29. Wisteria

Ididn't know heartbreak could feel this terrible.

I stand on the porch, watching Eli go. I've cried so hard my head hurts. My eyes feel swollen, my jaw aching from the tension, my entire body wound tight. I watch him get on his motorcycle and drive away, and it feels like he's ripping my heart out as he goes, like I'd do anything to make him come back. To forgive me.

The worst part about it is that some of this is my fault. I kept the truth from him about being a witch. I didn't tell him, long after when I should have. And I healed him with magic, even though I didn't have his permission, and I had a feeling I knew what he'd say if I asked.

But I didn't do what he's accusing me of. I didn't cast a spell on him. I didn't bewitch him, or try to make him into my familiar, or any of the other awful things that superstition says that witches do to shifters. And if I had just told him the truth from the start, maybe he wouldn't believe that's what happened now.

I stand on the porch until I start to shiver, a part of me hoping that he'll come back. That he'll change his mind, and let me explain. But I know it's a foolish hope.

I've never seen anyone so angry. The way he looked at me was almost hateful, as if everything about me that he was falling in love with vanished in an instant. And I know that, in a way, that's what happened.

He looked at everything that our relationship has been, everything we've done and felt and said, and suddenly saw it through the lens of witchcraft. That I'd bewitched him, and he was forced to feel all of it. That none of it was real.

Just the thought makes me feel as if my chest is being torn open all over again. Fresh, hot tears spill down my cheeks, and I retreat into the house, going for my phone to call Penelope. I need my friend right now, and even if I know that she warned me something like this would happen if I didn't tell him the truth, I also know that she won't say I told you so.

I stumble into the living room, looking for where I left my phone on the coffee table. It's lit up with a handful of missed calls from an unknown number and a string of messages–all from Penelope–and my heart nearly stops as I start to read them.

Wisteria? The cops tried to get ahold of you, but you're not answering.

Wisteria.I need you to call me. Something's happened with the shop.

If you're with Eli,please pick up. This is important. I'm at the shop now. There's been a break in.

Wisteria!!!!Text me back!!!

This was all happening while I was arguing with Eli. Guilt washes over me, and I quickly call Penelope. She answers on the first ring, her voice high and distraught. I can hear other voices in the background, and I swallow hard, my heart pounding.

"Penelope? What happened–"

"I need you to come down here. Someone broke into the shop. More than that–it's really bad, Wisteria. Delia is here too, but you need to come here right now."

"Okay." I swallow hard. "I'll leave now. I'll be right there."

I hang up the phone, going to the bathroom to splash cold water on my face. I still look awful, my face blotchy and my eyes swollen and bloodshot, but I don't have time to try to do anything else about it.

Fortunately, the one Uber in Bayton shows up shortly after I put in the request, and I'm at the shop within half an hour. The moment the silver sedan pulls up to the curb, my heart sinks, and my hand goes to cover my mouth.

There's two police cars in front of the shop, lights flashing. I see Penelope and Delia standing just inside, talking to an officer, while three others are walking back and forth on the sidewalk.

The shop, I see as I slip out of the car with fresh tears welling in my eyes, has been vandalized. The front windows and door are smashed in, glass everywhere, and as I walk closer, I can see that the glass counters inside are broken, too. The chairs at one side are overturned, packets and bags of herbs ripped open, strewn everywhere. And in bright red paint, scrawled across the floor:

Shifter-fucking bitch

It doesn't make sense. This is supposed to be a safe place for shifters, for witches, for anyone magical. This kind of prejudice isn't supposed to exist here. I stare down at it, barely aware that I've started crying again, my heart pounding so hard I can hear my pulse in my ears. Penelope walks away from the officer she's talking to, and I jump as she lays a hand on my arm.

"They left this, too." She points to a piece of paper lying in the midst of the smashed glass of one of the counters. "Don't touch it. I told them not to take it until you saw."

I walk towards it, feeling like I'm going to be sick. Vaguely, I hear the police officer echoing the instruction not to touch it, but I can't find the energy to respond. I look down, and see in messy handwriting, scrawled in what looks like marker, a message that tells me exactly what's happened here.

Tell Evans we're coming for his bitch next.

The irony of it feels almost painful.

"What is it?" Penelope asks. "Do you understand what they're talking about? What does this have to do with Eli?"

