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Felicity returned from the kitchen with a first aid kit. I looked down at my hands and sure enough, they were bleeding from the broken glass.
“Sit,” she commanded, opening the box.
“I’m fine—”
“It’s either me or a doctor, Mr. Darcy, but you really need to get the glass out.”
Sitting across from her, I leaned against the windows that overlooked the city.
“How much of that did you hear?”
“All of it, I think,” she replied, staring closely at my hand with a pair of tweezers between her fingertips. “I was just going to ignore it when I heard the glass break. Good thing too, because it looked like you were going to kill him.”
I might have.
“This is what Arty does. He gets better, then he gets worse, then he finds me and we fight, and then he tries to pick the pieces of himself up all over again. I’ve tried to help him, but he doesn’t want that, he just wants to fight me. No one else, just me.”
“I’m not sure if I’m happy or sad that you make it your mission to try an
d save everyone, not just me,” she muttered, and I winced at the glass. “Sorry.”
“I’m not trying to save him. I’m trying to….” I drifted off because in a way, I was seeking to save him. I wanted him to move on from whatever it was that was hurting him so badly. “Don’t compare yourself to him. With you, it’s not like….”
“It’s not like I’m doing it on purpose. I didn’t make myself this way.” She smiled, finishing my thought, and I nodded. “I don’t think Arty is trying to do it either. I knew an addict once, and he said drugs are the doors to wonderland. Nothing seems real, but everything is beautiful in that one moment, and it becomes a fun escape until you want to leave and you realized you’re trapped.”
“What happened to him, your friend?” I asked as she dabbed the alcohol on each one of my scars gently.
She paused and glanced up me. “He’s somewhere in Santa Barbara with his wife and son. He made it out of the rabbit hole and now works as an illustrator, which is great because when we worked at Disney, he was an awesome Beast.”
“So you’re saying while you worked at Disney, crushing young girls’ princess dreams, the Beast was working through his drug addiction?” I tried not to laugh. The happiest place on Earth didn’t seem that happy anymore.
“What can I say, everyone is a little bit messed up.” She rolled a bandage over the palm of my hand.
“Did they teach you this at princess training?”
A sad smile spread over her lips. “My mother used to break things when she got upset. I learned watching her nurses help her.”
“I went to see your dad,” I said, and she didn’t stop working on my hand. It was almost like she didn’t hear me.
“Let me guess. He told you couldn’t watch me end up like her?”
I nodded.
She sighed and finished with my hand. “I remember him telling me that over the phone. He told me he loved me so much he couldn’t bear to watch me suffer, and if I needed anything to call, but I should just stay at Crossroads.”
Now I wished I had hit him when I’d had the chance. I rested my head on her lap. She ran her hand though my hair.
“Growing up, I felt bad for not being by mom’s side when she was sick. But I don’t want you to think that’s why I’m here with you.”
“I know. I trust you. I don’t think I love you, I know I do,” she confessed, and I stared at her completely shocked, fighting the grin on my face.
“Say it again.” Reaching up, I cupped her cheek.
“You couldn’t just let me slip it in there?”
Shaking my head, I grinned. “Sorry. I’m going to make a big deal out of it.”
She made a face but then smiled. “I love you, Theodore Darcy.”
