“Come on, Frankie. Do that woo-woo thing. Tell me their story.”
I looked at the couple again and tried to come up with their backstory, but I had nothing. People watching didn’t hold the same excitement it once did. And it had nothing to do with the fact that every time I saw a couple I thought of Lucas and Clarissa and their happily ever after.
“Sorry,” I sighed. “I got nothing.”
Sherry’s face took on a look of pity I really hated. Mom and Dad had been looking at me the same way and it made me uncomfortable.
“Don’t,” I said as she opened her mouth.
I knew what she was going to say. She was going to ask me if I was okay and she would try to get me to talk about what happened in Kalopsia and I just didn’t want to talk about it. It was too painful.
Sherry closed her mouth, but she didn’t stop looking at me like I was two seconds away from breaking down in a puddle of tears.
I spun away from her and reached for a glass, miscalculating and knocking it to the floor, breaking it in the process. There was a beat of silence in the bar as everyone turned to look at me and then they went back to their conversations.
“Damn,” I muttered as I crouched down and started picking up the pieces.
If I was a more evolved person, I would probably see this as a metaphor, but I steadfastly refused to acknowledge it was time to start picking up the pieces of my life. I wrapped the glass in newspaper and dumped it in the garbage before washing my hands.
“I can close up if you want to get out of here,” Sherry said, coming around to my side of the bar.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
She shrugged. “It’s not busy and if I need help, I can always drag Chris out of his office.”
I untied my apron and tossed it in with the other dirty items for the laundry and grinned at Sherry. “Thanks,” I said. “I really need to work on my dissertation and get it finished. My advisor is breathing down my neck.”
“No problem,” Sherry said with a smile.
I left quickly. I didn’t want to run into Chris on the way out and have him make me work back. I got an Uber home and was prepared to head straight up to my room and work on my research. I’d been avoiding it—too many memories—but I wasn’t lying when I said my advisor was breathing down my neck. He really was, and I needed to finalize it and get him a rough draft soon or my whole Ph.D. could be in jeopardy.
My mother thwarted my plans. She pounced on me the moment I walked in the door. And she had pie. Cherry, my favorite. She knew I couldn’t pass up a piece of pie and I also knew the pie would come with a side of Mom’s wisdom.
“Hey Mom,” I said with a sigh.
“Sit,” she said.
I collapsed into the chair and she pushed a plate in front of me. I picked up the spoon and carved out a large spoonful, shoving it in my mouth before Mom could ask me a question.
She sighed and sat back in her chair, watching me.
“You will have to talk to me eventually,” Mom said.
I shoveled another mouthful of pie in my mouth and just looked at her. Mom rolled her eyes.
“Okay, so if you’re not going to talk, you can listen to what I have to say.”
I groaned, but my mouth was full and there was still more pie. I could listen while I ate. Mom wasn’t going to say anything I hadn’t already berated myself with.
“I don’t know all the details of what happened in Kalopsia, but this is what I’ve gathered with my superior mom-detective sleuthing skills.”
I smiled and kept eating.
“You had a crush on Lucas for a long time, even if you denied it.” She didn’t wait for me to deny or confirm, she just kept going. “The two of you came up with this harebrained scheme to ‘pretend’ to be in love and engaged so Lucas could fulfill his duty to the king. You had your reasons; your dissertation and the chance to see a new place. In your mind it all sounded very logical, and apart form the whole ‘lying to the king’ thing, it seemed a workable plan. You got to do the research you needed for your Ph.D. and Lucas got to get out from under the thumb of his parents. But somewhere along the way, things changed…or rather, you both realized that what was between you was more than friendship.”
I swallowed. “Nope. That’s where you’re wrong. I fell for him, he didn’t fall for me.”
“Maybe that’s because he was already in love with you, Frankie,” she said kindly.
“I know Lucas loves me,” I replied. “Or rather, loved me. But he was never in love with me, no matter what he said.”
“What?”
I cringed. Damn. I hadn’t meant to say that.
“Lucas told you he’d fallen in love with you?”
“Yeah, but—”
“But what? How is there a but?”
“He didn’t mean it, not really.”
“How can you be sure? If he said it to you, why didn’t you believe him?”
“Ugh. It’s hard to explain.”
“Well, try,” Mom said, using the voice she used when directing her surgical staff.
“Fine. Okay, it’s like this. We were wrapped up in the whole atmosphere of the place. Kalopsia is beautiful and being part of the palace and the court and all of that was just…amazing. It began to feel real to me and I think it began to feel real to Lucas too. He was so different, more himself. There was none of the anxiousness that usually surrounds him when he’s with his parents. Lucas fit there, he found his place in the world and I think he just thought it was because of me. I think he believed it would all go away if I did. He’d finally found his happy, but it had nothing to do with me and everything to do with that place and those people and if I’d accepted his proposal for real, then he’d eventually realize he wasn’t in love with me, he was just in love with the idea of me.”
“That’s a complete load of crap and you know it,” Mom said, not pulling any punches. “You want to know what I think?”
“Not really, but you’re going to tell me anyway,” I muttered, pushing the rest of my uneaten pie away.
“Here’s what I think. Lucas has always been different around you. He lets down his walls, and he gets a chance to be himself. That was the special bond the two of you had, and it was yours. That Lucas was your Lucas, and yours alone. No one else got to share him. But going to Kalopsia and seeing Lucas become that man around others scared you.”
I snorted. “I wasn’t scared.”
“Yeah, you were,” Mom insisted. “You were scared Lucas would realize he didn’t need you. And you were scared of sharing your Lucas with others. While he could only be himself around you, you felt safe and secure in your relationship with him. He had a reason to like you because he knew you wouldn’t expect things from him he couldn’t give.
“Now that he has discovered a whole other part of himself that he can be in the world without feeling the anxiety and nervousness, you felt like you’d lost him. In your mind, he no longer had a reason to be your friend, not if he could be that same person around other people. It wasn’t Clarissa that chased you away. You ran away because he was no longer just yours and you have never known how to share.”
“I know how to share,” I replied, indignantly.