Roman was the first person to reach Andrew as he dropped to his knees. “You’re alright, man,” Roman said, his voice light and confident as he crouched down, gripping Andrew’s upper arm to keep him from falling to the muddy ground. “I got you. You’re good, it’s all good.”

Andrew nodded as his body shook and he did his best not to signify the occasion by throwing up. Roman’s other hand was firm on his back and it was the only thing keeping Andrew upright as he stared at the ground in front of him.

“Come on, stand up.”

Roman helped him to his feet and Andrew looked up to see the side of the sign welcoming him to New Winslow gleaming in the headlights of Celine’s van. Noah hurried over the line toward him and Andrew braced himself for the terrible second where Noah was going to get trapped. But it never came and suddenly he was wrapped in Noah’s arms as every process in his brain tried to catch up with what happened.

“Is it over?” he asked, his voice muffled by Noah’s leather jacket. “Like, completely?”

“I don’t know,” Noah said, not letting go of him. 

“Don’t come back over!” Iris called, her voice encouragingly strong. “Not yet! Even if it’s truly gone, there’s going to be aftershocks!”

Celine nodded in agreement as Andrew reluctantly let go of Noah. Over on the other side of the line, Olivia had Mia on her hip while Cleo stood beside them. Iris kept her distance now, even as Mia stared at her over the hand she was chewing on. 

“I’ll bring you wherever you want to go,” Noah said. “I can drop you off somewhere, just let me…”

He faltered as he motioned toward Liv and Mia. Andrew could see the mix of emotions on his face too, even through his own shock. A wild part of him wanted to go straight back over the line, where it was safe. But if the curse was truly lifted (minus the aftershocks, of course), then didn’t that mean the town line was nothing now? Still, he didn’t feel secure again until Noah’s truck rolled over the boundary a few minutes later. 

Celine was going to bring Liv, Cleo, and Mia back home, Noah explained. And he was going to drop Roman off at the Countess. And then he’d bring Andrew anywhere, anywhere at all.

————

Anywhere was going to be a motel of some sort for tonight at least. Andrew wasn’t going to go inside the Countess. Even if it meant driving for forty minutes with Noah through the woods to a shitty motel on the side of Route Two, he wasn’t setting foot in that place. And it wasn’t entirely a selfless decision based on the fact that Noah hated the Countess. Andrew just needed somewhere non-magical where he could lie down and process everything.

Having Roman there for the first part of the drive made things feel even more surreal. “You’re handling it well,” Roman said with a laugh about ten minutes into the drive, which had been silent up until then. “When I found out I was out, they had to sedate me.”

Andrew laughed, the sound jittery as it left him. He was in the front seat with Noah, who looked away from the road just long enough to smile at him.

And then Roman was gone, hopping out of the truck with a reminder that they could call him for anything. Back on the road, the world around him wasn’t much different from New Winslow, at least not yet. They were in the woods, familiar from his teenage years and early twenties. “I can bring you to Boston,” Noah said after a long stretch of silence. “If there’s somewhere…”

He cleared his throat as Andrew looked over at him. “I don’t have anywhere to go back to,” Andrew said.

That wasn’t entirely true. Cleo is still living with Edie, at least for the moment. He could stay on their couch until he found a flatshare. Cleo had already texted him, apparently having had that entire conversation with Edie in the time it took him and Noah to reach the Countess. But for tonight, it made much more sense to just stay somewhere nearby. Until he could go back to New Winslow and put his life back together in order to leave again.

The Route Two Motor Lodge was a terrible little place, but it was new to Andrew. It wasn’t the same three square miles he had seen every day for nearly two years. He needed to call his mother, he needed to find a job, he needed to find a home, he needed to hold onto Noah and never let go of him.

The parking lot was empty as they pulled in and got out of the truck. In the office, the woman behind the counter gave them a room and Andrew opened the door moments later in a daze. There was a big bed in the middle of it, along with an ancient TV and an odd linoleum desktop that stuck out of the wall. As they stood in the entrance, Noah looked at him. “I can leave you here, if you want,” he said. “I know you have a lot to figure out and I don’t want to get in the way of that.”

