Chapter 11
?
What is love? Princess, don’t hurt me.
Zakery
Incredible. Outstanding. Flawless. Riveting. Fantastic. Glorious. Prodigious. Sensational!
I’ve been under-utilizing my beautiful muse.
Flipping through her sketchbook of designs, I return to the page she initially shared with me—the one covered in ideas for princely garb that matches the elements she thinks she’ll be including in the gown she’s planning for herself. I look up at her.
Once our eyes lock, she babbles, “I know it’s nothing so amazing as your art, but I promise it’ll look good once I actually make it, as long as it’s clear enough to pick out the design you want, that’s good enough.” She twirls in her pretty pink sundress, and my heart responds as the free skirt flares, showing a bit more of her slender legs than I am wholly used to seeing. “See?” She invites me to gaze upon her outfit’s splendor. “I made this.”
“It’s stunning.” You’re stunning. Wow. Just… wow , Maelin. You…are sensational.
She smiles, and my heart continues reacting irresponsibly.
“All of this is stunning.” I close the book, hand it back to her. “I want you to decide what suits me best. Also,” I rise, snapping my fingers, “a studio.”
“A…studio?”
“Yes.” I turn off the dais, intent on heading toward my bedroom door. Stopping suddenly, I whirl and catch her predictable fall off the step. Yikes. Close one, that, I was almost too distracted.
Chuckling softly, she grips me and regains her footing. “Sorry. One of these days, I’ll get the distance right. I’ve at least begun remembering it’s there…but…so far that is not helping about half the time.”
It could not help the entire time. I would be very content to catch her multiple times every single day. She’s…something. I don’t know how to explain the brief moments I am given leave to touch her. The woman has a comfortable, present weight that sinks into my hands—makes her feel somewhat more real and less like an ethereal wisp of fantasy.
“What do you mean by studio ?” she asks.
“You need one. The state of your room when I left you Saturday evening kept me restless the rest of the weekend. You have no place to sleep. I had a nightmare that you slept curled up on the one slice of clear carpet, bundled up beneath a stretch of fabric, freezing.”
“It’s…summer?”
Ask me if I care. “You did not deny my horror story. That simply won’t do.” Marching, I trail across the hall, to a dormant room. Tucked into a central part of the manor, it sees no sunlight, but I did change the lighting yesterday to make sure it would be adequate for all creative endeavors.
Flicking the switch, I display black tile, black walls, bare space like a void.
“You’re welcome to decorate however you see fit. I know it’s…depressing.” I turn to her, fixate on her wide, beautiful eyes. Awe fills her cells as she holds her sketchbook clamped to her chest. I continue, “We can spend some part of today picking out furniture, new paint, new flooring. Whatever you need.”
She tenses, drags her gaze off the room, looks at me.
“Then, later this week, we can transport your seamstress things from your bedroom to your studio. I’ve asked Kaleb to help.” Ah. Right. Patting my pockets, I locate the key I had made yesterday and hold the silver metal out to her. “To the home.”
Her breath catches.
“So you can always come right in and access your studio.”
Her legs jerk, and she pedals backward, hitting the hall wall behind her. “H-h-huh?”
She is so cute . Everything about her makes me want to keep her close and hurt anyone who’s made her anything less than impetuous. She should walk with confidence and arrogance, always, her little nose in the air, like a giraffe.
“Zakery, I’ve only worked for you one week. You’ve given me so much already. I don’t… I don’t understand.”
“I’m rich,” I offer. “I like you.” I smile when heat runs up her neck. “Rich people do weird things and have strange hobbies. My hobby might be spoiling pretty princesses that I like to draw.”
“I…I just don’t know if I feel comfortable with this?”
“Whyever not?”
She swallows, wetting her lips. “Already, it seems worth more than letting you draw me? I’m not even modeling . I’m just sitting around. What…else do you expect to gain from giving me this?”
“What else?” I stalk a step toward her.
She flattens herself against the wainscotting.
I skate my fingers across her cheek, thread them into her hair, and pin her. Lips inches apart, I whisper, “A personal wardrobe, of course.” I smile. “You can be my little Cinderella mouse.” I comb my fingers out of her locks and put distance between us. “Don’t be so afraid, Maelin. If I wanted more from you, I’d ask for it. I’m a tease, not a threat. Manipulation was more… my parents’ thing.”
She shudders in response to the roughness in my voice upon mentioning them. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m not trying to be ungrateful. I’m just baffled that anyone would give me so much without expecting something bigger in return.”
I lift a shoulder. “It’s okay, princess. I understand. After all, we’ve both been abused. It’s hard when you come out of a toxic relationship to feel like anything you do is enough.”
Her beautiful eyes crack. “A…bused?”
“As far as I can tell, your reactions to some things stink of trauma. Harry did a number on your soul. But, well, for what it’s worth, that pretty soul of yours is enough for me. More than enough. I love the way you just sit around. I love the excitement in your eyes and the way you chatter on. If Saturday didn’t prove it, I love being around you. I was reluctant to say goodbye. I dreamt of you and woke depressed that we weren’t still together.” My heart pinches, for reasons I can’t discern. “You…make me forget myself. I appreciate that a great deal.”
