I wait for her response, but of course, it’s no longer that easy. With a sigh, I get to my feet and go to slip the photograph back into my pocket, only to find that my sweatshirt and jeans have already become a green velvet tunic and hose, that my sneakers have given way to black leather boots.
In the distance, I can make out the buttery lights of the castle.
And just like that, I’m merely a prince again.
DELILAH
I’ve made a terrible mistake.
It hits me when it’s too late, when Oliver grabs my shoulders and tells me to forget him: I just pushed away the best thing that has ever happened to me.
Before Oliver, I was just the strange kid with her nose stuck in a book, and a life so small it could fit in a thimble. But then we met, and he made the impossible happen. I experienced the world, instead of simply reading about it. I was no longer alone. I was loved.
And now I’ve pretty much done everything I could to ruin that.
I grab his shoulders tightly, but the fabric of his sweatshirt slips through my fingers. “Wait!” I cry. “Don’t leave me!”
But he’s already gone.
Behind me, I hear a crash and a muffled swear, but I don’t even turn around. I can’t tear my eyes away from the book, where Seraphima and Oliver have landed. They’re surrounded by the other characters, being embraced and welcomed back into the fold. Oliver, I realize, looks just as lost as I feel. He staggers forward, pushing away from the pack, and stares up at me, his hands balled into fists at his sides.
He swallows, but he doesn’t speak. He doesn’t have to. I don’t think there’s a word in the English language big enough to describe what it feels like to lose your other half.
“Holy crap,” Jules says. “That actually worked?”
I lift the edge of the fairy tale’s cover as gently as if it’s made of glass, and close the book.
At that moment, I’m tackled from behind as Jules throws herself at me. “I never thought I’d say this,” she admits with a sigh, “but I am so glad to be back in this hellhole of a town.”
Edgar gets to his feet, brushing himself off. “What town is this, anyway?”
I realize that when Edgar left, we were in Wellfleet, not here in New Hampshire. I’m about to answer, but when I turn to look at him, his face makes me stop short. I know it’s not Oliver. But his eyes are the same green as Oliver’s; his black hair is disheveled; the curve of his jaw is one I know by touch. It’s not Oliver, but it might as well be.
I haven’t said a word, but Jules watches me carefully, then sidles closer to Edgar, slipping her hand into his. “So how’s this gonna work?” she asks pointedly.
It is enough to snap me out of my trance. Horrified, I realize that everyone at school thinks Edgar is my boyfriend…and it’s not going to look good if my best friend is hitting on him.
I groan. “I don’t know. I didn’t exactly think this through.”
“I need to get home to my mom,” Edgar says, then hesitates. “I don’t even know where I live.”
There’s a knock on the door, and the three of us freeze. My mother pokes her head inside. “Oh, Jules!” she says. “You must be feeling better.”
“Um. So much!” Jules replies.
“Where’s Seraphima?” my mother asks.
“She left early. All the Icelandic exchange students decided to spend their last week in Canada,” I say.
My mother’s eyes move from Jules to Edgar. “Nice tights,” she says, trying not to laugh.
“Halloween!” I blurt out. “We were trying on costumes. We’re going full-on Shakespeare this year.”
Edgar and Jules smile so wide I think their faces are going to crack. “So!” Jules says, breaking the awkward silence. “I’m going to go…. Edgar, I’ll walk you home!” She grabs her duffel bag from the floor of my bedroom and takes Edgar’s hand. She starts pulling him toward the door.
“Great idea,” I reply. “Jules, I’ll text you after dinner so we can talk about, you know, what you missed at school.” I turn to Edgar. “I guess I’ll…Skype you later?”
He looks at me, baffled. “Whatever.”
“Edgar…?” I say pointedly. I turn so that my mother can’t see my face and, through clenched teeth, hiss: “Kiss me.”
Edgar’s eyes dart to Jules. I raise my eyebrows and give him a tight smile. The more we can convince everyone that things are normal, the better this will go.
