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Odai gets that excited look again, like every time I wish for something, no matter how trivial, but I think it lingers longer because it is honestly all about him.
I pat my back pocket, and when Odai dressed me, he even put my wallet where it should be. Sneaking out the back door is easy enough, and it is sort of hilarious that Mrs. Sherman’s voice is still muted for me when I slip out of the alley behind our building and circle around to sneak into Sage.
There is the usual line but waiting helps what just happened wash over me. I sort of won? Maybe not the war, but definitely the battle. It feels pretty good. A little terrifying now that it can really sink in that I yelled in Mrs. Sherman’s face, and she might complain to Mr. Bevilaqua about it, but well, screw her. She couldn’t even keep a crowd from St. Mary’s on her side long enough to stir up trouble.
I do wonder what Odai might do to “deal with her.” It’s not like I want her to go out of business just for our business to survive. Although it would be nice if she decided to move locations.
To another country.
“I said I don’t know, okay? I don’t remember!” a vaguely familiar voice draws my attention to a table to the right of where I am standing in line. There is a group of guys sitting there, not much older than me. They look familiar too, but I do tend to run into the same people in this neighborhood.
The one who spoke is wearing dark sunglasses and keeps rubbing at his eyes beneath the lenses. It takes me a second, but his voice, his face, the friends with him…
It’s the asshole from the other night who kept making snide comments during my tour.
“Dude, no matter how drunk you got after you ditched us, how do you forget something like getting your eyes scratched out?” one of his friends asks.
What?
I keep my head down and make myself as small as possible, continuing in line, and keeping my ears trained on their conversation.
“They’re not out, okay? They’re there. I just can’t see anything,” the asshole grumbles.
“Then stop rubbing them!” another friend chides. “That isn’t going to help any. What did the doctor say?”
“They don’t know anything either! They think it might be fucking permanent.”
I have to look back, as the line moves past their table, and I watch him remove his sunglasses to rub at his eyes again. When he opens them, they look milky and blind with distinct claw marks down the center of each one.
“Um, line’s moving, hun.” A woman gently nudges me.
There are several people-lengths ahead of me now, and I hurry forward, but there is a pit growing in my stomach, like a gaping cavern.
I didn’t wish for that, did I?
No. Of course, I didn’t. Sure, that man had been harassing me, ruining the tour, and later, when he was gone, I was relieved, but…
Did Odai blind him?
For me?
Odai
Jeffrey has been avoiding me. Ever since bringing us coffee, he seems changed, oddly distant considering how close I felt to him when we agreed we were a couple.
Does he regret those words?
Mrs. Sherman is gone. I have been discovering many things about her in my spare time working toward Jeffrey’s primary wish. She will be dealt with, one way or another. Does he worry about her, even with her efforts this morning thwarted?
Jeffrey wished to be alone for a while, but it has been too long without more wishes, hours of him upstairs and me left alone. I need reprieve, even some small desire to grant to help sustain me. To keep control.
Usually, I cannot go against previous wishes, but there are ways around that, and the more my need to fulfill desires expands within me like a festering wound, the more I am compelled to push, to take actions to make certain wishes are asked of me, and that long-form wishes are granted by any means necessary.
Jeffrey wished to be alone but a call upstairs to check on him is just a call.
“Jeffrey! May I come see you now?”
“Um… I-I’ll be right down!”
