“EternallyYours:MotionPictureCollection”—MotionlessInWhite(feat.CrystalJoilena)
Five weeks had passed since Phoenix had gone home to Iowa. Initially, we would text several times a day and call once a day. Then I started avoiding his calls and answering fewer and fewer of his messages.
It hurt too much.
I missed him like a limb. No, like an organ. A day hadn’t gone by when my chest didn’t feel hollow.
“Eternally Yours” by Motionless in White came on my Spotify station and I burst into tears. Again.
“Sloane. Call the man, already,” my mother sternly instructed. A glance in her direction showed her standing over me with her arms akimbo and an exasperated crease in her forehead.
I’d been sitting on the carpeted floor unwrapping our new shipment of crystals and pricing them. I’d also been crying off and on, the entire time.
“I can’t, Mom. It hurts too much.” Miserable, I wiped at my running nose with the back of my hand. A sniffle was followed by a hiccup.
“Sloane, that’s absolutely disgusting,” my mom said with a look of disbelief.
All I could do was shrug. “I’ll clean them before I put them on the shelf.” It was one of the only remaining things I could do with my powers. I’d pretty much gone back to what I’d had before sleeping with Phoenix and having my family’s abilities reinstated—for lack of better words. Not that I cared. I hadn’t wanted “amazing powers.” I’d been happy enough without them.
What I wanted was my heart back.
“Honey,” my mom softly started as she took a seat next to me on the floor. “He’s your person. If fulfilling the prophecy didn’t prove that, then his sacrifice for you should’ve. I know he asked you to go with him. I also know you didn’t go because of me. But I’m a grown woman and I’ll be okay.”
“But the shop—”
“Will be fine. Niara is here, and I can hire someone else. Maybe when Sutton comes back from her trip, she might be interested in working here.”
My friend Sutton had quit her job before her trip to Finland. Not because she was moving there. But because it was supposed to be her honeymoon trip. Except her fiancé had been her boss, and she’d caught him with his company attorney—fucking on his desk.
Eyes watery, I chewed on my lip in indecision as I picked at the embroidered four-leaf clovers on my long skirt. “I’ll think about it.”
Honestly, I wasn’t sure he still wanted me up there.
“When was the last time you talked to him?” she asked.
“Three days ago,” I said as I started to sob again. I was so damn emotional; I was pathetic.
“For your baby, you need to call him,” she gently told me as she cupped my cheek in her hand.
“My what?” I asked, eyes bugging and brows wrinkled in disbelief.
“When was your last period?”
“Uh, well, I um,” I stammered as I blinked, trying to remember. It had been a good three weeks before Phoenix. My heart raced, panic creeping in.Oh shit.
My mom pressed her lips flat and gave me that “well, there you go” look.
“Oh no,” I cried out as the waterworks started again. “He’s going to think I tried to trap him. Or that the only reason I’m reaching out again is because I’m knocked up,” I wailed.
My mother gave a deep sigh as if she was trying to figure out what to do with me. But before she could say anything, someone spoke from behind me.
“You’re pregnant?”
That someone sounded a lot like the man who haunted my dreams at night and starred in my daydreams. Slowly, I turned to look over my shoulder. In the doorway, looking like he might fall over from shock, was the man who’d stolen my heart.
And he’d just heard me say I was pregnant. Except I wasn’t actually sure I was.
And wait….