He rolls his eyes, leans forward, and pecks me on the cheek as if I’ve asked him to kiss a toad.
My mother laughs. “Honestly, Edgar. No need to act like a prince just because I’m here. You can give her a real kiss goodbye.”
“Awesome,” Edgar sighs. He puts his hands on my shoulders, leans forward, and presses his lips against mine.
All I can think is: He’s not Oliver.
After a moment I pull away from him. Jules is glaring daggers at me. “Shall we?” she bites out. She grabs Edgar’s arm and yanks him roughly out the door.
We hear the front door close behind them when they leave the house. My mother turns to me. “Got a lot of homework?”
“Not really,” I say. When you don’t go to class, you don’t get homework.
“Well…it’s just the two of us for dinner. What do you say to a main course of popcorn, and one of our favorite films?”
I swallow back tears. “That sounds perfect,” I tell her. At this moment, all I want is to get under a pile of blankets and watch a classic Disney movie with my mom. All I want is to know that there’s at least one person left here for me.
So I’m missing my Doc Martens, the text from Jules reads. Do u think there’s a lost & found for fairy tales?
I pick up my phone from my nightstand and reply:
Ask Cinderella.
, Jules writes back. And a moment later, there’s another buzz: I can’t believe that really happened.
I told u so, I write. Welcome 2 my life.
There’s a pause.
Do u miss him? Jules asks.
Like u wouldn’t believe.
The first time Oliver saw me text someone, he grabbed the phone from my hand, trying to figure out how the small person inside was writing back.
It’s weird being back. I was getting used 2 it.
My thumbs fly over the keys. U + Edgar???
…
+ Chris? I type.
Can I have them both?
I grin. Only if ur a Mormon fundamentalist.
K, Jules writes. Good to know.
I hesitate, knowing I have to start a conversation with her I don’t really want to have. U no I have to pretend Edgar’s still my bf. Just don’t 4get I’m ur BEST friend.
Never, I reply. How did things get so messed up?
U fell 4 a guy in a book, Jules types.
I sigh. Nobody’s perfect.
C u 2morrow? Jules writes.
Yup. Get ready 4 a Tony-winning performance from me.
LOL, Jules says. Oh—1 last thing…
??? I ask.
Don’t use tongue.
I’m lost in a nightmare, but I’m still awake.
It’s three a.m. and all I can think about is the fact that Oliver told me to move on. As if everything we’ve shared up till this moment meant nothing, as if he’s so easily replaceable. Or did he tell me not to open the book because he knows, like I do, how hard it will be, now that we have lived the alternative?
I take the fairy tale from my shelf and pull it into bed with me. I run my hand over the gilded cover. I’m just going to do it: open the book. Whatever Oliver said was probably his way of being chivalrous—trying to keep me from slipping back into my sad little life as a loner, obsessed with a fictional story.
I fan through the pages, about to skim directly to page 43, the illustration where Oliver is alone on the cliff. It’s where we had most of our conversations, before he escaped the fairy tale. But at the last minute, I hesitate: while Oliver is safe in the book—protected from runaway cars
and illness and death—I’m not. Inside the pages, he gets to live in a bubble, forever sixteen. And maybe that’s all right, for now. But what about when, one day, I open the book and my hair is gray? When I have wrinkles? When I’m not the girl he fell in love with anymore?
What will happen to him when I die?
To open this book is to give him hope: that I will be with him forever, that I am willing to put my real life on hold for a character in a book. But that’s not fair to Oliver, is it?
I take the fairy tale and put it back on the shelf.
But.
I’m 100 percent sure that no matter who I meet in the future, no one will be like him.
I reach for the book again.
What is a relationship if you can’t go on a date? If you can’t hold hands? If you can’t ever kiss him again? How long is it going to be before I can’t remember what he tastes like, what he smells like, what it feels like to be in the circle of his arms?
I toss the book onto the floor.
The thing is, without Oliver, I can’t even remember who I am anymore.
