March, 2019

Specks of dust floated in the sunstream peering through the window; we had forgotten to close the curtains last night in all our amorous excitement. A warm body hugged my back, pulling me into every crevice of their being.

But as I watched the little flecks slowly drifting around the air in no hurry at all, my mind was racing far too quickly for this early in the morning.

Mary... No, that can't be it.

Maggie... Also doesn't sound right.

Mave?

Melissa?

It definitely starts with an M... It—

"May," he said, blue eyes bored as he took a spot at her desk chair, gaze looking anywhere but me.

"Thank you," I mouthed before rolling over.

Her long lashes still brushed at her high cheekbones, curly brown locks resting against her olive skin. Freckles speckled over the bridge of her prominent nose, and I couldn't stop the smile from stealing my face—she was certainly the most exquisite woman I had slept with in all my months of forced forgetting.

May, May, May, my mind chanted as I raised a hand to trail a finger across her skin.

Ever so slowly, her eyelids fluttered open, a warm depth of hazel in her doe-shaped gaze meeting mine. Corners of her lips turning up as she squinted in the light of the morning, she mumbled a tired, "Morning."

"Good morning, May," I said back, feeling proud that I was able to say her name.

Her eyes suddenly went wide.

Shit... I said the wrong name, didn't I? I resisted every ounce of my being that begged me to turn around to glare at him.

But then she said, "I'm so sorry... but I don't remember your name."

A laugh barked behind me, and, again, I held back from looking at him. "That's okay," I breathed back, my body relaxing in her hold as the reality sank in—she wasn't going to be sad when I didn't call later.

"But you knew mine—"

"I was thinking long and hard to remember it before you woke up," I responded sheepishly, rousing a relieved smile on her own face.

"So... are you going to tell me your name?"

Though I started shuffling out of her hold, edging off the bed and searching the floor for my clothes. "Olivia," I said back as I spotted my shirt halfway across the room.

"Olivia... It's a lovely name." The sheets shuffled behind me before two legs draped either side of my body, arms winding around my torso. "You don't have to go."

Leaning out of her grip, I pulled my shirt over my body and got to my feet. As I turned to face her, May was pouting.

"I... Look, this was fun, but we didn't even remember each other's names," I said to her.

One side of her mouth pulled up, causing her nose to scrunch slightly in the most cutest half smile I've potentially ever seen. I was certainly leaving with difficulty this time. "I'm not asking for a relationship, Olivia..." She rose to her feet, blanket falling from her as her arms enveloped my shoulders. "I just want more good times. You're so... I don't know how to describe it... intoxicating?"

"If only she knew it was a magical spell," he yawned from that same spot in the room before getting to his feet. "Can we go yet?"

Not wanting to seem crazy for talking to someone she couldn't see, I moved my hand in the slightest gesture that would signal to him to piss off before I wrapped my arms around her waist. "Hmm... Well, how about I take your number and we can see?"

"That sounds great!" She immediately dropped her hold of me and reached for a shirt, slipping some clothes on before holding her hand out for my phone. "Promise you'll call."

"I promise."

· · ───── ∘☽༓☾∘ ───── · ·

"You're not going to call her, are you?" were the first words he said to me as I closed the door to her apartment after narrowly avoiding her ex-turned-roommate.

"What's it to you?" I whispered, conscious of anyone in the nearby flats listening in. "I might."

"But you never do."

"I never take their phone numbers though."

"That doesn't mean they don't slip it into your bag."

Heaving a sigh, I paid him a glance. Hair just as long as August last year, his dark brown curly locks caressed his chin as his iridescent blue eyes stayed straight ahead. He would be forever frozen in time, the very same boy who took a dagger to the heart for me. "What's your point, huh? Are you jealous I'm moving on?"

I quickly turned my head forward again, not wanting to see the pain that would most likely mar his face.

But after taking a few steps, I realised he was no longer by me.

Feet going still, I craned my neck to look at him, a noticeable distance now between us.

"What?" I demanded, leaning the weight onto one leg as I crossed my arms over my chest, anxiously waiting for his reply. I couldn't help but wonder as I clenched my jaw if he saw through my tough girl act I was putting on right now.

"Maybe I would be jealous," he said ever so quietly, "If what you were doing really was moving on. But I think you're just hurting yourself now, Olivia."

As my name rolled off his tongue, I felt the shudders course through my body. Because, even all these months on, the way his British infections caressed each syllable of me felt like home... while also feeling so wrong at the same time. Not that I could ever tell him that.

"That... or you're trying to feel something. And I don't know which is worse."

"How many times do I have to tell you that I'm fine."

"Then why won't you go back?"

My arms fell from around my chest as I gestured to the very ground we... I was standing on. "Because this is my home." I spun around and started moving again, uselessly hoping that he wouldn't catch the tears that I could feel stinging my eyes and were most likely casting a sheen to my gaze. But he was quickly by my side, blue already burning into the side of my face.

"Your home is back in England. With Erica, Jayce, Jade..."

We both knew who he was leaving out, which was why, when I reached my car, my hand froze as my heart breathed his name.

Lukas...

I shook my head and yanked the car door open. Over the years mum had kept it for me, it had certainly seen better days. The paint was now peeling, the aircon had carked it long ago, and the battery... well...