“Harry wasn’t…he wasn’t abusive . He was selfish. But…that’s different. Being self-centered means you hurt other people, but that’s not abuse. Abuse is intentional.”
I drop my back against the wall beside her, glancing down at her pretty face when she turns those glass eyes on me. In the low light streaming from the open void before us, she’s pretty in all kinds of new ways. “Princess. Can I be real with you?”
“I…guess?”
“I’m self-centered. Extremely so. Everyone is, actually, if you take a moment to think about it.” I tuck her long hair back over her ear. “Even you’re self-centered—but what else are you going to be? Your operating system is positioned at the center of you . It’s normal. Natural. Part of being alive, being human. It is, quite fully, unavoidable. It takes effort to think about other people. But when you’re in a relationship with someone—especially a romantic relationship with expectations that can cut straight into your flesh—it is vital to find that effort. I know it’s…easier…to believe that these people we love also love us, at least to the best of their flawed abilities…but…trust me.” I touch my forehead to hers. Soak in the heat. “They don’t deserve that kindness. There is no did their best when it comes to love. Love either is, or isn’t. Love has a distinctive definition. It’s when we sacrifice something we want for the good of someone else, consistently, every time.”
“That’s…impossible.” A crystal tear slips down her cheek. “I can’t even do that for my sister, and I know I love my sister. But sometimes I’m tired, or unkind, and I don’t mean it or I regret it later, but…we’re all human. We make mistakes.”
“Yes, we do. We choose not to love. Love is hard, and we occasionally act in ways that don’t depict it. But, when we mess up like that, assuming it is something that deeply matters to those we love, what we do to make up for it also matters. Love doesn’t care about expectations. Love doesn’t care about humanity . I believe that life is about growing in love. It’s about getting closer and closer to the kindness and care that love is built around. It’s about clear communication when we fail to live up to the standard of love. It’s about intention. Abuse happens when we are not intentional about love, so in that backwards way, isn’t all abuse an absence of good intent? Or, rather, a choice ?” Daring, I kiss her forehead and cup her face in my hand to swipe away her tears. “Did your ex really, truly, and deeply intend to love you with every one of his actions and words? Or did he take advantage of your intentions to love him, abusing you in the process with his choices?”
Thoughts stream in her beautiful eyes as the cracks deepen, then shatter. “I…don’t know.”
“Did he hurt you with his words often?”
Her eyes close. Fragile, she says, “Yes.”
“Did you tell him?”
Her chin dips.
“Did he stop? Did he apologize if he slipped up on something you already talked to him about? Or, did he make it your fault? Did he say how he wasn’t perfect and couldn’t remember everything you expected of him? Did he threaten you with emotional distance by claiming you’d just be better off without him if he was so terrible ?”
“How…can I expect people to be perfectly kind with me when I’m far from perfect myself? I couldn’t change myself for him. Why would I ask him to change for me?”
“Because,” I growl, adjust my tone, speak softer, “ because , Maelin, he asked you to change who you are. You asked him to treat you like a person he loved. There is a difference. And it’s important. Everyone’s behaviors are abusive every once in a while. It’s the consistency and intention that defines us. If he couldn’t stand your character, it was his job to say very early on in the relationship that you didn’t fit. He abused you instead, because he saw the love in you for him and knew he could use it to feel better about himself. It is that simple. There is absolutely nothing —” The word leaves me raw. “—that is so great or so damaging or so anger-inspiring that it should excuse treating someone you love poorly. You deserve someone who says I’m pissed at you, but I love you more than my anger, so we’re gonna get through this together . And that is all there is to it.”
“I feel so stupid.” Her voice breaks .
Stupidly, I pull her into my arms, rest my chin atop her head, and let a struggling breath through my lungs. “It’s not stupid to love, princess. It’s never stupid to love. What’s stupid is abusing someone who loves you. The lengths a person will go for someone they love dearly has no limit. Don’t ever think you were stupid for letting him run you dry when he could have filled you to bursting and basked in the reward.”
“You’re too kind to me,” she whispers.
I…might be.
I’d love to say that I’m just great at loving people for being people, and I’d extend my kindness to anyone, but I am very much not that type of person. I value spare few people in this world. Spare few people make me feel less like the princely puppet my parents wanted me to show the masses.
Hardly anyone makes me feel human.
Because feelings are so hard for me to wrap my skin around.
That’s why I put strict definitions on emotions and grant them clear action-based identities. It is the only way that I can figure them out. It is the only way that I can pretend I know what they feel like.
There are precious few in my life who love me enough to forgive my mistakes and let me continue loving them in my broken way.
There are precious few in my life who love me enough to let me be annoying and imperfect around them.
But those precious few…are everything to me.
And I think…I think Maelin’s becoming one of them.