I grab the fairy tale and let it fall open to page 43.
Oliver springs to the rock wall, holding on the way he would if anyone ordinary were to open the book. When he sees that I am the Reader, however, his eyes widen.
“I’m sorry,” I say immediately. “I tried not to open the book, I really did. I know you think I shouldn’t come here anymore. It’s just…I can’t not talk to you.”
I realize that Oliver has hopped down and is smiling from ear to ear. “I’m glad you didn’t listen to me,” he says. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”
“What are we going to do?” I whisper.
“Well,” he says bravely, “it’s not all bad. It’s sort of the way we started, isn’t it?”
“I don’t mean now. I mean in ten years. Twenty. I’m going to be ancient and you’ll still be…perfect.”
He grins. “You think I’m perfect?”
“I’m not kidding, Oliver.” I shake my head. “It just doesn’t work, if you’re in there and I’m out here.”
He thinks about this for a moment. “But you are in here. No matter what I look at, I see you.”
“Can you really tell me that’s enough for you? Won’t you get sick of pining away for someone you’re never truly going to be with?”
Oliver looks up at me. “You’re a part of me,” he says. “To get rid of you would literally tear me to pieces.”
For the first time since Oliver has left, I smile. “I bet you say that to all the girls who were your ticket to freedom.”
I expect Oliver to laugh, but instead he sobers. “Delilah,” he says, “even if I’d been born in your world, I would have found you. I would have chosen you.”
“How am I supposed to go to school, and be normal, and pretend that you never happened?”
“It’s what I do every day,” Oliver replies. “It’s called acting. It’s not all that difficult to be the person people expect you to be. It’s harder to remember who you really are.”
“Who I really am?” I repeat. “I guess I’m just a girl looking for a prince.”
“Any prince?” he jokes.
“Just the fictional kind. I have a thing for two dimensions; I like my guys flat.”
He sinks down against the rock wall, drawing his knees to his chest. “Wouldn’t it be lovely if we could write our own fairy tale?” Oliver muses.
I curl onto my side, propping the book against the pillow. “How would it start?”
“ ‘Once upon a time,’ of course,” he says. “We meet at…the market.”
“I ask you to reach the spaghetti on the top shelf,” I continue.
“And it’s love at first sight,” Oliver adds.
“What would we do?”
“Well,” Oliver says, “we’d live in a little cottage. With window boxes, where you’d plant violets. And every morning you’d cook me your amazing chocolate chip pancakes.”
“And what would you be doing for me while I’m slaving away in your sexist kitchen?” I ask.
“Someone has to take care of the baby,” Oliver replies.
“We have a kid?”
“Three. Two strapping lads and a little princess.”
I pull the covers close. “Do we have pets?”
“Only a dozen dogs,” Oliver says. “All basset hounds, of course.”
“Every day,” I add, “you go to work.”
“I do?” Oliver asks, truly surprised.
“Our country’s not a monarchy,” I point out. “The peasants aren’t going to pay for the college educations of your three kids.”
“What on earth do I do?”
I think for a moment. “You teach…fencing!”
“And you own the corner bookshop,” Oliver pronounces. “Filled to the rafters with fairy tales.”
“After every dinner, we tuck the children into bed, and drink a cup of tea and watch the news.”
“And the best part is at night, I get to hold you,” Oliver says. “And I know that I never, ever have to let go.”
“And we are absolutely, positively, blissfully ordinary.” I sigh.
He looks up at me, and I stare down at him, and even though we’re both smiling, there’s a whole world of sadness between us. “Oliver? Will you stay with me while I fall asleep?”
“Always,” he swears.
I put the book down on the pillow beside me, still wide open. One minute I’m awake and the next I’m not. It happens that fast, that effortlessly—like the moment night turns into morning, or summer shivers into fall. Like love.
