat iron her face.”
I hated almost everything Jasmine had been doing lately, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t prepared to punch Verin out if he kept talking about my girl like that. “She’s stressed out. Like the rest of us.”
“And that gives her the okay to be the way she is?” Kizzy asked. “She’s been bad, Zander. Normally her cockiness is cute, but this is too much for me. She yelled at Jasper. She hurt Juniper. And clearly, she said some shit to you in the hall, because you haven’t looked any of us in the eye since you got back.”
I shrugged. “We had a fight. Doesn’t matter.”
“It does, actually. What did she say?”
“Why should I tell you? You’ll only get angrier with her.”
“Not possible.” Kizzy’s eyes narrowed. “She yelled at my husband,” she repeated. “No one yells at my husband. I would have kicked her godly ass right to the moon if it wouldn’t have upset Jasper even more. I get that it fucked you up, hearing all that. Zander, you’re the whole world to me, but so is Jasper. He was upset by the trial too, and I didn’t do anything wrong in taking his side.”
“I know that. You should take your husband’s side.”
“Right, but Jasmine doesn’t think that. She thinks about herself and the things immediately around her in her little world. It needs to end.”
“She’s trying,” I said. “She’s trying really hard.”
“Is she?” Verin asked. “I think your girl is under the impression that her becoming a god meant that she’s invulnerable in every single way. And she’ll keep thinking that until something knocks her right down to her place. I worry for what that’s gonna mean for the rest of us.”
Jasmine had alienated herself from all of us with her behavior, thinking that she didn’t need us to get by. I wasn’t under that impression for myself, and I knew that if I didn’t have Jasmine to purge my feelings to, then I needed someone else. Feeling like I was about to burst, I let it all out, telling my family about the fight. Kizzy only took a second to get pissed.
“Do I do that?” I asked. “Do I take credit for you all getting better?”
“No,” Juniper answered, cutting Kizzy off before she could talk. “I’ve literally only seen you take credit for all the bad stuff in our lives. I wouldn’t for a second think you believe you fixed us. First off, we’re not fixed.”
“You’re wonderful,” Verin said to her. “You’re progressing perfectly, and I know that everyone in this room would only credit that to you. Including Zander.”
I knew it to be true, but I still wanted someone to assure me I wasn’t that sort of an asshole. Jasmine said a lot of things in anger, and I said some back. I was just worried about how much of what she said, she would stand by.
“I don’t know how to fix this,” I said. “Everything feels damaged beyond repair. I literally have no idea what the hell I would do if we broke up. She thinks, she thinks I only wanted someone to fix. What does that even mean for our relationship?”
I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I didn’t love her because she was a project. I loved Jasmine for her insanity, her passions, the way she looked at me when she had a scheme going, and a million other big and tiny things that I could have spent hours listing. If I could snap my fingers and have her healed, I would have. I would never want her to feel pain or have to struggle.
“It means you need to talk to her,” Kizzy said. “Tell Jasmine everything you’re feeling and do it in a calm way. Even if she gets angry and yells, you stay calm. You make sure she knows you love her, and that we would all be in a much worse place if we didn’t all have each other. We’re a family, no one person more or less important than the others.”
I nodded. “You’re right. Should I go fetch your husband for you?”
“Please. I miss his face.”
I kissed the top of her head before standing up. I gave my other sister a pat on her shoulder, and I stole one of Verin’s carrot sticks on my way out. I chewed pensively on the elevator ride up, figuring out what I would say to Jasmine.
The doors opened, and I temporarily mourned the loss of the carrot I’d used as a distraction. It would be only me and Jasmine and our messy, awful feelings. The ding of the elevator seemed too loud, making me flinch. Sighing, I walked out of the safe little box and toward my room.
I heard the knob turning before Jasper walked out, so I had a moment of panic when I thought a confrontation would come before I was ready. Jasper closed the door, then stood right in front of it.
