Page 76 of Bring Me Your Midnight

It makes me want to cry.

She kicks off her shoes and looks at my tea. “Hon, I could sure use a cup of that.”

Dad gets up and kisses her forehead before walking into the kitchen, and for an instant all I can think about is how I want a love like that. I used to think my mom walked all over my dad, but it isn’t true. He encourages her leadership and assertiveness, and she encourages his patience and gentleness. They see the strength in each other, and I desperately want the same thing.

Maybe my fascination with Wolfe is tangled up in my love of his magic, so fully entwined I can’t separate the two. Or maybe I’m fascinated with the way he sees my strengths before I can see them myself.

Dad walks over and hands Mom her tea, then sits down next to me.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

“You want to know ifI’mokay?”

“You are my daughter,” she says, holding her teacup close to her face.

“I don’t know. I don’t understand what happened.” I pause. “How is Ivy?”

“Ivy had finally fallen asleep by the time I left. She’s confused and angry. Her life is tainted with darkness, and it will take time for her to recover from that.”

I want to tell her it isn’t true, tell her that Wolfe saved my lifeusing the same magic I used on Ivy and it didn’t awaken a darkness in me. If anything, it brightened everything, bathed it all in the light of the moon.

“It isn’t tainted, though. There was a time when that was the only kind of magic we practiced—”

“And it was poison,” my mother says, cutting me off. “Magic was never meant to be used in that way. You know that, and so does Ivy. She might never forgive you.”

I nod. I will spend the rest of my life trying to earn her forgiveness. I will. But I also think Ivy will realize she is the same as she has always been, bright and brilliant, and I cling to that hope. “What about her parents?”

“They’re in a very tough position. No one wants their child infected with dark magic. They will watch her, constantly worried about the ways it will infiltrate her daily life.” Mom takes a big breath, pauses, then slowly exhales. “But right now, Rochelle and Joseph are focusing on the fact that their daughter is alive.”

I breathe out. I think it for the hundredth time tonight:I’m so glad she’s alive.

“Tana,” my mother says, the sternness I’ve been waiting for finally entering her voice, “your actions have consequences.” She lets her words hang in the space between us. “Later today, once we’ve all gotten some rest, we’ll discuss what you did tonight and how you knew to do it. And I will not tolerate dishonesty.” She rubs her eyes. “Then we will discuss the ramifications of your choices, of which there are many.”

She stands up and reaches her hand out to my father. He takes it and stands as well.

“It’s been a long night. Get some sleep.”

My parents walk to the staircase, but I stop them.

“Mom?”

She turns to look at me.

“If it had been me…” I don’t know how to finish the sentence, but my mother seems to understand what I’m asking.

“None of us knows how to use dark magic, Tana. I wouldn’t have been able to save you. But if someone else had made that choice for me, the way you did with Ivy?” She shakes her head. “It would be very difficult for me not to feel indebted to that person for the rest of my life.”

Tears fill my eyes and I nod.

She turns and heads up the stairs with my father, and I sink back into the couch and watch the sunrise through the large windows.

The last time I watched a sunrise, I was sure I was going to die. The sky came alive with pinks and oranges, and I tried so hard to accept my fate.

But I wasn’t successful, and it changed everything.

I’ve made a spectacular mess of my life, and I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know how to pretend my time with Wolfe didn’t happen, that it didn’t fundamentally change me, altering the atoms and cells in my body until they called back to a different star.

I don’t know how to stop wanting him or his magic.