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His fingers close slowly around the case before his attention drags to me.
His deep, red-and-black eyes bore into me until my heart is skipping at an unusual beat. He says, “I’m sorry.”
“What are you apologizing for now?”
“Making you worry. Being a hypocrite. Causing trouble for you.” Sighing, he deflates. “I could go on.”
“Or you could pass the pizza?”
He sets the box on the console between us, opens it, and fully floods the entire vehicle with the amazing, warm, garlicky scent. “I don’t know how to express myself to you well enough, Kassandra. I don’t know how to find the comfortable median between respecting your boundaries and indulging myself. You’re right. I’m a hypocrite. I’ve spent my life trying to make myself more tolerable for people, and that has led me to isolation. I have no right to expect you to risk the things you care about when I don’t take any chances either. In our own ways, we’ve put up barriers that protect others from what they might perceive as our unsavory sides. The only difference between us is that you still go outside with them, and I don’t have the patience for that much exhaustion. It’s supposed to be different with you, but I’m so used to being careful, it’s hard to stop. And you have seen today what happens…what happens when I am not careful enough.”
I definitely have.
And it’s heartbreaking.
It’s heartbreaking…and, yet, in some softer ways, it feels familiar.
Maybe I was never met with screaming as a child trying to fit in, but rejection comes in a lot of different forms. It all hurts. Whether it’s a loud burst…or a consistent quiet.
“Humans have no natural defenses against what I am,” he murmurs as he takes a slice of pizza. “Glamouring myself doesn’t remove the effects entirely, but at least then they’re more bearable. Your power, as it is unaware presently, surrounds you in a sphere. I don’t have the ability to see where the radius ends, but I could feel the moment I made my mistake an instant before it caught up to me.”
“Why has Meda been able to leave my bubble without any issues lately? I guess you were too much of a distraction for me to realize it, but she’s been hanging out with the other kids without me around, and she never used to do that. Is it because she’s younger or they’ve gotten used to her somehow?”
“Her necklace…” He clears his throat and takes a bite of his pizza. “…it’s a charm. With your magic in it.”
I pause halfway to bringing my own pizza slice to my lips. “I’m sorry. My what now?”
“I saw an opportunity, and I exploited it. The magic I pilfered is sufficient enough to create a bubble of protection around Meda and allow her the freedom I have not had.”
Well. Okay then. I munch my pizza slice. “Can I give you more magic so you can make one for yourself?”
Pollux angles his body away from me.
Which, obviously, doesn’t bode entirely well.
“Pollux…?”
“So. I may have gotten the magic from the tear you cried the day you came home with Meda and had dinner with us.”
Magic tears. I’m a Disney princess. I blink. “Okay? So I’ll cut some onions. Problem solved.”
Shaking his head, he licks his lips and takes another bite. “Remember when you cried yourself to sleep last week?”
“Yes?”
“And then you came to see me, and you smelled like Castor?”
“Yep.”
Pollux continues, “I may have abused your privacy to make sure Castor’s scent wasn’t in your bedroom or near your potentially magic tears. In doing so, I discovered that your pillow smelled perfectly normal. No magic.”
“You went into my room and smelled my pillow.”
He shrinks. “I am aware this is disturbing information, but I would like it noted that my sense of smell is better than a human’s. I did not need to get remotely close to your pillow in order to learn that your tears were still there and not soaked in magic.”
“How did you get in my room?”
“Closet.”
