STORY
I don’t remember falling asleep, but I must have, because soft Scotland sun pressed on my eyes and the sweet trill of a songbird singing filled my ears. I rubbed my lids. The bed was strange, too soft, and smelled overpoweringly like lavender.
The princess has a relationship with the villain too.
Last night came back as if it were an old memory, his words stained and warped in sepia. I rolled over, drawing the sheets past my shoulder and up to my cheek.
As if they would protect me.
My mother named me Storybook because she loved fairy tales, but she never saw the irony in it while she stole happily ever afters. Because like the heroin that took her, she loved the rose-colored feeling, loved the idea of a prince whisking her away.
And like the heroin that took her, the reality was never as she hoped. In her fairy tale the princes were all taken, the fairy tale was always fractured.
Put on a show, Story.
I tugged the sheets tighter against my face, tight against the memories rushing through me. In the daylight, the room wasn’t so haunting. Directly in front of me, through a patchwork of ancient glass, an arched window showed a softened Scotland morning. Sun glimmered off the warped glass, and a strip of foggy morning sun peeked out beyond the green hills.
Put on a show, Story.
With an exhale, I rolled to my back and stared at the cracks in the ceiling.
Is this what you like, Story? Is this what will get you off? When he watches me fuck you?
There’s a briar forming in my chest, seeded two nights ago, and now it was twisting and creeping and scraping.
Why don’t you call him over? He can fuck your ass while I fuck you.
I can still feel him inside of me.
I sat up, throwing my sheets off the bed. Too hot. Too cramped.
Leaning off the bed, I pressed my hand to the cold window, staring out the rain-dappled glass into the dewy morning.
I could feel our child growing in me every day, moving so light it was almost like butterfly wings. I felt connected to Grayson.
What was he doing this very minute? Was he looking out at the salty, Crowne Point sky? I spread my palm along the glass, picturing him through the cracks between my fingers.
I wished I could be with him, helping him find the coin that would save us, but if I had stayed, he would have lost everything.
So I guess my path was here.
“Whatever our souls are made of…” I whispered. His and mine are the same, I finished the line from Wuthering Heights in my head.
“Story Hale.”
I scrambled back on the bed at the voice, banging my head against the dark oak headboard.
In my doorway stood a woman who looked about mid-forties, in a perfectly fitted gray suit. Behind her an older woman, dressed in the starched blue uniform of the du Lacs, came carrying a set of tea.
The first woman followed the tea into my room. She sat at a small table next to another arched window. Freshly cut wildflowers had already been placed in a skinny vase. As the tea was set out, the woman looked up at me expectantly.
I got out of bed, warily sitting opposite her. Our table groaned with any slight movement, cracks ran as branching veins in the porcelain tea cups. I don’t think anything here was newer than a century.
“I’m here to discuss your options.” She reached down into her briefcase and pulled out two folders.
“My what?” I asked.
“Your options,” she repeated, stressing the word as if I knew what the fuck it meant. “The du Lacs have a very nice mistress package.”