The engine puffed and whined as I turned the key over, foot hitting the clutch as I tried to get it started.

"One day it's going to give out if you don't tend to it," he said, somehow manifesting himself in the passenger seat. Though we both knew he wasn't talking about the battery, his metaphor dangling in the air for me to ponder.

I jumped slightly as I turned to look at him, pale skin almost translucent in the light as the March sun glared through the window. And my heart ached to know this wasn't real. He'd never have been able to sit in my passenger seat here...

"It's okay," he whispered, evidently noticing the touch of tribulation wreaking havoc in my mind at the sight of him. "It's not your fault," he already started to soothe me before I noticed my breaths were becoming short and sharp.

"I need air," I managed to get out.

"Then open the door," he reasoned.

"I need it now."

"Olivia... open the door," this time he instructed.

I could see black spots starting to fill my vision as the oxygen in the small metal box began to dissipate.

"Olivia!" he shouted at me. "Open the damn door now before you pass out in here!"

· · ───── ∘☽༓☾∘ ───── · ·

A gentle knock sounded on my door, but I merely pulled the blanket over my head, waiting for the moment the bed might finally swallow me whole. If I wished long enough and hard enough, maybe I could magic it into existence.

"Hey," a familiar voice soothed from the doorway.

Light seeped in around the cracks in my sheets, making me clench my eyes shut to avoid reality.

"Your mum said I could come in," she said, jostling the edge of my bed as she sat down.

But I kept my mouth closed, hoping if I stayed quiet long enough, maybe she'd go.

"Ollie... Come out and talk to me."

"I'm sleeping," I begged as the realisation that she wasn't just going to cave began to dawn on me.

"The fact you just responded ultimately proves that you aren't sleeping."

"I'm sleep-talking?"

"Ollie."

A felt a tug at my blanket, so I gripped harder at the edges, not wanting to come out of my cave. Not wanting to face people or the day.

"Ollie, let go and talk to me."

She continued to yank and pull at the blanket, but I held my ground, shimmying magic through the bed for support.

"Are you using your powers?" she asked, tugs coming to a stop. Though the blanket at my feet was still lifted, telling me she certainly hadn't dropped it.

"I would never," I muttered.

"Well, two can play at that game."

And, before I had a chance to react, the blanket whipped up away from me and into the air, spinning across the room until it banged into my cupboard.

At once, I sat up, staring at it before my head snapped towards the door. "Marli! You didn't have to be so loud about it!" I hissed at her, wary of whether my mother was about to come in to ask what happened.

Her own shoulders had hunched anxiously as she peered at the door, waiting alongside me for footsteps nearing. "I thought you'd put up more of a fight," she whispered an explanation.

We remained like that for a few more moments, staring at the opened door. But when my mother's red hair never filled the frame, Marli inched her way over to the entryway, gently closing the door to give us more privacy.

Relaxing into the bed, I revelled in the darkness that greeted me once more. But then she flicked her hands and my curtains snapped open. The orange and pink sky filtered in, bringing a warm glow to my room. Not quite enough to illuminate my day, but enough to remind me the world was still going on outside. And most certainly enough to highlight his figure, sitting anxiously in my chair, blue eyes worrying over me.

"Why are you here?" I demanded as I turned to look at Marli.

"Because I'm your friend, and I'm worried about you," she said, walking back across the room and taking a spot on my bed.

I kept my gaze straight ahead though, knowing that, if I looked at her, I'd see him sitting on the other side of the room. "I'm fine. I finished my degree, as you and my mum wanted. I'm going out again, eating, partying... what more is there?"

"Do you have a job yet?"

"What do I need one of those for?"

"A sense of normalcy."

"Who decided jobs equate to normal lives?"

She heaved a sigh and leaned back on her hands against the mattress. "Your mum said you came back very early in the morning still wearing the same things you went out in last night"

"Yeah... I hooked up with someone I met while I was out. What of it?"

"What was their name?"

Shit... what was it... Mary? Melinda? M... My eyes shot up across the room, meeting his blue ones as I begged for the answer. But the splitting headache and soberness only caused my heart to wince at the sight.

"You can't even remember people's names, Ol..." Marli breathed.

"They're one night stands. Am I supposed to?"

"She said when you came home, you yanked your curtains shut and hid in here again. She worried you had another panic attack."

"I just didn't get much rest last night. Needed to sleep it off."

"Ol—"

"I'm fine! Why does everyone keep saying I'm not?"

Her brown eyes twinkled in pity, a glisten forming as she watched me begin to fall apart. "Everyone being me and your mum?"

My lips pressed together as I tried everything in my power to not look over at him. Because I knew she was testing me here.

But the ocean torrent in his eyes demanded to be seen.

"You said he moved on," Marli said, already noticing my slip up.

"He did... I didn't see him for a couple of days."

"I told you," his voice dwindled across the room, "That was because you seemed like you needed it."

I picked up the pillow and fell onto my bed, smothering myself under its plushness. "Go into the light!" I demanded—whether to me or to him, I wasn't sure.

"I should have never done that spell," Marli sighed as she fell onto the bed next to me, softly yanking the pillow from my clutches.