Why am I still gripping his clothes and finding something akin to odd comfort in the way that I can focus on his magic and feel him like a heartbeat in my chest…?
It’s been barely a week.
Icannotbe such a people pleaser that I’m feeling guilty about ripping myself away from the lonely faerie who cooks for me…and murmurs sweet words to his flowers…and begs me just to talk to him.
Ugh…
Don’t tell me…
I know I’ve been living in a basic Stockholm situation my entire life, but I’m supposed to be smarter than to fall into another one. Succumbing toStockholm syndromewas supposed to be a coping joke, not an actual thing that has happened. It’s been ten days. Ten pathetic days. It can not have taken me merely a pathetic ten days to sympathize with a dangerous, volatile, jealous, insecure man.
Stuffing a hand into my hair, I grip the roots, ground myself in the pull. “I’m staying. And that’s final. It’s the smart thing to do.”
I’ll talk with therighteous and goodprince as soon as he gets back from his egregiously long meeting and see if there are any programs in his kingdom for people like me. I’ll find work, somehow, somewhere. I’ll find a place to live and take care of myself, making my own decisions every day. Forever.
First decision on the list is getting therapy. I will work very, very hard until I can afford therapy.
I’ll build up the rest of my perfectly mundane and correct and healthy life from there.
The end.
That…
That actually sounds pretty horrible.
Is all I want out of life to get an entry-level job since my skills cap out atsmile and look pretty? Am I actually so eager to decide what I want to eat, every day, for the rest of my life? If my clothes stop being Castor’s magic, I might have to dolaundry. And, assuming I can afford a place with a nice enough tub, I’ll have to drawmy ownbaths.
Castor has an entire multi-floorlibraryhe showed me on my tour of his palace, and I haven’t even asked to look at it since then because I’ve been on my usual stint of nottaking up space.
He’s got a pool.
A whole pool.
Ahugepool.
With water features and crystal blue water.
It’s surrounded by gardens that he tends himself, and when night comes, the sky clears of clouds, and the moon casts a silver sand dollar across the surface.
Who knows what the economy is even like here?
I mayneverbe able to afford a pool.
Whimpering, I bite my cheek because I’m only about sixty percent sure I’m opting to romanticize thefamiliar. Simply because that’s what it is.Familiar.
I’ve been classified as an adult for five long years, and I’ve been physically able to walk out on my mother for most of them. Before she had the backing of Rodrick’s interests in me and all his money and security, there would have been ways for me to counter her power with my own. After all, I was the one withthe social presence and the skill and the following. I could have angled myself as a victim in the public eye and rallied an army against her abuse.
Yet, Istayed.
Because everything was terrible and terribly familiar—and, also, I didn’t want to be terrible like her.
The fight seeps out of my body.
I look at the feather soft bed on the other side of the room. A curtain of sheer down embraces silk. It reminds me of how Castor’s bed is covered in thick black drapes, which leave everything to the imagination once he tucks beyond them each night.
I…
I think…
