I told Melissa just about everything, those years ago when we shouldn’t have had many worries. I should’ve only thought about awkwardly shaking her father’s hand, then Melissa and I critiquing expensive layered cake and hors d’oeuvres, taking all the free leftovers home that we could to our inner-city apartment. Instead, I cleared the hurdle of telling her about my past, my family. Half-wizard blood.

My brain had always been teeming with knowledge of a magical, fairy-laced world floating around this earth everywhere from the dirty, pulsing subway beneath our city’s feet to the sunny shores of Hawaii. I always was familiar with spells cast and guardian fairies floating around, naked to the invisible eye, practically weaving their invisible selves into the flags of every nation. Melissa asked if it was like Disneyland.

She came to understand the complexities of wizard life. Of my powers, though limited, and the different ways my family and I learned to see the world. And she came to love me, and our children. The wizard blood didn’t reach either of the twins, but they began to understand their dad’s ability to toss them a bit higher out of the pool, or materialize a patch of backyard snow in the steamy summer, as normal.

But I didn’t tell any of them one thing.

It was college. I was struggling. Not with grades, or living alone, or even self-esteem. I just wanted someone to love.

I was the last of my friends to be single. How could I, the one with the most access to the supernatural and a world built on charm and love, be single? I couldn’t stand it. So I met a questionable fairy down a back alley one rainy Saturday night.

When I say “fairy,” don’t think of a delicate, sparkling little dragonfly. Think of a born and bred New Yorker (Jets, not Giants, he told me) with an accent thicker than the crust he likes on his pizza. Who happened to have fairy blood. He claimed the real Tinkerbell was his second cousin, twice-removed. Magic truly lives all around us… especially where we don’t expect to see it.

Without getting too much into the details, imagine a supernatural Craigslist. Now imagine our charming fairy, Tony, offering love for sale; 2 grand a spell. Sure to make you fall in love. I didn’t see the catch until my invoice came a few days later; transfers in genetics, only valid 20 years.

I bumped into Melissa two days after my little affair with Tony, thrilled as could be. Until 20 years later, when the cracks started showing.

I knew it first by Jamie coming home, flustered more beyond his usual teenage angst. I was stirring spaghetti on the stove. Melissa asked him where his brother was, he didn’t respond. I used a tried and true spell to let the spaghetti finish itself as I followed him upstairs.

“I don’t want to talk,” his muffled voice strained through the door after a few knocks.

“Jamie, you can tell me anything,” I said softly.

I was surprised to see him whip open the door to reveal his tear-stained face.

“Amy dumped me.”

I was so shocked I almost forgot to lean into his implicit invitation for a hug. They had been together for years and were planning on going to the same college.

“Oh my God, buddy, I’m so sorry.”

I didn’t have time to connect the dots to the spell before Melissa was dealing with Jamie’s brother downstairs. His boyfriend had called it quits too. That’s when it clicked.

You can read this as a PSA for not trusting a shady spell in a back alley, or letting true love find it’s way, or whatever. It’s probably best for you to make your own interpretation. I’m tired of writing. And anyway, the divorce lawyer will be here soon.