Chapter Three
YOU KNOW HOW OLD ROMANCE movies end, with couples running off into the night or something? These days, that either means they stole something, or it’s clickbait, and they’re actually going to have a divorce. Or other times, a killer’s on the loose, and yeah, turns out, that couple were just extras.
Yeah, that’s typical now. But back in the day when streaming wasn’t a thing yet?
Couples leaving hand in hand, walking away from the crowds?
It meant a good thing then.
And sometimes, it also meant it was raining, and they just needed to run for cover.
Like now.
It takes everyone by surprise, the sound of thunder and the flash of lightning on the digital screens—all artificial, but they’re so perfectly done that even Arkane places a hand on the small of my back, his touch fiercely protective.
“Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please,” our unseen host drawls from his secret place.
“In a few minutes, it will start to rain in our ballroom. You’re invited to frolic in the rain or use the park-issued umbrellas now being distributed by our staff.
Or, like our newly reunited lovers, you can run off into the night, with only the moon as your witness. ”
A helpless laugh escapes me when I realize what this is all about, and the rest of the crowd joins me when the massive screens start playing a loop of famous movie scenes where couples do run off into the night.
I swear, whoever’s in charge of Foxtown’s marketing team is a genius. The controversy that hit them a while back could’ve sent most businesses spiraling and losing hope, but Foxtown—
Arkane suddenly takes hold of my hand. “Ready?”
My eyes widen. “Ready for—”
I don’t even get to finish my question, he’s already leading me away, and all I can do is laugh as I follow his lead, the crowd cheering and clapping as we run off into the night.
Who would’ve thought someone as serious as Arkane would’ve done this?
We sweep past the doors of the Royal Hall, and a Foxtown footman in full livery startles into bowing and offers a black umbrella with both hands—“Milord—Milady—”—but Arkane only shakes his head once, never breaking stride, and pulls me on.
Outside, the night air is already cool against the bare skin of my arms, and the cobbles are catching the gas lamps in long wet streaks because, I realize a beat later, it’s already started raining out here, too.
Artificial rain has indeed started to fall as we run up the grand staircase, and the sound of laughter mingling with splashes of water makes me smile. It is rather romantic, and a sense of silly giddiness sweeps over me as the starry evening skies welcome us back.
Once upon a time, this was how it all started between us, too.
A whirlwind romance that took place over one unforgettable summer, and...I want to believe that this time, it will be better.
Because this time I have You.
And You’ll make everything good for those who love you.
Arkane turns to me at that moment, and just having his eyes meet mine—
(Because the last time, he couldn’t even bear the sight of me, the girl he loved and cherished, but who carelessly gave away kisses like they weren’t precious)
My eyes start to burn, and my throat starts to tighten. I don’t want to cry, I don’t. But the more I try to keep the tears at bay, the more my lip trembles—
Arkane’s steps slow, and oh no, oh no—
He turns to face me, his hands coming up to cup my elbows. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry,” I choke out.
“Sorry for what?” His thumbs are moving slowly against the insides of my arms, like he’s not even aware he’s doing it.
Moonlight casts a sheen on the dark locks of his hair, and would you believe, it’s at this moment that a cool breeze teases our skins while a carriage runs behind us, the chop-chop of horse hooves on the cobbled streets adding to the background music, and oh, will you look at that?
It’s the middle of summer, and yet it actually starts to rain? And the guests still inside the ballroom, they see it, too, and their cheers reach us all the way here, and a part of me wants to laugh and cry.
Foxtown is just so picturesque at any angle, and even God’s gamely joined in with all these coincidences that aren’t actually coincidences, and it’s making me feel like the two of us are shooting a movie, and we’re both reading from a script instead of the broken pieces of our past.
The white velvet of my dress is already drinking the rain in, the hem heavy where it brushes my ankles, the sleeves clinging dark to my arms. I can’t bring myself to care.
“I d-didn’t get to say this a while ago, but I want to say it now. I n-need to say it now—”
“Because you want to give me a chance to change my mind?”
