A Certain Magical Quality

Plastic bag handles pulled taut against my fingers as I lugged the grocery bags upstairs. My insistence on doing it all in one trip and carrying as many as I could on my own had gotten the best of me. My girlfriend, on the other hand, effortlessly levitated the other eight in the air around her as she trailed behind me, a smirk on her lips.

“Sure you don’t want me to take those?” Faye asked. “Your fingers look like they’re gonna fall off, babe.”

“Are you questioning my abilities?”

“Nooo, not at all. I’m questioning the sturdiness of your hands.”

I felt the pressure on my fingers lighten, and yanked the bags in response. “Don’t you dare help me I got this.”

Faye raised her hands in surrender but shook her head with mock disappointment. “Alright alright, fine. Just don’t get upset with me if one of those things breaks.”

“Ain’t nothin’ breakin’ on nobody.” 

“Whatever you say, Dani.”

She pulled ahead of me on the last flight of steps, reaching our apartment before I was even halfway up. The door was wide open, and her bags had been deposited just inside the entrance. I could see her eyeing my right leg with something akin to concern, perhaps pity, when I finally hit the top step.

A full day of walking left me with a slight limp, the prosthetic limb digging into my stump uncomfortably with every step. I hated it when she noticed. The looks she gave, the way she doted on me and hovered like a mother hen. I felt weak. Burdensome. I hated it. 

I picked up the pace to rush inside so she wouldn’t have to hold the door any longer, and went straight to the kitchen to drop my own bags off. Faye followed closely with the rest floating in a line behind her, one by one piling on the floor or counter. I’d started shuffling through one to put away groceries when she placed a hand on my back.

“You can go sit down, I’ll take care of these,” she said.

“Don’t.”

“Dani--”

I raised my voice. “Don’t! Just, just let me do this. I’m fine. I got it.” 

“I’m sure you do but I’m worried about--”

“My leg is fine okay? You don’t need to coddle me, I’m perfectly able and I can put away some damn groceries without you and your magic!”

Faye flinched away from me and I hated how quickly the warmth of her hand disappeared. She retreated halfway across the kitchen to the other bags, hands clasped in front of her like a timid child. “I… sure, yeah, I’ll… I’ll leave you alone.”

“Faye, I didn’t… that came out wrong, I--”

“Can we just put the stupid groceries away already?” She ripped a bag open in frustration and pulled the contents out, one by one, and started sorting them into their respective pantries by hand. I spotted a tear on her cheek as I turned away.

“... sorry.”

We carried on, shuffling through bags, sorting cans and boxes and packaged goods, filling shelves and ignoring the void between us. I hated myself in those moments, I hated myself for snapping at her. I stole glances at her, catching only her back each time. Even when she’d finished with her side she refused to face me. 

“Hun, can we talk plea--” The room turned on its side as I slipped, and slammed my right shoulder into the tiled floor. I felt my head bounce off the floor. Hard. 

I rolled onto my back, clutching my head and pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes. A second set of hands were tucked beneath my head in a heartbeat, and Faye’s voice filtered through the muddled throbbing in my ears. I settled back on her thighs with a hiss.

“Of all the times and places and things that could go wrong-- oh you’re crying oh no. How bad does it hurt?”

“I am?” I lifted my hand away and felt the moisture there. “Oh I am. Haha. Cool.”

“Dani?”

“That’s what I get for being such a brat right?” I heard myself laughing as I covered my eyes again, but couldn’t understand why. “What the hell did I even slip on?”

There was a long pause and some shuffling around, but Faye never left her place above my head. “Oil. That olive oil we got on clearance. The seal broke, it spilled in the bag and on the floor and I should’ve caught it I have clairvoyance spells for god’s sake--”

There it was. Blaming herself, blaming her magic for things she couldn’t control. Feeling guilty. I hated making her feel that way. Laughter turned into sobbing and before I knew it I was up in her arms being carried out.