You’ve seen those pictures of couples kissing in front of a Christmas tree, or clasping hands on their wedding day, or holding a newborn baby between them—a snapshot of joy. But what do you really know about them? Just that at the second the shutter clicked, they loved each other. You have no idea what trials and tribulations came before, or after. You don’t know if one of them cheated, if they grew apart, if a divorce loomed on the horizon. You simply see that in one static moment, they were happy.
A fairy tale is a snapshot too. You never know what goes on post-happily-ever-after. It’s simply a frozen minute, and the only one we seem to remember.
The difference is, in a fairy tale, the story can’t be altered. The prince and princess will never have a fight. You’ll never hear the queen raise her voice. No one ever gets sick; no one ever gets hurt.
Maybe love is only safe in places where it can’t change.
EDGAR
We’re standing at the end of my driveway—or at least, what Jules promises me is actually my new driveway. “So,” I say. “Now what?”
She takes a step backward. “I guess I’ll see you in school tomorrow.”
She sounds less than enthused about this. In fact, she sounds like she’s just announced that she needs a root canal, or that she’s found a rat underneath her bed.
I go to jam my hands in my pockets and remember I’m wearing freaking tights. “Are we…good?” I ask.
Jules nods, but she doesn’t look at me.
I reach for her hand and pull her closer to kiss her goodnight, but she stops me. “It’s different here, Edgar.”
“It’s still you, and it’s still me,” I say.
“No. Here, you’re my best friend’s boyfriend.” She gestures between us. “This can’t be a thing.”
“So you’re just going to pretend it didn’t happen?” I argue. “Us?” I think about how, in the book, she got me the way no one in my life ever has.
“It didn’t happen. Not for real, anyway,” Jules says. “Edgar, it was a fairy tale. You can’t believe everything you read in books.”
She turns away quickly, and I start to call after her—but I stop short. What if she’s right? What if the guy I was in the book—someone confident and brave, a leader, not a follower—was just make-believe? It might as well have been a dream; I might as well have never left.
She walks down the
street until I can’t see her anymore. Looks like nothing’s changed: World 1, Edgar 0.
Taking a deep breath, I walk up the driveway to the front door. I almost ring the bell before I remember I live here. Instead I turn the knob and follow the trail of light into the kitchen, where my mother stands with her back to me, cooking dinner.
Looking absolutely, incredibly normal.
In my whole life, I’ve never been so psyched to see her.
“Mom?” I cry out, and I envelop her in a hug, squeezing so tight she yelps.
“What is going on with you?” she laughs, turning around and holding me at arm’s length. Now that I can see her face, I notice that there are dark circles under her eyes, and there’s a Band-Aid on her forehead.
“First the dramatic goodbye this morning,” my mother says, “and now this?”
I scrutinize her, trying to figure out if Oliver’s right—if she is okay. “I just really missed you…today.”
My mother’s eyes travel from my face down my velvet tunic to my knee-high boots. “Care to explain?”
“Drama club,” I blurt out. “I joined at school.”
She seems delighted by this. “Really? That’s incredible, Edgar. I swear, since we’ve moved here, you’ve been an entirely different person.”
“Go figure,” I murmur.
“Dinner’s almost ready. Can you set the table?”
She takes a casserole out of the oven and sets it on the stovetop to cool. I open a cabinet that looks like it might contain plates but find cereals and crackers. I open a different door and find bowls.
“Seriously, Edgar?” my mother says, pushing past me to open a drawer that has plates in it. “You still haven’t figured out this house yet?”
“Who keeps their plates in a drawer?” I say under my breath.
“Just get the glasses.” My mother sighs and walks out of the kitchen, into the vast yonder that must contain a dining room.
I fling open all the cabinets, trying to memorize everything. Then, armed with two glasses, I follow my mother into the interior of my new home. Not bad, I muse, glancing around. I kind of miss the charm of our little place on Cape Cod, but this house is not too shabby. There are hardwood floors and giant windows, and all the furniture I remember from our old place is distributed in new combinations, making everything feel familiar and different all at once.