“Now I think I’m the hero.” Stella burst into body-wracking sobs.
She was shocked by the grief. She hadn’t expected that being her own hero would be so stunningly lonely.
Her mother hugged her like she understood. She was maybe the only person who could.
A lump formed in Stella’s throat, and she pulled back to meet her mother’s bright blue eyes. “I didn’t know you went through that, Mama—that someone hurt you like that. Endros had no right to your pain.”
The grief and fear were still fresh in Stella’s chest. The ragged agony of her father trying to get to her mother, desperately fighting across their bond so she wouldn’t feel alone in the worst moment of her life. Her mother’s harrowing grief that he would feel what she did and suffer alongside her.
It was one thing to hear the pretty version of a story, but what they had been through was so brutal and ugly.
Stella had never been under the impression that what her parents went through was easy, but she hadn’t realized how much she’d bought into the folklore when the lived reality was right in front of her.
How many times had Stella seen quiet moments where they’d both seemed haunted by something only the two of them could see?
Cecilia offered a watery smile and brushed the tears from her cheek. “The fairy tale is the story everyone else tells. The truth is messier, full of heartache and frayed edges. We didn’t tell you not because we didn’t trust you to be able to handle it, but because we tried to make a world where you wouldn’t be exposed to the horrors we’ve endured—” Her mother took a shuddering breath. “You saw the worst parts of it, but the real magic is in the healing. It’s in loving someone in their weakest, most vulnerable moments the same way you do in their triumphs.”
Stella squeezed her hand. “It’s okay, Mama. You don’t have to explain?—”
“I do. You saw the worst of it, but you didn’t see what good care your father took of me when I was healing, how he kept me safe and let me lead the way, how he built folklore into our relationship that guided both of us out of our darkest moments. Fairy tales are just stories, Stella. And sometimes stories save us. They have that power.But they are never thewholestory. There’s an entire ever-after that is all about healing. Love is finding someone you can heal with. Someone who will sit with you in your darkest moments and love you when you can’t bear to love yourself.”
“Is that what Papa is to you?”
Her mother’s face softened. “You saw firsthand through those memories. Your father has always been a focal point for me. He has anchored me through every storm. Is that what Arden is to you?”
It was all too much. Stella was overloaded with information. Her need for love was a deep, yawning cavern that Arden had not even tried to fill.
“Papa fought so hard for you,” Stella whispered. “Arden couldn’t even defend his choosing me to his own parents.” It hurt so much to say it and face the ugly truth. “He doesn’t love me how I need to be loved, and I only loved what we could have been. I tried to keep something alive alone, and I felt so resentful and furious at him for not wanting me enough when I only ever loved his potential. I don’t know why I couldn’t see it.”
As a child, Stella thought her parents were gilded by their love, blessed with the matching golden scars they bore over their hearts. Now she could see how those marks were probably as much a reminder of their pain as they were a reminder of how much they loved each other.
A real man would have greeted Stella when she returned from the worst day of her life. A partner would have been beside her in the mess the way her parents were for each other.
She thought about the mix of terror, grief, and love her father had sent through the bond in her mother’s memory. Stella wanted someone to feel that way about her. Desperate and wondrous and terrified.
Her father used to say that fear and love were a pair. As a child, she’d never understood it, but now she did. To love someone for real was to show them where you could be hurt and trust them to be careful with you.
“It’s all right, Stella. I’ve got you,” her mother said, petting her hairsoftly. The movement was so soothing that Stella didn’t even care if it made her hair frizz.
“Sometimes it’s no one’s fault,” Cecilia whispered. “Some people can’t love you the way you need to be loved, and it’s no one’s fault. It just is. I’m sorry you’re hurting, because I know how badly you wanted this.”
Stella had imagined an entire relationship for herself. She’d invented an intimacy made of empty promises. She’d summoned that from the longing in her heart, all because she was too desperate to see the truth. Stella wanted to feelwanted.
She hated that Arden didn’t love the way she loved. She could have begged, but the kind of love she’d been desperate for since the first time she knew love existed wasn’t the kind that someone pleaded for. It was the kind given freely, helplessly, unflinchingly. And though some wisdom in her bones had felt that truth the first time she’d held Arden’s hand, it felt newer now—harsher. Like she’d helped sharpen and aim the blade, but was still surprised it struck true.
That was the trap of a charming man like Arden, someone who pretended to be good while actually being quite selfish. It wasn’t what he gave her so much as the possibility of more that he constantly dangled. Stella felt so stupid for not seeing it before, but it wasn’t until?—
No, she would not think of Teddy. Not now. She would break.
Her mother stroked her cheek and spoke again. “I can’t tell you what love is because it’s something different to all of us. To me, it has been the way your father cared for me so steadily, and how he learned to adapt to the ways I needed to be loved. He learned to stop fixing and sit beside me and support me when I needed to do the fixing. He learned how to choose his own path instead of letting someone else aim his sword for him. It’s all about finding the person who can love you when you’re at your most tender.”
Stella squeezed her eyes closed. There was only one face those words conjured.
She wanted to banish Teddy from her every thought. She could not even face him in her own head. When she thought about him,she thought about everything else. She thought about the fact that he had only touched her that way because she needed the distraction.
No matter what complicated thing she felt for Teddy, he did not feel it back. He was just a good man who felt responsible for the blood on her hands because he was the reason she’d had to get her hands dirty in the first place.
“That’s not all that’s bothering you,” her mother whispered into her hair.