“Sorry.” I eked out. “Sorry, I’m sorry mm’sorry hmshorryy.”

She laid me on the couch as she hushed me, and knelt on the floor to level with my head. Fingers carded through my hair. A thumb rubbed circles over my temple to attempt to alleviate the pain. I heard the hum of magic gathering in her hand, but she froze.

“I… I want to check your head. For a concussion. But if, if you don’t want me using magic I don’t have to, I mean, if it makes you uncomfortable--”

“No!” I felt her flinch, and tried to reign my voice in. “No, Faye, I’m sorry, use your magic please, I, I don’t want you to limit yourself for me. I just, I j-just…”

She silenced me with a thumb to the lips. With a smile she cast the spell once more and started healing my head. No words were spoken between us, but none were needed for me to see she was still apprehensive. Tensed shoulders raised high, lip clamped between her teeth, it wasn’t hard for me to see her guilt. I turned my eyes to the ceiling as fresh tears formed. Regret weighed heavy in my chest as I tried to choke back my sobs, only to find myself shaking from the strain. 

“Dani?” Faye brushed her fingers through my hair again. “What’s wrong?”

The words tumbled out of my mouth in incoherent babbles that even I couldn’t understand.

“Do you… is anything else hurting?”

I nodded, and pointed to my prosthetic leg. Not a second later there was a shift on the couch, and I could feel my leg being lifted onto her lap. Through bleary eyes I watched her cautiously unlock the lower limb and prop it up against the coffee table, before reaching higher on my thigh for the liner.

“WAIT!” I lurched forward and grabbed her wrist. “Y-you don’t need to I can--”

“Hey, hey, it’s alright. Just lay back and relax, let me take care of you.”

“But I--”

“You’ve got a magical girlfriend, use her or lose her,” Faye grinned, showing off a glowing hand.

“... ok.” 

I let go, and shielded my eyes with my forearm as she continued. The liner came off and ended up somewhere behind her, while a little extra magic rolled my pant leg higher. From the heat in my face I could only guess I’d started blushing. I was already anticipating the teasing that would come with the rare occurrence, but she didn’t say a word. She was hyper focused on the healing, and on making sure she addressed every point of discomfort she could manage. 

She’d seen the bare stump plenty of times in the past but it never got any less embarrassing. I wanted to hide myself away any time it was exposed, tuck myself away in a corner and isolate. I never wanted people to see it, not even her. But here the entirety of it was in the open, out on display for her to see and scrutinize. It terrified me.

“S-so it’s uh, it’s, it’s pretty grotesque huh? The, the scar didn’t, none of it healed properly, apparently, so it’s all… gnarly.” I tried to laugh but it sounded so wounded. The hand on my knee tightened its grip.

“Hey! No insulting my girlfriend!” Faye snipped. “She’s a strong beautiful lady who should feel proud for recovering so quickly.”

I sniffled. “Aw, you must really love this gal.”

“I do. So, so much.” Her eyes grew distant as she stared at my leg, swollen and irritated, red and raw. The white scars creeping up my thigh appeared as lightning streaking across the sky. “I… I know you don’t really like the magic and all but… I think, if I practice a little more, I could reduce these scars. Um, only if you want, though!”

The thought that they could be reduced, perhaps even erased entirely, never occurred to me. As much as I hated them, they were still a part of me. Part of who I was, who I would grow into. As much as I hated them, they reminded me of what was important.

“... I love your magic.” I mumbled. “I’ve never hated it, never hated you for having it, and I don’t ever want you stop using it or use it less just to spare my feelings. It’s like… do you remember when we were walking downtown with Sadie, after I got the prosthetic, and she was walking way slower than usual?”

“Heh, yeah, her walk is basically my jog normally.”

“And you remember I started getting mad at her for slowing down so much?” 

Faye nodded.

