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There was an old bench in Wayhaven’s square.
It had stood the test of time under the warm light of an old lamp post, etched with decades’ worth of people’s initials, of their wisdom, of their prayers. Any time Joanna found herself sitting on that bench, time just seemed to bleed into itself – ceasing to exist altogether if she leaned back and closed her eyes.
The bench’d had that sort of magical, otherworldly feeling for almost as long as she could remember, but maybe that was just because she’d spent so much of her life there waiting .
Waiting, when she was little, for Rebecca to remember her dance recitals and for a nanny to show up in her stead. Waiting there afterward for the inevitable apology ice cream that she’d barely touch.
Waiting, when she was older, for nerve-wracking phone calls. One from the university’s Dean to condemn her for things she didn’t do, and another one – a better one – after her very first interview at the station with Sung.
Always waiting there for fate, she guessed. And sometimes just for answers.
She’d always take a walk if she needed to clear her head or puzzle things out, and somehow she always managed to end up back in the square with her ass on that bench while she let her brain burn. She’d even done some of her best police work from that bench, and a small part of her wondered if the spot might be imbued with some sort of magic.
…
No, that was stupid. It was just the waiting.
She just didn’t know what the hell she was waiting for, this time.
Jo heaved a sigh and let her eyes flutter shut, let the bench do its thing while she sat there mulling over leads of arm-sized feathers and supernatural Red Bull – hoping beyond hope for some epiphany about how those things tied to Addie’s magic and Addie’s fate.
It didn’t matter how hard she thought or how much she wished it, and it didn’t matter that she’d switched things up and laid down where she could stare up at the sorbet colors of a changing sky. Her epiphany never came.
Her magic bench was out of magic juice.
Not that she’d have any way to know, of course. In spite of herself, her mind wandered to what that had to feel like. She wondered, and maybe the teensiest bit worried , about what it must be like to feel magic hovering like thousands of tiny pin pricks in the air.
But only like, a teeny tiny bit, ‘cause she still wanted to be mad.
“Hey.”
Her heart dropped to the pit of her stomach at the sound of that voice. There was no mistaking Mason for anybody else here in Wayhaven, and she’d been playing with fire just by thinking of him for a whole two seconds and why -
Why
Did she even end up thinking of him?
That heart of hers only dropped further when she sat back up to get a good look at him, leaning against that lamp post off to the side. Every one of his muscles was tensed, he had his arms crossed over his chest and his brows furrowed almost into a scowl. Worse than that though?
He wasn’t even looking at her.
“Hey.”
She should be the one doing the not-looking thing.
“You shouldn’t be out here alone,” he grumbled, apparently to the gravel he was busy digging a hole into with the toe of his boot.
“It’s still daylight...” she grumbled back, even if ‘daylight’ was generous for a setting sun. Technicalities didn’t change the fact that she was starting to feel an awful lot like the child she had once been sitting with her ass in this definitely-not-magic bench. “I take it you’re still on babysitting duty?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?” she asked, since she was very obviously the last person on Earth he wanted to be saddled with.
Wasn’t she?
He was slow to answer, time bleeding into what felt like eternity in that space between heart beats. “I said I'd do it,” he said after a heavy breath. He finally looked up at her, and time ceased to exist completely while she pieced together the pain in their shared gaze. “Unless you want one of the others...”
And, in spite of herself -
“It’s fine, Mason.”
In spite of herself -
“You sure?”
She managed a nod, even if part of her did still want to be mad.
“Let’s get going, then," he said, spell broken once he pushed himself back off of the lamp post and turned to get a good look at their surroundings, the last golden hour of her “daylight” fading into deep purples. He must have felt her watching, because he glanced back over his shoulder to find that she hadn’t moved. “What are you waiting for?”
Fate, she guessed.
Or maybe just an answer.