“Does she hate me right now?” I asked. “I know I’m a dumbass, but I didn’t say anything that we weren’t already thinking.”
I saw it then. I felt it when I got closer to Jasper. His eyes looked tired and his soul pulsed with an old weariness I knew too well. The kind of hurt that never truly left, waiting to roar back to life at the first chance it got.
“She’s not mad at you,” Jasper said, rubbing his eyes. “But I think you should wait to talk to her.”
“I can’t. Things are too shitty to leave like this, and we don’t know whose trial is up next. I don’t want her going into one all stressed and miserable. Can you move aside?”
He didn’t. “It would be a mistake if you walked in there.”
“A mistake? It’s my choice to make. Not yours. I get that you want to protect Jasmine, but we’re adults in a relationship. We have to talk this out.”
Jasper still didn’t move. “Please. Can you leave me with her for a while? Just go.”
Every alarm in my head went off, telling me to fix this. I didn’t know what the problem was, but I had to fix it. Nothing could keep me from walking through that door.
Something in my gut told me to be afraid of the way Jasper looked at me. Afraid for how tired his eyes had gotten. I pushed it away for the matter at hand.
“Move,” I told him.
“Zander.”
“Move,” I growled.
With a deep breath, Jasper stepped out of the way. I opened the door to a dark, dark room. Jasmine laid in bed, turned on her side with a garbage can on the ground. I’d seen that before. I knew what it meant, and I knew what it meant when paired with the stomach-turning scent of alcohol.
No. That was the only thought in my head. A quiet, shattered no. No, she wouldn’t have done this. No, it couldn’t have happened here. No. Of course, it happened here. No, I didn’t think we had been out of the woods when she handed over her keys. No, this would’ve always been part of it. Because you couldn’t just snap your fingers and solve the problem.
Bleary eyes found me as I walked to the bed. Jasmine pushed away from the edge, moving back and farther from me. She prot
ested my coming closer, but it wouldn’t stop me.
“Can we have a minute, Jasper?” I asked. “Kizzy wants you.”
“I’m not leaving,” he said as he stood in the doorway.
I sighed, not up for fighting him. I sat on the edge of the bed, hearing Jasmine sniffle as she watched me. Even in the darkness, I could see her eyes well with tears. Her thick voice rasped, “I’m so, so sorry. I fucked everything up.”
Really and truly, I didn’t know what I could say. I didn’t know what I should say. I left her alone and broken in the hallway, so she went back to what she knew. I knew she was fragile, and I still walked away. Still left her.
“Is this a onetime thing?” I asked. “Or…”
“No. One time,” Jasmine said. “I shouldn’t have… I don’t want this. I don’t want this ever again.”
I didn’t know if I could believe her. We always had something stressful and terrifying going on. We fought a lot. Would she turn to this the next time things felt like they had fallen apart? We had a war to fight.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, slurring. “I told you things that weren’t true. I let you walk away after I’d lied to you. I didn’t mean them. I swear.”
They’d told me Jasper didn’t mean what he’d said, even though he said it. Now I had to hear that the things lurking in Jasmine’s head weren’t real either. I didn’t know what I could believe or not, so it left me sitting on the corner of a bed in a dark room, listening to familiar slurs that felt like nails to my brain.
“I’m not here to fix you,” I told Jasmine. “I don’t want some project.”
She sat up, audibly crying. “I know I ruined it all. And you should want to walk away from me. You shouldn’t be weighed down with… me.”
I felt like I got slapped. “What?”
“You spent your teens trying to make Kizzy better, and you shouldn’t have to do that with me. Not when I’m like this.”
I held my hand up, stopping her. “I’m not, I’m not going anywhere. Did you think I was going to break up with you? Is that what you want?” Bile rose in my throat, my mind threatening to shut off. My life would end if she told me to go. I would lose my entire family, and then I wouldn’t get to see Jasmine anymore. What the hell would my life be if I couldn’t wake up beside her?