Chapter Text
☠💕☠
Back at Nevermore, Wednesday found Ajax sitting on her bed finishing up the box of chocolates. On the opposite side of the room, Enid stood, hairbrush in hand. She was frozen in stone.
Ajax grimaced. “I know this looks really bad.”
“You stoned her?" Wednesday hissed. "On Valentine’s Day?”
“It was an accident! I swear." He pointed across the room to where Thing was arranging Enid's nail polish by color. "Thing and I were playing catch with a scrunchie.”
Thing tapped the table impatiently, pointing to Enid’s phone. Wednesday frowned at the endless scroll of messages; friends asking when Enid and Ajax were going to be arriving at The Weathervane.
“Enid didn’t even get to go out, did she?”
Ajax looked panicky. “God, she’s gonna be so pissed at me.
“How long does stoning last?”
He shrugged. About two hours.”
“C'mon, get your keys. We still have time to go shopping.”
“We can’t just leave her here.”
“Ajax, believe me when I tell you that you don’t want to be sitting here with nothing but an empty box of chocolates when Enid wakes up. Let’s take your Jeep.”
💕☠💕
They stood outside the Hawte Kewture boutique on Jericho’s Main Street.
Ajax shoved his hands in his pockets. “What should I get her, like a backpack or something? Maybe a belt?”
“May I remind you that she gave you 2 tickets to Bonoroo? That’s $600, minimum.”
“Do you know what shoe size she wears? Or I could get her a hat?”
Wednesday pointed at the window display. “See right there? That is the pair of crescent moon earrings that she’s been talking about.”
“$150? Whoa. Are you sure?”
“Yes.” She tapped the glass. “Get with the program Ajax, you’re not going to continue to have a girlfriend unless you start taking your relationship seriously.”
As soon as Wednesday heard her own words, she understood what was happening with Xavier wasn’t about Tyler or Valentine’s Day, it was about the future. Like Enid, he wanted something that he didn’t know how to ask for.
☠💕☠
Wednesday was bewildered to see Ajax walk past the car. “Where are you going?”
He held up a small jewelry box and gave her a thumbs up. “Oh, I thought I’d stop by the Weathervane and get some coffee.”
“Have you completely lost your mind? What will Enid say if you go to that insipid Valentine’s Day party without her?”
He thought for a moment. “She’ll say ‘Ajax, I hate you’?”
“Exactly. Hurry up, I need to run an errand.”
Ajax looked wistfully over his shoulder at the warm lights of the coffee shop. “OK. OK.”
💕☠💕
Wednesday frowned at Ajax’s speedometer. He consistently drove 3 miles slower than the speed limit. “I need you to tell me who Xavier bought flowers for.”
He looked puzzled. “Xavier bought flowers? Who would he buy flowers for?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out, Ajax.”
She spotted Xavier’s black Subaru parked by the town cemetery.
“Could you let me out here?”
As she was gathering her things, Ajax sat up straight. “Hey, do you think I should put the earrings inside a piece of chocolate?”
She stared at him incredulous. "No!"
He knocked himself on the head and rolled his eyes. “Oh wait, then she might choke on her present. Shit, that would totally suck.”
“It certainly has been strange conversing with you, Ajax. Best wishes and good luck with the remainder of your evening.”
☠💕☠
She found Xavier in the cemetery, the lights of the school bright in the distance. He was sitting with his back against a grave marker, sketching. She didn’t need to look at the headstone to know it was Dr. Valerie Kinbott’s grave.
He glanced up at her, as though he’d been expecting her all along. “I know you didn’t like Kinbott but she helped me a lot.”
“I didn’t dislike her.” Wednesday kept her voice neutral. “Well, I didn’t hate her.”
“I come here once a week for our therapy appointment. It helps me to talk to her even if she can’t listen any more.”
Wednesday exhaled slowly, steadying her nerves. “I need you to talk to me, too.”
“I don’t know how to.”
She held out an enormous heart shaped box of chocolates to him. “I don’t know if you’ll like this but I wanted to give it to you.”
He eyed the box, not taking it from her hands. “Are there like, shrunken squirrel heads inside?”
She sat down. The ground was still damp. “Squirrel heads, eye of newt, Porcupine quills, Gopher guts. It’s a very popular assortment.”
He took it hesitantly, setting it on the ground beside him but not opening it. She stared at the box, silently willing him to remove the shiny red cellophane wrapping.
“Xavier, I don’t know what you want or what you don’t want. But I got this for you because — I guess because I liked it. I regret not having time to paint it black. In the future, I'll budget time for alterations.”
“I thought you didn’t want to talk about the future,” he said coolly.
“I do. I want to talk about our future.”
He was silent.
“Do you want to break up with me?” She winced at how cold her voice sounded. “I’m not good at knowing what you’re thinking but I can tell you’re trying to push me away.”
He stared at his hands. “I’d rather push you away and have you reject me now than have you break up with me later and never know why.”
“You had a dream of me alone but that doesn’t mean anything.”
“Dreams," he corrected her. "I had dreams of you totally alone. Which is probably what you always wanted.”
“Visions are subjective. It’s completely unreasonable to make decisions based on dreams about the future. I am quoting your own words, Xavier Thorpe.”
