Seven Days in June(93)

Eva let out a tiny sigh and pulled out of the hug. Palming his cheeks, she rested his forehead against hers.

“No, you can’t.”

“And Louisiana…”

“I’m going without you,” she said definitively. “It’s fine.”

“I don’t want to hurt you or Audre,” he said, his voice tinged with resigned sadness. “I’m not good enough for you yet. But I want to be, and I’ll work on it. I promise.”

Shane couldn’t believe it was over, that they were dissipating like wispy plumes of smoke. It was impossible to tell what Eva was thinking. She seemed sturdy with resolve.

“Don’t make promises,” she whispered. “Our promises don’t stick.”

“Eva…”

“Just be kind to yourself.”

“I’ll try.”

“Are you going to drink?”

“No.”

“Are you going to hurt yourself?”

His eyes flashed with such pain that Eva dropped her hands from his face.

“Shane?”

“Nothing hurts worse than this.”

Eva’s breathing went choppy, and she shut her eyes, wanting to unsee the crushing vulnerability in his face. She’d never imagined that losing Shane a second time would tear at her like this, in new, adult places.

It was unbearable. So then, almost imperceptibly, she slid on a tough veneer, an old affectation that was pure Genevieve. Crossing her arms in front of her, she tilted up her chin with faux bravery.

“Here’s a thought. Maybe we work better as a flashback.” She shrugged broadly. “You know, meet once every fifteen years, for seven days in June. Make some memories. Move on.”

“Maybe.” He looked at her.

From the ballroom, Jenifer Lewis’s voice boomed. “And the winner is…”

Eva and Shane stood there, unmoving.

“Eva Mercy! For Cursed, Book Fourteen!”

Shane immediately swept her into an embrace, his face aglow. And helplessly, she let go of the old armor and allowed herself to luxuriate in his arms, to breathe him in. One last time.

“You won,” he whispered. “You won!”

She turned her face up to his. And because he couldn’t imagine not doing it, he kissed her. A soft, bittersweet, lingering kiss that radiated through her, everywhere.

In a voice so low that Shane may have imagined it, Eva whispered, “And lost.”

*



At the podium, Eva gripped the cool, heavy glass award in her palms. The lights were too blinding, driving daggers into her temples, so she couldn’t make out faces in the crowd—which was good. Lord knows she hadn’t prepared anything.

“Thank you. Really, just, thank you. You can’t imagine what this award means to me. I grew up with these characters. They’re in my DNA. And I’m so proud that my readers love them as much as I did. Which is why it hurts me to tell them this: there isn’t going to be a book fifteen.”

A guy brandishing a witch’s broom at the back of the room let out a piercing shriek.

“I’m so sorry, sir.” She swallowed. “For half my life, I’ve hidden behind these characters. I’ve hidden in general. I’ve spent so much time being scared. Scared of digging too deep into who I really am, for fear of what I might find. What ghosts I might confront, secrets I might uncover. Better to bury it all. I thought I couldn’t be a successful person if I had demons. But what fully realized person doesn’t? No one expects men to be flaw-free. Women are expected to absorb traumas both subtle and loud and move on. Shoulder the weight of the world. But when the world fucks with us, the worst thing we can do is bury it. Embracing it makes us strong enough to fuck the world right back.

“So instead of writing about Gia, a witch who uses her powers to fight for a man, I’m fighting for myself. I’m not even sure who I am, because I’ve been in hiding for so long. But I do know that I’m Delphine’s great-granddaughter, Clotilde’s granddaughter, and Lizette’s daughter. I come from a long line of weirdos, outsiders, and misfits. I’m a misfit. And my purpose is to give us all a voice. I’m going to write their story, which is mine, too.

“But I’ll always appreciate Cursed, and my readers, too. I wish I could’ve tied up the series for you, in a bow. But I couldn’t. How do you finish a love story that you…you never wanted to end?”

She could barely eke out that last sentence.

“Anyway,” she continued. “Thank you. For letting me write for you, for so long.”

An hour later, Shane accepted his Langston Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award. At the podium, he stood in silence for five seconds, then ten. Twenty. His expression was unreadable to everyone.

Everyone except Eva.

Finally, Shane angled the microphone up and spoke five words.

“This is for the misfit.”

And with that brief speech, which was tweeted and retweeted so relentlessly that both Cursed and Eight fans began calling themselves #MisfitHive, the 2019 Litties were a wrap.





Epilogue



IT WAS MIDNIGHT ON JULY 4 IN BELLE FLEUR. GENEVIEVE MERCIER, LONG-LOST child of the bayou, sat gazing out the window of her aunt Da’s guest bedroom. It was velvety black outside, save for the occasional firecracker illuminating the sky, the prismatic colors reflecting off the lake just beyond the house.