Counting Crows

Note: Contains spoilers from Episode 17, Curse. This is a sad story, so be warned.

We were cursed from the moment our eyes met across a crowded hallway.

Every moment, indeed every action, seemed drenched with meaning.

But standing here in my front yard, watching crows wheeling overhead, I wonder when it all slipped away.

Was it the moment the liquid touched his lips, or was it later when the potion worked its way through his system? Because hours later at the abandoned house, when his eyes met mine and slipped away dispassionately, I realized it hadn't worked on me.

I remembered everything. Every moment was burned into my brain, from our almost kiss in the woods to a pile of tangled limbs and breathless passion at our denouement.

We exchanged over 10,000 texts in six months, but nothing at all in the past week. Someone who was my closest confidante became a complete stranger, one who barely acknowledged me when he saw me at school.

That hurt the most.

And it's not like I can discuss it with anyone, because when I look at the Circle, I see a disparate lot, thrown together by circumstances and not much else. The three girls cluster together and utter meaningless words of comfort, and only Jake has the good grace to stay mum on the subject.

It's how Adam finds me on this dreary Sunday afternoon, counting the murder of crows as they dot the landscape like black ink.

"What are you doing?"

I can barely breathe as he moves abreast of me, staring between me and the sky with those soulful cobalt eyes.

"Counting crows."

"Why?" It's a simple question, completely devoid of subtext.

I shrug and dig my hands into my pockets. "It passes the time." And this time I look at him, searching his face and failing to find what I most desire.

Adam kicks at a stone. "So I need some help with a spell. I was hoping to borrow your Book of Shadows."

"Sure."

He looks awkward. "You...um...want me to get it from your room?"

"You know the way," I say coolly, turning my back on him and returning to my avian reverie.

Adam returns in a few minutes with the book tucked under his arm. "I'll take good care of it."

I toss the rock he's kicked into the overgrown rose bed. "Whatever. Take your time. It's not like I'm doing magic anymore."

His mouth opens and he starts to say my name. I hear it whisked away by the wind, caught up in the cawing of my new best friends. "Since when?"

I sigh and squash down my feelings. "Since then."

There's nothing to more to say, and the space between us grows wider as he turns without a word. My attention returns to the sky and he drives away, forever lost to me and erased from the cosmos.

The End