For a moment, I'm not entirely sure I can speak through the tears. "It's the same guys who attacked him," I whisper. "It must be. They must have decided that hurting me would be a better way to get back at him than just coming at him again. Except–" I press my hand to my mouth. "He's not going to care. He won't care about the shop, or what happens to me any longer. Not now."

I'm not sure if I'm going to burst into tears or hysterical laughter, as I look down at it. In one night, my entire life has fallen apart. I was on top of the world, and now I don't know if I'm going to make it through the next day.

"What do you mean?" Penelope demands. "What on earth–Wisteria, what happened?"

Numbly, I turn to look at her. My voice sounds very faraway to my ears as I start to explain–about what happened to Eli, about why I went to his room in the first place, about our break. About how he showed up tonight, accusing me of bewitching him. How my secret turned into him believing something so much worse than the truth.

And how he left me, crying on the porch as he told me never to speak to him again.

"Well, he didn't tell me not to speak to him," Penelope says grimly. "So he's going to hear what the fuck happened."

"Penelope–"

"No." She shakes her head. "Just wait here, Wisteria. I'm not taking no for an answer with this one."

"You don't have his number–"

"I can get it." She's already pulling out her phone, looking for a contact, holding it to her ear. She waits a moment, and then I can tell someone answers. "Adam?"

My heart sinks. "Penelope, I don't want–"

She ignores me. "I need Eli's number. No, I don't care, Adam! I don't give a shit how he feels. Do you know there's men after him? Some assholes who want to hurt him? You do? Well, guess what, they destroyed Wisteria's shop. Left a message with his name. They'll probably come for your place next–you're goddamn right I want him to come see!"

"Penelope!" The last thing I want is Eli here. I don't think my heart can take it, seeing him standing in the wreck of my shop. All the ruins of all my dreams, in the same place, all at once. I'm not sure I can bear it.

"Fine. Just get him here." Penelope hangs up the phone, and her face is pale with anger, her expression more pissed off than I've ever seen it. "I get why you might not want to talk to him, Wisteria. But he needs to see what he's caused. And I think the cops might want to talk to him too, so they can just go ahead and get all their answers in one place."

One of the cops walks over, wanting to ask me questions. I answer as best as I can, feeling like I'm in some horrible nightmare, like I was dreaming before and now it's all gone wrong. I tell them how I inherited the shop, what I've been doing since I came to Bayton. I admit I was seeing Eli, but I didn't know anything about who might have been after him until he was attacked. That I haven't spoken to him since just after it, until tonight.

A truck pulls up to the curb, and I feel a physical reaction to seeing Eli slide out of the cab. My heart starts to race at the same moment that my stomach tightens, my entire body wanting to go to him even as my broken heart makes me want to hide. Adam is on his heels, his face grim, and I press my lips together as I try not to burst into tears all over again.

"What the hell?" Adam looks at the ruin of the shop. "Shit, Wisteria, I'm so sorry."

"He's the one who should be sorry." Penelope looks at Eli with pure rage in her face. "It's his fault this happened."

I start to open my mouth, to say no it's not, but the look on Eli's face stops me in my tracks. There's anger there, but most of what I see on his face is guilt. Even as pissed as I know he is at me, he's still upset about this. It makes me want to go to him, but I hold back. Because even though part of this is my fault–what's happened between us–I'm angry, too.

Angry that he accused me of something I never would have done, that he's upset about all the wrong things, that he wouldn't listen to my explanation. That he's so sure of what he thinks he knows that he can't hear my apology for what I really did do wrong.

I stand there, trembling, as Delia walks over to me. Eli is talking to the cops–about what, I can't hear, but it's probably a bunch of half-truths, whatever he can tell them without incriminating himself too much. Delia puts a comforting hand on my arm, as I watch Penelope stalk towards Adam.

"I'm sorry, Wisteria," she says softly. "I came as soon as Penelope called me. I know how much this place meant to you. We'll fix it up, and–"

"I know." I bite my lip, looking around the ruin of the shop. "I have some of the inheritance left. I can use it for repairs, and there's insurance, too. But it's just–" I feel fresh tears well up in my eyes. "I guess, after this, we'll focus on remodeling it into the vision I had for it. But I didn't want to do it like this. All of my aunt's work torn to pieces, and forced to make the change now. I wanted to do it on my own terms, incorporate what she built into it. I–"

Tears spill down my cheeks, and Delia wraps her arm around me, giving me a tight hug from the side. Penelope is still arguing with Adam, and I see Eli break away from the cop, heading towards me.

