Page 40 of A Witch in Notting Hill

“God, how do I say this without sounding insane?” she said, mostly to herself.

“Things happen with my magic when I start feeling something for someone.” She clapped her hands together, turning to face me.

She meant business. And I needed to listen.

“And I didn’t want either of us to have to experience that.

Especially because I knew you’d try to explain those things away with logic, and I’d know they were because of my magic, and I didn’t know how we’d get past that. ”

“How did you know it was going to happen?”

“Because it always happens. It started happening immediately. The light in the shop. The sparks in the subway. The pipe in the bathroom.”

“Come on, Willow. Those were just freak incidents. You can’t beat yourself up over that, can you?”

“See? This is exactly what I was afraid of. It’s easy to say that, and I’m sure from the outside that’s how it looks, but you have to trust me when I say they weren’t.”

“Then how do you explain last night?” I asked. “Nothing caught fire. Nothing exploded. Aside from the paparazzi, which hardly seems like a freak incident, nothing catastrophic has happened. And correct me if I’m wrong, but it seemed like there was a whole lot of feeling from where I stood.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“Then how do you explain it?”

“I don’t know!”

Her outburst reverberated around us until it turned to silence. Even her echo sounded like it was going to cry.

“Hey,” I said, reaching out to her and trying not to wince when she pulled away.

“I don’t have answers,” she said. “I don’t know how to explain any of this.

When we first met in the shop and I said I had bad genetics, this is what I was talking about.

Everyone in my family is a brilliant witch, and I’m a wreck.

I didn’t want to have to lie to you, but I thought it was the only way to protect either of us.

To keep us from getting to this point. What a bust that was.

” She rolled her eyes at herself, pulling my heartstrings in the process.

I didn’t know if I was mad or frustrated or embarrassed or disappointed, but what I did know was that I hated seeing her so hard on herself.

“So I thought it would just be easier for us both if you thought I was involved with someone,” she continued, “but then when you asked me if it was serious and I had every opportunity to run with it, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

So I let it slip away, but someone else must have heard something anyway because now I’m Hollywood’s newest adulterer. ”

“I swear I didn’t say anything,” I said, holding my hands up.

“Of course you didn’t.” She laughed, just barely. “You weren’t even sure who I was when I first walked into the shop. I doubt you’re running off and leaking anything to Page Six.”

“It wasn’t Lo or Minho, either,” I said. “I know they’re a little batty, but they wouldn’t do something like this.”

“No, no, I’m not worried it was them. I like to think they’ve become friends by now and that they wouldn’t sell me out.

Who knows who it was. Hell, maybe it was Kit, even.

He’d been on Vera’s side trying to get me to do a film with him before I left, so maybe that was his way of getting my attention.

But none of that changes the mess we’re in. ”

“Can’t you just set it straight with the media?”

“If only it was that easy,” she said, and sighed. “If there was a way to just ‘set something straight’ with the media, there would be no celebrity gossip at all. There might not even be celebrities.”

“So... what?” I asked. “That’s it, then?” I couldn’t believe we’d finally gotten here and now she was slipping through my fingers like sand. As soon as I saw the wobble in her lip, I knew I had my answer.

“I... I don’t know what else to do,” she said.

“I think I just got too comfortable. With you, in the city, with the quest. I lost sight of the fact I was supposed to be out of the public eye, you know? Forgot I was supposed to be hiding and instead just settled into a life here. One I knew was never really mine. And I got sloppy and made mistakes, and now I need to figure out how to fix this. How to get my name out of the headlines and how to end the rumors about Kit and how to get a video of me in the woods with a leg wrapped around your waist off the internet.” The reminder was a knife in my chest. Sharp, hot, destructive.

“And if I’m going to do that, I can’t keep running around the city with you like I belong here. I have to figure this out on my own.”

“But what about the quest?” I was grasping at anything I could to keep her close to me.

Even with all the lying, I couldn’t bring myself to be as mad as I should have been.

I was hurt, sure. Frustrated, definitely.

But I couldn’t hold on to my anger. Especially not when she was looking at me like it hurt her even more to say these words than it hurt me to hear them.

“I only have two more things,” she said.

“One is ‘commune with the dead,’ which is hardly a group activity, anyway, especially for someone who doesn’t believe in magic.

And the other is to convince a skeptic, and, well.

.. I’ll just have to figure that one out on my own.

For all I know, that’s going to be impossible, and all of this will have been for nothing. ”

“Is that what you think? This was all for nothing?” There was no way she could say none of this meant anything to her, was there? After the night we had? I’d always prided myself on being intuitive, but had I read this all wrong?

“I came here to reverse the spell,” she said. “And if I can’t do that, then...”

“Right.”

She couldn’t even finish the sentence, and I didn’t want her to. I knew how it ended. I should have known how all of this ended. When she tried to put distance between us, I should have let her.

“I’m sorry, Oliver.”

“Me too.”

With little left to say and the paparazzi gone from the garden, I supposed it was finally my cue to leave.

“You’ll be okay staying up until sundown?

” She nodded. “And you’ll be okay with the rest of the quest?

” She crossed her fingers, but still said nothing.

“We’re still here to help, Willow. At least call Min and Lola.

They won’t get you in trouble with the press, will they? Maybe they can help you finish.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said, but neither of us believed a word. “If I need anything else from the shop, maybe I’ll come by before I head back to LA.”

“I’d like that.”

Her soft, sad smile was the last thing I saw before I slipped from her front door and into the dull light of the early morning. The start of a day I wished hadn’t come.