Back to the Beginning

Evan almost made it to campus before the panic finally caught up with him. The brakes slammed hard enough to jolt him forward against the seatbelt, tires chirping against wet pavement as the sedan lurched to a stop at a yellow light that he'd barely registered turning red. Horns sounded somewhere behind him. A driver gestured angrily while swerving into the next lane.

Evan barely noticed.

Hands locked around the steering wheel, breathing shallow, he stared through the windshield at the morning traffic flowing past in steady streams. Office workers. Students. Delivery vans. Completely ordinary people living completely ordinary lives. Meanwhile his own life was dissolving by the hour.

Something had to change. Because every morning made it clearer that he was losing himself. Not metaphorically. Not emotionally. Literally.

The potion had rewritten reality once already. Who was to say it would stop there? Every day brought new thoughts that didn't feel entirely like his own. New impulses. New instincts. New emotional reactions that would've horrified him a week ago. And Stacy...

That morning replayed in flashes the second her name entered his mind.

Soft skin. Warm breath. Blonde hair spilling across the sheets. The way she'd looked at him afterward, hurt and confused and **** all at once. Evan squeezed his eyes shut briefly.

She'd argued with him. Stacy. The woman who used to treat him like an inconvenience occupying space in her perfect life had looked at him with pleading eyes and asked him to stay with her. Asked him softly. Vulnerably. Called him "baby" like the word belonged naturally in her mouth. Nothing about it matched the Stacy he'd grown up hating.

And she'd cried. That part had hit him harder than he would have expected. The sound of it still sat like broken glass somewhere behind his ribs. Not loud sobbing. Not theatrics. Just genuine pain slipping through despite her trying to hold herself together.

He'd done that to her.

A week ago, some bitter part of him might've enjoyed seeing Stacy upset. After years of tension and criticism and sharp-edged comments, maybe he'd even have considered it payback.

Now the memory just made him feel sick. Because he'd seen something real in her. Or at least something that felt real. Beneath the potion, beneath the manipulation, beneath the impossible situation they'd been shoved into, there was suddenly softness there. Vulnerability.

And part of him wanted nothing more than to turn the car around. Go home. Pull her into his arms. Tell her it would all somehow be okay.

But it wouldn't be okay. That was the problem. No amount of pretending could make this normal. No amount of chemistry or attraction or magical emotional conditioning could erase the fact that their entire relationship existed because of one stupid impulse purchase from a creepy little shop on Thirty-Fourth and Vine.

Thirty-Fourth and Vine.

The thought hit him like a flare in the dark.

Madame Ruth.

There was nowhere else to go. No therapist handled "accidentally rewrote reality with love potion" cases. No university counsellor had a pamphlet for magically induced marriages. And despite the woman's threats, despite the ban, despite Stacy screaming at her head during their last visit...

Maybe she'd still help him.

Maybe if he went alone.

The light turned green. Evan shifted the car back into gear and turned away from campus entirely. Classes didn't matter right now.

Honestly, after the dinner party, he wasn't even sure school functioned normally anymore. Professor Caldwell practically looked at him like he'd discovered the second coming of Socrates. The man had spent half the evening talking about Evan's "potential" while practically glowing every time Stacy entered the room.

Nothing felt stable anymore.

Traffic thickened as downtown approached. Rain from earlier that morning still clung to the streets, turning everything slick and reflective beneath the grey sky. Evan reached automatically for the radio, **** for distraction.

A love song.

He grimaced and changed stations.

Another love song.

Another.

By the fourth one, frustration boiled over and he shut the radio off entirely.

The universe was mocking him.

Everywhere he looked, something reminded him of Stacy. A billboard with a blonde model. A perfume ad. A woman laughing while crossing the street holding her boyfriend's arm. And every single reminder fed the same vicious cycle. Think about Stacy. Get aroused. Become more aware of Stacy because of the arousal. Think about Stacy more. Round and round until it felt less like attraction and more like programming.

His grip tightened on the wheel.

It didn't help that she was beautiful. Absurdly, unfairly beautiful. Long legs. Soft curves. Full lips. The kind of presence that pulled attention the second she entered a room. The kind of woman, had she not married his father, Evan would've fantasized about long before any magic entered the picture. Only now the fantasies came automatically.

Uninvited.

Persistent.

An image flashed through his mind: Stacy curled against him on the porch the night before, warm and content against his side beneath the porch light.

Heat rolled through him instantly.

"Oh, come on," he muttered aloud.

By the time he reached the older part of the city, the situation had become actively miserable. His body refused to cooperate with his brain anymore. Every thought looped back to Stacy somehow. Stacy laughing at dinner. Stacy touching his arm. Stacy in soft pajamas looking at him with **** eyes.

Repeated pinches to his forearm helped a little. Deep breathing helped slightly more.

Barely.

The narrow storefront finally appeared between a boarded-up laundromat and a dusty antique shop.

MADAME RUTH'S CURIOSITIES

The painted gold lettering looked even less trustworthy during daylight.

Evan parked across the street and sat there for a long moment with both hands still gripping the steering wheel. Fear settled heavily in his stomach. Because what if she couldn't help? What if this was as permanent as she'd said it was?

The thought arrived unwanted but brutally clear:

If there was no solution, how long could he realistically keep resisting Stacy? A day? A week? Months? Mornings were already becoming unbearable. Nights weren't much easier. Every time she touched him it felt like his entire nervous system lit up.

And worse than the physical attraction was the emotional part creeping in around the edges. The comfort. The protectiveness. The growing instinct to take care of her. Like the potion wasn't just changing desire. It was changing identity.

Slowly, Evan climbed out of the car. Cold wind brushed against his face as he crossed the street toward the shop. The closer he got, the tighter his chest felt. Hope and dread tangled together into something exhausting.

Please let there be a fix. Please. Because if there wasn't...

He honestly didn't know how much longer he could stop himself from going home and falling completely into the life the potion wanted for him.

The bell above the door gave a soft chime as he pulled it open and stepped inside.