Andrew grabbed him, pulling him in tightly and pressing his mouth to Noah’s. The room was dim and dingy and nothing about it was his. He hadn’t even brought a change of clothes, all he had were the filthy ones he’d been wearing at the town line. But he pulled Noah into this room with him. “Please stay,” he managed hoarsely.

Noah pushed the door closed behind him, turning the deadbolt. Andrew wanted nothing more than to pull him directly into the bed and just feel Noah beside him, beneath him, over him until Andrew wasn’t so scared anymore. But the bed needed to be checked for bedbugs first and he needed to shower very badly.

“Do you want me to come in with you?” Noah asked him when he said this, kneeling beside the bed to check it for bedbugs.

“Will you still be here when I get out?” Andrew asked.

“Of course.”

While part of him did badly want to bring Noah into the shower with him, he needed a safe moment alone, where he knew he wouldn’t have to be alone any longer when it was over. So he went into the bathroom and turned on the shower, which turned blisteringly hot within seconds. He stripped off the dirty clothes and climbed under the spray of an unfamiliar shower head.

He was out. Nearly two years after going to New Winslow for a week to help Cleo, he was out. With no home or job outside of the town and too many connections inside to completely let it go again. 

Shit, he hadn’t even kicked that bloody stump out of the goddamn ground on his way out like he’d planned to. 

Andrew let the water pour over his hair and down his chest. He could get a proper haircut again, get it back to the style he actually wanted. He’d been able to do it similarly in New Winslow, but it wasn’t the same. He could get a job that wasn’t behind the counter at a magic shop. Even if he kind of loved that magic shop.

Noah wasn’t going to come with him though. His life was in New Winslow and he had so many responsibilities there that Andrew knew it was too selfish of him to ask Noah to leave. As he stood under the shower spray, he tried to imagine Noah in his world, tried to picture him living in the city, surrounded by the energy in which Andrew thrived. 

Noah would hate it. 

He tried to imagine himself staying out here. Not necessarily New Winslow. Somewhere with a bit more going on. Amherst or Northampton were closer than Boston, right? Somewhere he could leave on a whim, but where he also settled down. Somewhere peaceful and quiet. 

Infuriatingly quiet. He wouldn’t last a month. 

Was Noah thinking along these same lines out there right now? Or maybe he already knew that Andrew was going to leave, he was going to stay, and he had accepted it. 

And was Noah going to be alright? Andrew didn’t fool himself that he was the thing that would keep Noah sober. He knew that wasn’t how it worked. But he also wasn’t going to be living there anymore and couldn’t help that small feeling that he was abandoning Noah.

And that Noah would kill him if he heard that thought.

He scrubbed himself with a small, nicely sealed bar of soap, then washed his hair with an unfamiliar scented shampoo. The towels were so thin that parts were threadbare, but they worked enough to dry off and walk out of the room.

Noah was still in the room, like he’d promised, sitting in the small chair by the window. He was looking out behind the shade, but closed it and turned to Andrew as he came into the room with one of the other threadbare towels wrapped around his waist. Andrew felt ridiculously exposed under his gaze, as though they hadn’t been having semi-regular sex for months now. But everything felt sensitive and scared as Noah stood up and came closer, blocking the yellow light of the lamp in the corner as he did.

“Are you alright?” he asked Andrew as he put his arms around him.

Noah was still wearing his jacket and the old brown leather was soft against Andrew’s bare chest. “Yeah,” he said. “I suppose. Though I didn’t even bring any clothes.”

Noah let go and eyed him with a smile. “I’m not complaining,” he said.

“I will be when I have to get back in those,” Andrew retorted, motioning toward the clothes on the bathroom floor. “They’re filthy.”

“Get in bed,” Noah said. 

He went to check the lock and turn off the light as Andrew slid beneath the clean sheets. In the little light coming through the shade, he could see Noah’s outline as he undressed as well. Then he was under the worn duvet, pulling Andrew against him.

“Do you think he’s alive?” Andrew asked as he settled in, his head on Noah’s thin chest.

“I have no idea,” Noah admitted. “But he’s not your problem anymore. None of this is.”

There was a heaviness there, but neither of them were going to address it right now. They weren’t going to address anything else tonight.

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CONTINUE TO EPISODE 49

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