Page 64 of Jinxes and Drumsticks

“I couldn’t. It’s not that I didn’t want to go—”

“And now you won’t even walk down the street with me to get some fucking ice cream? Seriously? I know I look like a fuckboy, but I’m actually not stupid, Lillith. If you don’t want to be my girlfriend, you could just let me fucking go, because if I start fucking you, I’m going to be more insufferable than I already am.”

The words are hard and delivered bitterly. It’s a little frightening for me, to be honest. He’s never looked at me or spoken to me with anything but sweetness and rapt interest, and seeing this side of him—this brooding, unhappy mood—has me wondering if I’ve ruined things beyond repair. It feels like Whitman all over again.

“Damien, I—I can’t tell you. I don’t want to tell you when you feel like this.”

“Do you want to be my girlfriend?”

I hate this. I don’t want our memories of this moment to look like this. “I do... but not with secrets between us.”

“Then you hold all the power,” he says. “All the control.”

He relinquishes me, setting me back down onto my feet and unlatches my hands from behind his neck.

I dig my nails in, refusing to let go. “No,” I say, my voice cracking with it.

“We can’t be together because of your secrets, Lillith. And I can’t work and play with my band if I’m constantly feeling heartbroken over you, so... just let me know when you’re ready.”

He finally forces my hands off of him. He steps back once, twice. He hesitates and my mind races ten thousand miles a minute as he waits for me to speak. When I don’t immediately say something, he wipes his hands down his face and walks toward my door.

Just as his hand lands on the doorknob, I realize this is a moment of no return. I don’t know how I know it, but I do. I know if I let him walk out my door, I’ll never get another chance with him. It might be because he comes to his senses and sees me for the shitty person I am, or because he gets involved with someone else.

I also realize that I can’t live in a world where he doesn’t smile at me like he does. Like I’m something worth cherishing—something worth keeping.

I swallow dryly and force the words out of my mouth.

“I’m cursed, Damien.”

He stops. My heart races in my ears. He turns slowly to face me, his brow creasing as I search his face.

“What?” he asks, low and sharp.

The words tumble out of my mouth, clumsy and warbled. “I-it’s a bloodline curse. Some demon put it on my family like two hundred years ago. Th-the necklace I lost? I didn’t really lose it. The demon destroyed it, and it was the only thing that kept me safe against it when I left the house—oh my god, this must sound batshit crazy.”

Panic seizes me but I don’t stop. I can’t lose him. I’d been having a feeling that I had been walking the fine line between infatuation and utter, devastating devotion, but at some point, I’d teetered over the edge of that cliff and now I know that I need him.

“You probably don’t believe me. Oh my god, you’re probably going to call for a fifty-one-fifty and have me committed, and the whole facility will go up in flames ‘cause the closest one is two towns away.”

My stomach heaves and I swallow hard. The anxiety makes me feel like I’m about to hurl, but there’s no time to stop. He needs to know my weirdness has nothing to do with him.

“Hey, slow down,” he says, coming back over to me. “Your face is paper-white. Calm down.”

“I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you,” I say. “Damien. I’m not embarrassed by you.”

“It’s alright. Just pause, Lillith. We can talk after you sit down and breathe for a minute or two.”

“Please don’t think I’m like... delusional, or something.” My ears ring. “I can prove it. I can show it to you.” Gods, I really am I’m going to vomit. How embarrassing. My skin is on fire. I fan at myself, and when it’s not enough to cool me down, I reach for the hem of my sweatshirt, tugging it up and over my head. I’m not wearing anything but my bra underneath. Wait. What am I doing?

God my bra—it’s so uncomfortable.

“I don’t feel good,” I say as the room suddenly tilts. Damien takes my sweater out of my hands. My fingertips tingle. Pins and needles. I don’t feel good.

Finally, it occurs to me that this is not a standard anxiety response. This is synapses firing too fast and at too-frequent intervals. An aura. The beginning stages of a seizure.

Fuck.

“Now you’re all pink,” he says, forgetting the sweatshirt on the floor and bracing my forearms in his strong hands. I zone in on them, trying to breathe, and everything feels like its underwater.