Anxiety and anticipation flood me all at once. He broke up with me, angrily, an hour ago. We had a fight like nothing I've ever experienced before. I'm so angry with him, and myself, and heartbroken–and yet, everything in me clamors for him to be near me again. To touch me. To breathe in his scent and feel his hands on my body and his slow, rich drawl in my ear.

In this moment, I hate it. It makes me feel insane.

Tears prick at my eyes. Delia tenses, moving away from me as Eli strides over, and I try not to notice the loose-limbed grace in how he moves, to remember how well I know his body now, to look at him like he's a stranger. To just think of him as someone who knows something about what happened here, and not the man I was falling in love with for the first time in my life.

"What happened, Wisteria?" he asks urgently, the moment he's close enough for me to hear, as if he wasn't just shouting at me an hour ago.

I wipe the tears angrily away from my face. "It's pretty obvious what happened. The guys who came after you decided to get under your skin a different way. Ironically, they didn't count on the fact that you don't give a shit about me anymore."

Eli's face darkens. "Don't make this about me, Wisteria. Not when you–"

"I didn't do it!" I shout the words into his face, all of my emotions too close to the surface. "I didn't do what you're thinking. And right now, I can't even think about trying to figure out how to convince you otherwise, if it even matters, because my shop is destroyed. I have a dozen things to do that don't involve trying to figure out how to talk to a man who doesn't want me anymore. So just go."

"I can help with this." Eli rubs a hand over the back of his neck, and I can see the conflict on his face. He's torn between who he thinks I am, between hating me for it, and his guilt over what's happened here. I'd be willing to bet it's the first time he's ever had to deal with these kinds of emotions.

And I don't have the energy to help him through it.

"Don't worry about it," I snap, feeling all the anger and hurt seep into my words, making them sharper, more hurtful, than even I mean for them to be. Maybe it has something to do with my magic after all, or maybe it's just plain old-fashioned heartbreak. I wouldn't know. I've never felt it before.

"This is partially my fault–" Eli looks down at me, and I shake my head hard.

"I know having to deal with the consequences of your actions is new to you." The words come out like a whip, lashing the air between us. "Having to face up to it because you haven't already lit out of town. But I don't need your help. You don't want me. You think I'm a lying bitch. So just go, Eli. It's what you're good at, so you might as well stick with it."

My eyes are welling up again, tears burning behind my lashes. Eli hesitates, and I'm about to yell at him again when Penelope stalks towards us both.

"Get the fuck out of here, Eli. You heard her."

Eli narrows his eyes at her. "You're the one who called me. Or Adam, really. Draggin' him into all of this–"

"He should know what kind of company you keep. It'll probably be him next, after all." Penelope crosses her arms, giving Eli a haughty look. "Wisteria's right, though. The cops have gotten your statement, so we don't need anything else out of you."

"God, woman." Eli glares at her. "I'm tryin' to help. These guys came and destroyed Wisteria's shop on account of me–that matters. I'm willin' to–"

"I don't care," Penelope interrupts. "You've been an asshole to Wisteria. I told her a long time ago to come clean with you, and that's a whole other matter, but she doesn't deserve the way you've treated her tonight. Especially when I know good and damn well she didn't do what you're accusing her of. So get the fuck out, Eli. You've done enough, trust me. Before I tell the cops you're not welcome here."

That last makes him back down. He gives Penelope a wary look, and then his gaze flicks to me. I expect to see anger in it, that same bitter rage that felt like it would turn me to ashes on my porch earlier, but instead, I see something else.

Regret. For what, I don't know–maybe for ever getting involved with me in the first place. And sadness, too–a depth of sadness that I've never seen in him before, even when he told me about his old pack. He looks, for a moment, older than his years–a man thoroughly beaten down by life and everything in it.

And then he turns, and walks away, back to Adam's truck. Adam glances once more at Penelope, and follows Eli.

I stand there, in the wreckage of everything I ever wanted, and watch him go.