He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
I raised a brow. At least he was being honest.
He looked up at me. “We can’t go back, so I can’t say for sure, but… yeah. You lied to me for years about who you were.” He pressed his lips together, his gaze far away. “And it wasn’t just the fact that it sucks to get lied to—it’s that you felt you had to be perfect, invincible. You made me feel like you didn’t need anyone else… including me.” He shook his head. “I didn’t want to admit it, but we’d had problems before all that.”
I frowned. “But you proposed that night.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, I guess I thought it’d make it better?”
Anger flushed hot up my neck. “So I made you feel like I didn’t need you? Then why, when I clearly did need you, did you just leave?”
His chest rose and fell. “You never really let me in, Jolene. I never knew the real you.”
My stomach tightened. I didn’t want to admit it, but he might have a point. I’d been, and still was, so guarded. I mean, I had reasons to be, but still… that had to be hard to be around.
He shook his head and in a quiet voice murmured, “I’m sorry.”
I watched him hang his head and realized that as much as I wanted to blame him for everything, I’d had a hand in our breakup, too. “You know what?”
He barely lifted his eyes, wincing.
I lifted my chin. “I’m sorry, too.”
He blinked at me, surprised. “I—appreciate that.”
My throat tight, I gave him a curt nod. “Have a good life, Zale.”
He watched me a long moment. “You too, Jolene.” He backed up and slowly closed the door, leaving me in the rain on his doorstep.
I spun away and stalked down the wet street, my socks squishing in my boots. I’d have wiped away the few tears that tracked down my cheeks but what was the point? My face was soaked anyway.
Maybe it was all the emotion of nearly being killed, or of my fight with Peter, or of confronting my ex—guess I could take my pick of traumatic experiences—but my whole body shook.
I hugged my arms tight around myself and trudged through the pelting rain, through the dark winding streets of Bijou Mer. Signs and streetlamps glowed in the mist, and occasionally I saw another witch or wizard hurrying through the night, a magical bubble keeping them warm and dry. I actually preferred to be soaked and haggard—it matched my mood.
I thought everything over as I meandered through upper-middle-class neighborhoods with their even cobblestones and well-lit curbs. The devastated, shocked part of me felt like lying on my couch and eating ice cream for the next week. But another part of me felt strangely at peace. I’d finally gotten some closure and some insight.
I’d always felt like people liked me better back then, before the truth came out, when I’d seemed “perfect.” I’d assumed Zale and all my formers friends had dumped me because they’d finally seen my flaw—being a shifter. A flaw I couldn’t help, though I’d done my best to conceal it.
I splashed through some puddles. But there were people who knew me now and accepted the real me. Heidi and Will were the only two who came to mind, but hey, that was two more than I’d ever had before. And if Heidi and Will could love me for who I was, maybe other people could too.
Maybe… even though I was terrified… I should just tell Peter the truth.
The mere thought of it sent a thrill of excitement and terror through me. I glanced up at the cloudy gray sky and the faint glow of the shrouded moon.
If I didn’t change, the same thing that had happened between Zale and me would happen with Peter. I let the rain pelt my face. It was already happening, and would be the same with everyone I never let fully into my life. Urg. But it was so much easier to keep everyone at arm’s length.
I turned and glanced up at the royal castle glowing through the mist on the top of the mountain a few tiers up. The police station sat beside it. I thought of Peter. I’d been so anxious about people finding out the truth about me, I’d been shutting him out—and worse, lying to him, just like his first partner had.
I squared my shoulders. I’d been telling myself for years that my life as a lawyer had been so great and pining for it. I’d thought that I’d been free back then, to shift, to use magic, to have wealth and the life I’d always wanted.
But back then, I wasn’t being real. I was slaving away for that snake Emerson and doing everything I could to hide my true self from everyone I knew. But I had the chance now to be freer than I’d ever been.
My whole body buzzed as I gazed over the thatched and tiled rooftops toward the police station. I was going up there to find Peter and tell him the truth—the whole truth. I grimaced. This was going to be rough.
37
LAST DANCE
I slunk back down my street, soaked, most of the food carts locked up for the night and steam rising from the sewer grates. I curled my lip as I passed one—was there a shifter walking below my feet right now? I shook off my heebie-jeebies and drug myself through the flooded street toward home.
I’d gone up to the station only to find it in chaos after Chief Taylor’s arrest. I’d thanked Edna for saving my life (and promised to bring her her favorite Danish) then asked after Peter.
She told
