She found a bathing suit, and a flowing cover-up. She put it on, and looked at herself in the mirror, frowning at her thinness that contrasted with her rounding belly. Her breasts, she would admit, looked amazing. She had pregnancy hormones to thank for that. Too bad nobody was going to enjoy the look of them.
There was a pair of sandals exactly in her size, with gold cross straps and soles that seemed sturdy enough for her to walk in. And she decided she really was going to go exploring. She held her breath on her way out of the bedroom, down the stairs and out of the house. She didn’t want to run into him.
She needed a break from that man. And from her own ruminating about him.
He was her husband. It was the weirdest thing.
She was his queen, and that should feel like a dream come true, but it didn’t. She was being absolutely honest with him when she said she had never dreamed about being queen.
What she had dreamed about was loving him. What she had dreamed about was him loving her.
What she had dreamed about was apparently actually the most impossible thing in the entire world. Because if she, Birdie Matthews, could ascend from kitchen staff to queen, but could not secure his affection in any regard, that said something about the actual state of the world.
It really and truly did.
She didn’t encounter him, thank God, and instead was greeted only by the pleasant humidity, and the clinging warmth in the air when she went outside. She decided to push all thoughts of him aside. She had never been anywhere like this before. She had never traveled before. Today she rode on her first plane.
All of this didn’t have to center on King Onyx. He was used to being the center of everything. He was central to Basilia, it was true. And so there was reason to his rather unavoidable inborn narcissism, but she didn’t have to cater to it. She was a whole woman without him. She had been before. She was going to be a mother.
She found herself finally being able to get back to that place of total mindfulness. The one that she had found before the wedding.
This place was beautiful. The air, the breeze, the sound of the water.
She was elated to be here, actually. Maybe not with him. Maybe she felt emotional and everything was painful when she thought of him, but everything wasn’t pain. Not if she didn’t make him her North Star.
She was her own North Star.
She wanted freedom. And so she would claim all of the freedom that she could in this moment.
She poked around the perimeter of the house until she found a walking trail that led up the side of the hill and into the trees.
She could hear the sound of a waterfall in the distance, and she walked up farther, and came around a slight bend, and stopped. Her heart slammed into her chest as she looked down. Down and down. She was at the top of the man-made staircase, craggy stone steps extending down more than fifty feet into what looked like a fortress. Large stone walls built up on either side of a pathway. There were trees down there, hanging vines. It was unlike anything she had ever seen before. Beautiful and glorious. Like something from another world.
She gripped the handrail, and began to walk down the stairs slowly, listening to the sounds all around her. The birds. The wind in the trees. The ocean waves, a persistent sound even this far away from the shore.
She smiled.
There was magic. There were still miracles.
Onyx and his attitude didn’t get to take them from her. Didn’t get to decide how happy she was.
Right in the middle of that bubble of happiness she felt tired. Because hadn’t she been playing this game for far too long? Hadn’t she been trying to be happy in the face of other people’s misery for far too long?
She had been relentlessly optimistic in the face of her stepmother’s hatred and subjugation. When her stepsisters had been dismissive and awful to her, she had done her best to focus on who she was and what she was doing. She was having to do it again.
But at least you know how. You were made for this.
That was an indescribably sad thought, and yet, it was real. And true. None of this was fair. But no aspect of life had ever been fair. Why would it start now?
It wasn’t fair that Circe was dead. She had been young and vibrant. It wasn’t fair that for all he was king, Onyx was a man with his heart locked behind a wall.
And so there was nothing to be done. She could acknowledge all day long that it wasn’t fair that she was back in this position yet again. That she could never seem to escape it.
But there was nothing to be done. Nothing to be done but live it as happily as possible.
And God knew that through the years many women had to make these bargains.
Had to find ways to be happy in situations they wouldn’t have chosen.