She yanked the heart shaped box away from him and started picking at the thick red wrapping. “I’m getting you a bigger box in the future but this year I had to settle for getting you two. Ajax is probably eating all the chocolate creams in the other box right now.”
It was his turn to stare as she continued to pick at the cellophane wrapping.
“They were 2 for the price of one,” she explained. “Apparently, these heart boxes are only sold on Valentine’s Day which is a shame.”
Xavier took the box away from her and inhaled slowly. “I think Tyler is in Florida; Cocoa Beach.”
She nodded slowly. “OK. I’ll send Uncle Fester to investigate."
“That’s it? You won’t go there?”
“No. I’m aware that he’s too dangerous. His safe capture will require strategic planning that outweighs my personal curiosity about Hydes. After we have sufficient intel, we’ll coordinate with The Nightshades since the siren’s song seems to work on him.”
“Really?” Tears sprung to Xavier's eyes and wiped his face with the sleeve of his sweater. He smiled a real smile and Wednesday felt a wave of relief wash over her.
“Now, you and I need to discuss long term plans.” Wednesday stated. “I need you to tell me where you want to go to college.”
“I got into Harvard after all.” He spoke slowly. “I found out this morning. I want to go there but I know you want to go to Oxford.”
She nodded slightly and then her lips parted slighted while she considered how to respond. She shook her head, trying to rid herself of the compulsion to dissect their conversations word by word. “Well, that settles it. I’ll go to MIT then. We'll be less than 20 minutes apart.”
“What?” He couldn’t disguise his shock. “What-what about Oxford? You said that was your first choice.”
“I only applied there because Bianca did. I never wanted to go there. I only wanted to be admitted before she was, ideally taking her spot. So, mission accomplished.”
“You’d go to Boston?” He hugged the heart shaped box to his chest.
“Enid will be at Wellesley.” Wednesday struggled to keep emotion out of her voice thinking about having her best friend and her boyfriend in the same city. “My life will be significantly easier if you and I live in the same city.”
He nodded and scooted closer to her.
“I don’t want to break up with you, Xavier. I never wanted that.”
“I don’t want to break up either. I’m sorry if I acted like I did. I was scared.”
She paused to take it all in; his emotional distance, the dark circles under his eyes, the way his sweater hung loosely. He had been worried about their future. He'd been too scared to ask her for reassurance because he was too worried that she wouldn't give it to him.
“I never wanted to be like my parents,” she said quietly. “You’ve seen them. They’re codependent, their love is suffocating, boundless, gut wrenching, all encompassing.”
Xavier smiled. “I know what your parents are like.”
“I never wanted to fall in love or be in a serious relationship because I don’t want to be like that; I don’t want to stop being myself. But I do want to be like this: in a cemetery together on Valentine’s Day.”
He handed her a bouquet of snowy white roses. “I brought flowers for Weems. 49 roses: one for each year of her life.”
Wednesday sighed, looking at the peach roses Xavier had placed on Kinbott’s grave. The same roses that had convinced her of the therapist’s guilt. She needed to remember what it felt like to be wrong. She needed to remember that things were not always as they seemed.
She gathered the white roses in her arms and walked to the alabaster marble monument marking the final resting place of Larissa Weems. Xavier had helped design the headstone which was adorned with two birds perched on either side of the tombstone; a small gray dove and a stark, black raven.
Xavier helped her arrange the roses on the lonely grave until they resembled a carpet of snow.
“I wish you’d lived.” She whispered to her mentor’s headstone. She didn’t know how to stop the tears in her eyes so she simply let them roll down her cheeks. “I’m going to college next year. You’d be proud.”
Xavier squeezed her hand and Wednesday stared into her boyfriend’s soft green eyes. “I didn’t know how to ask for this but it’s exactly what I really wanted.”
He smiled at the heart shaped box. “That and chocolates, I guess.
Her eyes flashed to the box back by Kinbott’s grave. “Let’s open it up. I’ll show you how it works— there’s a very helpful infographic inside.”
Xavier picked open one corner of the red cellophane and she yanked off the rest.
“Easy there Addams, slow down.”
She opened the lid and was dazzled by the contents. “How big do you think they make these boxes?”
“Coffin sized,” Xavier answered.
She paused, chocolate covered cherry in hand. “Is that true?”
He set the box aside and held her face in his large hands. “Can I kiss you?”
“You can kiss me. Endlessly.” Her eyes scanned over his, searching for signs of hesitation but there were none. A slow smile washed over his face and she felt an uncontrollable rush of emotion.
Xavier’s long arms cradled her shoulders, carefully pushing her down onto the grave. He gazed down at her with an unfamiliar shyness. I love you. He mouthed the words.
She threaded her hands into his hair. “You think I’m so dysfunctional, you can’t even say the words I love you.”
Xavier traced his fingertips along the side of her neck, softly grazing her lower lip with his thumb. His hair hung in his eyes as he lowered his face to hers. Without warning, his lips crushed against hers. Wednesday gasped for breath and pulled him closer. The wet grass soaked her back and she shivered in the cold.
“Be careful of my chocolates,” she cautioned.
“My chocolates,” he whispered in her ear. His lips found hers again and again. Her arms snaked around his back, holding onto him for dear life.
“I don’t care if you saw me alone in a dream. I don’t want to be any further away from you than I am right now.”
💕☠💕