A heavy silence falls over us, the weight of the past, the violence, and the regrets pressing down. If only I’d known what my father was. If only Kai knew what was happening to his mother. If only there’d been another way.
“I don't expect you to forgive me, but I seek your forgiveness regardless,” the Queen says to me, her eyes glassy and full of remorse. “I robbed you of your father, and I now see I subjected you to a fate worse than what I endured. Had I the chance to do it again, I would have chosen a different course of action.”
I stare at her, my mind working to process everything. Part of me wants to lash out, to make her feel the pain I've carried all these years. “You fucked up my childhood,” I finally say, deciding to be direct.
“I did,” the Queen admits softly, open remorse in her voice.
“I had no way out and no one to help,” I continue, as she listens intently. “And that kind of sounds how it was for you, too.”
I see a glimmer of hope in Kai's eyes.
I hesitate to forgive the Queen. Part of me wants to hold onto my anger. I paid a heavy price for her decision. But another part recognizes the trapped, desperate woman she'd been. Wasn't I fighting against that same kind of powerlessness?
“I'm not sure I forgive you,” I say carefully. “But I understand why you did what you did. I understand the fear of someone else having that kind of power over you, even if it was my own father.” I close my eyes and swallow hard, still struggling to reconcile these new facts about my father with the man I thought I knew.
After the Queen leaves,returning to Midnight via her charmed necklace of transport, Kai goes to the kitchen. The shiny new espresso machine and milk frother look so very out of place on the chipped laminate counters of the kitchen.
“You learned how to make lattes for me?” My heart squeezes to a near-painful point despite not pumping anymore.
He shrugs with a half-smile as he pours out the pumpkin spice syrup. “It’s nothing.”
It’s definitely not nothing.
I sit at the counter watching him make my drink, pulling a carafe of blood from the fridge labeled “Red,” in my friend’s handwriting.
Kaison passes the coffee cup to me and I stare into it for a while, my thoughts a tangled mess of confusion, hurt, and a tentative understanding.
“I don’t know what to think of my father anymore. For so long, he was my everything. My hero. Nothing could knock him off the pedestal I put him on.”
“And now?” he asks hesitantly.
I lick my lips slowly, feeling pain and confusion and a hurt I’ve never known before tumble around in my chest, making my temples throb. “Now, I see what he was, or at least more of him. He was greedy, abusive, and a temperamental manipulatorwhose behavior I chalked up to him being an artist. My father made beautiful art and committed horrible crimes against my kind and even yours. I can’t say I blame your mother, which hurts even more.” When my mouth goes completely dry, I pause to drink the deeply satisfying concoction Kai made for me. “Do I absolve him of any of his sins because he drew a line at children? Does he get any points for loving and protecting me? I don’t know how to add up the score.”
Kai rounds the counter, taking my hand to lead me back to the couch with my drink in hand. “You’re trying to make it black and white, and I think it’s because you might be trying to figure out if it’s still okay to love him.”
A bubble swells inside my chest and I feel the sob trapped there. Kai is right. How can I love someone so. . . so fucking awful? But how can I not love my father who was the shining star of my childhood?
I don’t even know how he treated my mother. If he’d always been a bastard or if maybe my mother’s death inspired a fall from grace? I’ll probably never know.
“I won’t lie to you,” he says, “I struggle to relate. My father has never possessed redeeming qualities, but I still yearned for his approval. The closest I can come is that while I love and adore my mother, I don’t think she did the right thing either. She shouldn’t have entered into an affair with your father. She shouldn’t have suffered in silence. She certainly shouldn’t have murdered him.”
“Shouldn’t she have?” My vision blurs from the tears gathering, but I refuse to let them fall.
Kai goes silent. Maybe he’s thinking of the man who assaulted me and how he killed the king because it was better for everyone. How he has made similar choices and while it doesn’t make him good, it doesn’t make him wrong.
“There's two ways to this that I see. You land on a side of love or hate and let go of everything else to reinforce that decision to give yourself peace. Or two, you won’t ever make sense of your feelings about him, and you have to live with the messiness, the jumble of confusion where your adoration for him and his despicable behavior will always be at odds inside of you.”
Ugh. That sounds so hard, so awful and confusing.
“The second path is certainly much harder, and most people would choose number one. It’s easier to narrow the scope and force everything else out to give yourself certainty and peace. But,” he pauses, taking my hand into his. “I have a feeling you’ll end up taking the second route. Because only the strongest people can hold things that are at odds inside themselves for the sake of truth rather than comfort.”
A tear drips onto our entwined hands as I laugh a little. “I hate how well you know me.”
“No, you don’t.” The words come out husky and serious.
“No, I don’t,” I repeat. Meeting Prince Kaison Charming’s intense gaze, I let him in to see all of me. No matter how ugly or conflicted, or hurt or broken he teases out the beauty of it all. He empowers me in whatever way I need.
To the world, the Prince of Midnight is this two-dimensional caricature, but to me he is everything. Funny, serious, thoughtful, protective, intelligent, and of course, charming.
