NORMAL IS THE WATCHWORD.
ONE.
you have never been cut out for the weird life; magic does not like you and you do not like it, but sacrifices are made for the good of the people you love. she reminds you of that song, the old tune every open-mic night attendant played at the top of their lungs in mcoul’s, the one about the guy asking his friends what’s a fella to do? her hair is black and her eyes are blue.
it’s fair to say, you lost his heart to a galway girl and it happens long before you decide love is for suckers; and while you may not be clever, you sure as shit ain’t dumb, so it stays with you well into college, into marriage, out of marriage, follows you all the way back to san francisco (you hear she works at an auction house, that she’s slaying business left and right, that she’s just as beautiful as she always was) and right when you think you’ve grown your marrow back, she walks back into your life and reminds you: you were never made for anything else but to love her.
it’s easy. ( it’s not. )
TWO
fear tastes thick -- like the brownie mixture you promised grams you wouldn’t eat out of the bowl and did anyway, like lying on christmas about whether you saw all the presents or not, like riding your motorcycle for the first time, like kissing prue at the prom, like kissing her now. fear is what keeps us alive; a philosophy you have stuck to for your time in the police force. you believe in gut instinct, in righteousness, in keeping people safe.
what you never realised was this: so does she.
and magic, well -- it was never factored into your master plan, never lined up with your crosses and sunday mass and if you wonder, just once, if she owned a magic broom, who was to know? magic is real. magic keeps you alive. keeps her alive.
well.
until it doesn’t.
THREE.
dying isn’t so bad. not really. like falling asleep, except when you wake up, she is sat across from you and nothing seems to have changed, even if you know it has; you tell her it’s destiny. you tell her you will always be with her. you tell her you love her.
but none of it is true.
because you think your destiny was to love her for the rest of her life, and you think destiny has a lot to answer for in the way of robbing them of a boy with your eyes and her smile, and girls who laughed like summer and ran around playing cowboys with aunt phoebe and piper. you both deserve better.
what is true is that you don’t regret dying to protect her. to buy her time. and it isn’t until you see her again - a breath stopping, painful moment - that you understand.
it was never going to be enough.
