Not a single plant had whispered a single word to me, ever in my life. I’d always felt out of place in Everer, with my family, with my people. I was always the odd one, who mumbled to herself, to walls, but not plants. Who tried to grow a simple flower in her room once and failed so miserably, the flower withered within two hours. I was pink, and pink wasn’t strong. Pink was what my clan called breezy magic.
Still, even breezy magic could grow a stupid flower, for God’s sake.
But I never could.
That’s why I’d been the first of my clan in over two hundred years to want to leave, to want to do something other than grow plants, to want to live a life away from my people, and not isolated from the rest of the world. I was a freak, and though I’d gotten out of that place, my family was still paying the price. Pixies were ruthless when it came to saving their traditions, and I was pretty sure they regarded my dad as a traitor since I’d made the move here. Not that he’d tell me, but I knew it in my heart.
Back then, when I first came here, I’d been naive still—just like with Dominic Dane. I’d been twenty-one years old, and I thought that I could turn everything around if I could just prove to myself and to my whole clan that I wasn’t worthless. I was good at something. I could do something big with my life still, even if I couldn’t grow a flower.
It had been two years now, and needless to say, I’d failed miserably. I kept on failing. And every Tuesday—like today—my parents called, and I had to look at their faces on the screen, smile and laugh and lie that everything was going great, that I was swamped with work, that I had so many missions in a week, I barely had time to sleep properly.
Did they even believe me?
I wasn’t sure, but so far, they’d never called me out on it.
The thought of leaving Manhattan and going back home was present in my mind more and more lately. I’d left home because that had not been the life I wanted to live. I didn’t want to be somebody’s wife and have somebody’s babies and pretend to be happy without actually living a single day for myself.
But I didn’t want to be sitting at a desk all day every day, either. I wanted to be out there, living a fulfilling life, meeting new people, interesting people…maybe even fall in love.
Yeah, maybe I needed to lay off reading and watching romcoms for a while. This was real life, and in real life, things were hard. Life wasn’t fair, and no matter how hard you worked at something, how much you tried, chances were you were never going to live the life you wanted.
It’s probably because you’re pink, my brother used to say to me every time I failed at growing something, and I smiled at the memory while I went back to my desk. He never meant it like a bad thing—it was just an explanation, a way to tell me that it wasn’t really my fault. Just nature.
And maybe he was right.
“What’s got you looking so murderous?” Hunter said when I fell on the chair behind my desk.
“Nothing,” I mumbled and opened my journal to mark the hour. It had started as something to do to pass the time when I was a teenager. Now, if I didn’t record everything in that journal, it felt like I was missing a limb or something. A much better habit than talking to myself, I guess.
Patricia snorted. “Yeah, right. You look like you’re about to cry.”
“I’m not.” I rolled my eyes and waved her off, but she was right. Of course, I wanted to cry—it was Tuesday, and as soon as I went home, I had to call my parents. I had to lie to my parents. I had to pretend. I hated pretending, just as much as I hated pink and cute.
This long list of things I hated was probably not healthy at all.
“Let me send a breeze your way,” Hunter said, waving his fingers at me the way he always did. A small wind blew my hair back and made my breath catch in my throat. Hunter was an aurae, an air nymph, and he commanded the air in any way he wanted. It just so happened that he mostly wanted to use it to piss one of us off. Today must have been my lucky day.
“Stop it,” I hissed, putting my hands in front of my face, while they all laughed.
I laughed, too. My friends were goofs, but I still loved them to death.
And lucky for me, they had to get back to work, so they finally stopped asking questions and left me alone in my misery. I killed a few more hours focused on phone calls and other people’s problems, but mine still waited for me at the end of the day.
“Hey, honey!”My mother’s cheerful voice burst through the speakers, making both me and my dad, who was sitting next to her, flinch.
“Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad,” I said with my bravest smile, waving at the camera. My heart ached just looking at their faces. I missed them so much, and I always only realized it when I actually saw them on the screen of my phone.
“Hey, baby. You look good,” Dad said, leaning closer to the laptop, as if to see me better. “Have you been eating right?”
“Yep. Cooking every day.” And that’s lie number one for ya.
“Fruits, too?” Dad asked.
“Yep.” Not a lie. I’d eaten a banana before heading out to work this morning.
“Veggies?” Mom said, pushing Dad to the side so she could lean into the screen next. “Have you been steaming them like I taught you? A cup greens, reds, and oranges?”
“Yes, Mom.” Lie number two.