The City of Crows by Bethany Lovejoy (great books to read .txt) 📕

eyes still watching me, “you should come with.” The look on her face didn’t mean should; it meant will.

The problem was, I was already booked. “Right, go to your girlfriend’s when you two are meant to be alone,” I turned to face her, shaking my head at her. “I’ll pass, Yvie. I’ve already been to Magictown tonight. Thanks for the invite, though.”

“One,” she began to correct as I grew near, my hands wrapping around the fresh flowers in the vase on our coffee table, “it’s not alone time. That’s Thursday nights, you know that. It’s a Friday, so, you know, party.” I quirked my eyebrows, stroking my hands up the stems in a jerky movement, forcing a few of the heads off. “Two, one can never go to Magictown enough. Not when things are so painfully dull here. Three,” she was quick to add the third part as I successfully gathered more flower heads, her voice growing louder as she said it in anticipation of me leaving the room, “it might be a good idea for you to be a little bit more social, Lyra! We can’t all hide out in a cave!”

I snorted, taking my flowers and walking towards the bathroom. Jerking the door open, I was unsurprised that Yvie still spoke in the background, even as I tossed my handful of flowers into the tub with a grunt.

“And four, maybe if you meet someone nice, you’ll stop blowing your rent money on all of these flowers!”

Aaand, that was enough Yvie for the day. I kicked the door shut as I leaned over the tub, my hand turning the hot water faucet all the way. The hotter the water, the better. I wanted to boil the worry away. Steam rose from the bathtub almost immediately, the only virtue of our building being the relatively large and efficent water heater. The edges of the mirror began to fog and the scent of flowers filled the air. We’d pay for residual water damage from all the steam eventually, but Yvie and I had already decided that our deposits were as good as gone after we moved out. Why not have a little fun before we had to face the facts?

I looked down into the bathtub, watching as the flowers swirled in the water, some color leaking out from the yellowed center, confirming as always that the flower shop was dressing their plants up a little for purchase. Still, I didn’t mind half-dead flowers, not if my favorite florist arranged them. My ex-boyfriend told me that florists, especially humans, didn’t really care what the flowers’ meaning was. In fact, most of them didn’t bother to learn them. I wondered if Ollie was the same, or if he knew the importance of apple blossoms, daisies, and honeysuckle; and how witches desperately bathed in them to will something new to bloom. Probably not.

His easy good looks came into mind as I watched the flowers swirl in the hot bathwater, same as always. Clear blue eyes, cropped red hair, square lensed glasses; average, but not too average. The type of man that your friends pass by at a party, slightly invisible but looks like someone everyone knows.

But somehow, just thinking about him and this imaginary version of him I’d crafted brought me back to a very real person. I blinked at the intrusive thoughts entering my mind once more, placing my head delicately against the door. A green knitted sweater, the metallic gray of lead on his hands, a kneaded eraser working between his fingers, a smudge of black that I hadn’t paid enough attention to while it sat on his chin. Leo Hoang, the guy at the counter. The man who ignored my coworker and demanded service for a witch, the dangerous man who knew what I was.

Straining, I attempted to hear if Yvie was still there, instead catching the low hum of the tv. Normally, that would be a bad sign, but with Yvie, it was good. When she did things like pack to stay the night, she always liked to have a little background noise.

I held back my amusement at my roommate’s antics, kneeling at the bathroom counter to withdraw a scoop of sea salt from the heavy bag underneath the sink, filling the plastic measuring cup in the bag to its brim before placing it in the bath. Purity and protection, those were always good things to have. Maybe it’d push his face out of my head.

Ollie, Oliver, flower shop guy. Focusing on that and those far off dreams was easier. A part of me wondered if I ever did obtain my wish of normality, did I have to give up these secret moments? Would I someday be married and have my husband question my need to bathe in flower petals and various concotions? Yvie always said that I liked Oliver because he was far off and unobtainable, but he was also an excuse to try to act human. Yvie was right, but I wouldn’t tell her that. I desperately wanted to be anything but a witch at this point in my life.

And yet, I struggled to give up the things that made me a witch. I wrote off my desires as things that would happen someday but someday far off and unpredictable, therefore it was okay to still engage in and really bask in moments like these. It was better to treasure these moments while they lasted, wasn’t it? As if to respond to that moment, a door slammed in the background, symbolizing the end of Yvie’s company. Perhaps I wouldn’t get to cherish these moments as much as I wanted.

Finally, I brought myself to withdraw the piece of paper from my pocket, eyes squinting at the slightly smudged writing as my hand moved busily on my phone’s screen. The moment felt quick, far too quick, as the dial tone began to sound while I kicked off my socks, eyes observing the now murky water. For a moment, I wished