“It’s… it’s because she did it for me. For my leg. She kept looking down, asking if I needed a break, wincing if I ever limped or groaned or made any noise that sounded like pain. I’m sure you noticed too, right?” She nodded again, though with more hesitation. “Right. It gets really frustrating, having people look at me so pitifully. I don’t…”

I felt my throat tighten around the words. “I don’t like… I don’t want people to look at me like I’m broken. I don’t want to feel like I’m… less. Like I’m incapable. Like I’m inadequate.”

“Oh, hun…”

“It hurts, you know? I was so independent before this,” I shouted, motioning to my leg. “I lost it and suddenly everyone was doting on me, babying me, treating me like I was so pitiful and helpless and I hated it! And I thought, I really thought if I got a new leg it would end, and I could be normal again, but that didn’t happen. I just wanted things to go back to how they were. But they won’t. And I still don’t know how to accept that. You could reduce the scars, but that won’t fix this… it won’t… fix me.”

Faye made a contemplative hum as we both fell silent. She pulled her legs up and crossed them as she shuffled closer to me, patting my knees in a silent request to do the same. We did this any time we needed to have a heart to heart, sitting so close we had no choice but to stare into each others eyes and see the whirlwind of emotions there. All our pain, our sorrow, our anger, everything laid bare, nothing hidden. 

She took my hands in her own and locked our fingers together. “... can I be honest with you?”

“Well that’s the point of this isn’t it?” I asked, squeezing her hands.

“Right, well, yeah. Truth is, I’ve always been a little jealous of you.”

I rolled my eyes. “As if there’s anything to envy about me.”

“I’m serious.” She giggled. “Ever since we met, I’ve always really admired you. You’re so… strong willed. Self confident. Capable. You don’t let anything hold you down or limit you, not a missing leg or magic deficiency or anything. That’s how you’ve always been, and that didn’t change even when you were hospitalized. You wouldn’t even let us carry you to the bathroom, you hobbled around on one leg like an idiot!”

“Hey!”

“You tripped and stumbled all the time. You always demanded that we let you roll yourself around when you were in the wheelchair. Then you fell and hit your head trying to do a wheelie and the nurses never let you take control again.”

“They wouldn’t let me out of bed for like a week,” I snickered.

“It should’ve taken so much longer for you to recover from all of that.” Faye’s eyes darkened, filled with the deep ache that always came with recalling those days. Yet somehow, she smiled through it. “It should’ve… but it didn’t. You could have stayed there, docile, complacent, and just let everyone take care of you, but you didn’t. You kept getting up. Hobbling on one leg. Doing wheelies. Carrying on like nothing was wrong.”

She unlocked a hand and patted my right leg, tracing one of the scars with her thumb. “You got on crutches weeks before they’d recommended. Got a prosthetic months before they anticipated. Ran a half marathon before you even finished physical therapy. Which I’m still mad about by the way.”

“Heh, sorry.”

“No you aren’t. But my point is, even though the rest of us were hung up on the accident, on figuring out how to act around you afterward, on how to treat you… you were already miles ahead of us. You’d already moved on.”

The sorrow swirling in her eyes was replaced by something hopeful, a mix of love and admiration I was happy to have seen many times before. “And that’s what I’m jealous of. You’re so… adaptable, and brave, just so god damn amazing. You don’t let people’s expectations hold you down, you’re so unabashedly, shamelessly you, and I love that. You’ve got this, this magical quality about you, the way you can be so confident in yourself, it’s infectious. You help me feel a little more confident too.”

I shifted onto my knees to hug her with an elated sigh. I didn't know just how much I needed to hear that until she'd said it. The words filled cracks and voids I'd long since forgotten. It felt whole.

“You… are disgustingly sweet, and I love you. Thanks, for all of that, just, everything you do. Everything you are. And I’m sorry, for yelling at you earlier. You didn’t deserve that.”

“Apology accepted. Sorry if I ever made you feel any less than able.”

“Apology accepted. We good?”

Faye eyed me as if debating over something. “We’re perfect,” she said, and sprung forward for a kiss.