One whirlwind summer romance, and yet this man knows, even better than I do, that I really am the other half of his soul.
I try my best to smile, but my lips are trembling too hard to make it. “You need to know what you’re getting into—”
And because I feel like he’s going to tell me it’s fine, and I can’t risk having him convince me it’s so, since that’s only going to cause us to repeat the same old mistakes—
“You know all about Mom, right?” The words come tumbling out in a rush, and the moment I start speaking, floodgates to my heart seem to break open, and I suddenly can’t stop speaking.
“Icelle told me it was why you...you d-didn’t want photos of us taken, and that’s why.
..that’s why I went crazy that night. I d-didn’t know it then.
And so I t-thought you were ashamed of me, or that you d-didn’t want Mirabella to know—”
His gaze narrows, his hands going still at my elbows. “Who told you about her?”
“It doesn’t matter.” It really doesn’t. “The fact is, I overheard people talking about her, and they were talking about you not wanting to have photos taken, and so I just...snapped.”
SNAP.
I hear it in my mind, unseen fingers snapping, and it’s like another cue, and my tears finally start falling.
“I did what I see Mom doing all the time. I self-destructed. Self-sabotaged. Because that’s all I knew growing up.
I never wanted to be like her, but that’s how.
..that’s still how I ended up being, and when I lost you, when you didn’t want to talk to me again—it had to happen because that was the only way for me to know.
..I wasn’t alright. I never was. And Mom. ..never was, too.”
I look at Arkane, and I know he’s beautiful and all, more so in his Regency-era jacket and breeches. A nobleman every inch, but more than that, from the moment we met, he was—and still is—a noble man, and it hurts so, so much—
“I k-know it’s no excuse,” I whisper brokenly, “but Mom...she started treatment for post-partum two years ago, and she’s changed.
I also had help.” From God. “I needed people to help me process...” Painful truths like hurt people hurt, and it’s no less true even between mothers and daughters. “I’m j-just so s-sorry—”
“Tiara.”
His hand comes up to my chin, the lightest possible pressure, lifting my face so I can’t look anywhere but at him.
My name on his lips.
I don’t think I’ll ever take the sound of it for granted again—
“You know.”
A choked sob escapes me.
“Don’t you?”
God. Oh God.
My knees have started knocking against each other. Because he’s right. I do know, and the crushing weight of knowing what I know, it always makes me feel like I’m about to fall apart any moment—
Two years ago, I was crying in my dorm room, and in a moment of weakness, I had asked Icelle—
‘Why? Why can’t he just talk to me? I kissed another guy, but it’s not like—’
‘Did you ever wonder why he was late that time?’
‘Grad school always—’
‘He was late because he had to prepare everything. He was planning to propose that evening.’
And Icelle, whose soul was the kindest and the purest even if people said all sorts of things about her—
‘If you had waited just a little longer, he would have given you the words you wanted.’
She knew she had to say the truth out loud.
Because that was how it worked in tales of love and magic.
It was how God designed them to be.
Some truths were so, so painful to accept that they had to be spelled out, and then and only then, would truth set one free.
Just like tonight.
The first and only man I fell in love with, and whom I never stopped loving—
“I’m so sorry for being an idiot.”
I’m wailing the words out like a child, and it’s not just because it’s raining harder than ever, and I need to raise my voice to get myself heard.
“I’m s-so sorry for not seeing what I should have seen from the start.”
It’s because truth has a way of humbling everyone, making us realize how we tend to lie, lash out, and do silly things like children when we’re hurting—
“P-Please forgive me.”
And just like a kid, there are times when we realize how powerless we are, and all we can do is cry and beg for a chance to make things up.
“I’m s-so sorry—”
Something in his jaw works once. His hand at my chin slides to the side of my neck.
Then Arkane hauls me into his arms.
And his kiss...
Oh, this kiss that burns and consumes all the way to my soul—
Dare I hope, God?
Dare I?
Dare I believe that he’s truly forgiving me even when I feel like I don’t deserve to be forgiven?