“I don’t love her, Grey. Simple as that.”

Disappointment radiated off of her. “Then why do you look just as bad as she does?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, but she knew. She knew I didn’t believe in love.”

“And so that’s stopping you from being with her? The fact that you think you don’t believe in love is what’s causing the two of you to look like this for almost a month?”

A sharp, miserable sounding laugh burst from my chest, but I didn’t respond.

Grey just nodded, and sat up. “I have something for you.”

My eyes narrowed and darted to her, then over to where she was looking. If it weren’t for the baby in Jagger’s arms, I would have tensed in preparation for the ass-kicking I’d been waiting for all month.

But when Jagger passed Aly off to Grey, I did exactly that. I scrambled up and curled my hands into fists.

I knew I’d said some shitty things to his sister, but she’d broken my fucking heart. I wasn’t about to let him get in any free hits.

“Here, Deacon.”

I shot a look to Grey, and flinched away from her when I noticed she was holding their baby out to me. “Don’t.”

“Here, take her,” she urged, and took another step closer to me.

I stumbled a couple steps away from Aly and Grey and Jagger, and shot Grey a dark look. “Dude, keep it away. I’ve been traumatized enough for a lifetime by one baby, and that was over eight years ago.”

Grey smiled sweetly, deceivingly, and tried to come closer. “She’s just a baby, Deacon.”

“Yeah, and it also crawls now. You know what else crawls? Bugs.” I twisted away when they got close, flinched when the baby grabbed for my shirt, and then froze when a small voice rang out in the living room.

“Deaton!”

I turned toward his voice, and something in my chest lurched when I saw his messy black hair—and blue eyes just like his mom’s.

Forgetting all about the baby and Grey, and Jagger’s murderous stare, I dropped to my knees as Keith ran toward me from Graham’s side, and caught him when he launched himself at me.

“Deaton! Deaton! Where was you, I miss you.”

Fuck. “I missed you too, kid,” I said, my voice thick with emotion. “I missed you, too.” I held him away from me so I could look at him, and had to clear my throat before I could ask, “Who are you today?”

Keith’s face fell, and his eyes dropped to the floor. “Keith.”

If he hadn’t looked so upset over that, I wouldn’t have pushed. “Not Captain America? I thought you were gonna knock me over just then.”

He shook his head stubbornly, then looked at me hesitantly. “You and Mommy was mad and talked mad at each other, and then all the ladybugs came and took my supapowers away forever ’cause you left me. I thoughted you went to the grassy place.”

It felt like the ground rocked beneath me. The ache in my chest from missing him grew into something so much more as I tried to put myself in his shoes. I’d spent nearly a month missing them, and he’d spent nearly a month thinking I’d died.

I felt like I’d abandoned him, like I’d failed him.

“Keith, no. I’m here . . .” I trailed off, and my head shook slowly. “I’m here, and they didn’t take your superpowers away. You still have them. I didn’t leave you.” I pulled him close and gripped him tightly when my eyes began burning. “Swear to God I won’t leave you, kid. I love you.”

 

 

Chapter Twenty-One

Charlie

July 31, 2016

I WAS THAT girl.

On the rare occasion that I was in the house by myself, I was that girl who lay on her couch watching sappy love movies and eating chocolate because of a bad breakup.

Except we hadn’t technically broken up because we’d never actually been together.

And instead of a sappy love movie, I was watching Beauty and the Beast, and still wondering how my life hadn’t turned out the way I wanted it to.

And my hands weren’t covered in melted chocolate, or holding a spoon that dipped in the tub of ice cream over and over again; they were holding the book I was simultaneously reading.

That. Those two things. I blamed them for why my life was the way it was.

Once upon a time and happily ever after . . . words I grew up hearing from Disney and children’s stories, and words I’d always believed in. As I grew up and my reading material grew with me, my standards for my Prince Charming morphed, but never lessened. I was so sure I would find my Prince Charming, even if he wasn’t as princely as I’d dreamed when I was a little girl.

I glanced down to the book in my hands . . .

As I said, my reading material had grown with me.

I’d always thought every event in our lives—major or otherwise—was just another part of our story that made us who we were meant to be for our Prince Charming. I knew my story would never be found forever engraved on the pages of a novel—only woven within the songs in my notebook—but still I waited for my love story to put all other love stories to shame. For my happily ever after . . .

Only to find out that none of it was real.

“He’s not really changing for you or falling in love with you, he’s lying to you to get what he wants. He just wants the curse to be broken,” I mumbled, and looked back at my book. I froze when I realized what I’d just done.

Oh no, I’m also that girl.

The one who tries to stop a fictional character from making a mistake with another, even though there is no mistake to be made. I was trying to stop my favorite Disney couple from being together. That would be pathetic any day. After almost a month? It was depressing.

At least I wasn’t in three-day-old pajamas, and I had still gone to work that day, as I had every scheduled day that month. Because I refused to let Deacon Carver see how he had broken me with his words and when he’d walked away.

Not that he’d seen me, but this town talked.

“That’s right, Belle. Run home.”

My head snapped up when someone knocked on the door, and I quickly searched for my phone so I could check the time.

Grey and Jagger had taken Keith today instead of having me take him to the babysitter’s, but they’d said they had something planned and wouldn’t be back for another couple hours.