Page 44 of Dreams Come True at the Fairytale Museum

‘Every person has problems. Most of them, we’ll never see or know about, but everyone is dealing with something.

Every person we walk past on the street, every stranger who offers a smile or a nod, every single one of them will have something going on in their lives, some adversity to overcome, and that doesn’t change the importance they bring to the world.

’ I kiss his cheek. ‘Having an issue with your hearing and doing something about it should be celebrated.’

My lips are still pressed against his cheek and his hands tighten on my body, like he’s trying to hold me in place and a long few minutes pass of us simply holding each other.

‘You’ve made me realise how much I’ve isolated myself.

I never accept invitations to go out with friends, or to work dos, or anywhere, because I know I’ll struggle and I live in fear of someone realising the truth.

It’s always been a shameful secret that no one must ever find out about, something that I’d be ridiculed for and treated like an outsider, so I’ve made myself into an outsider so I could get in first and prevent anyone else doing it.

Your acceptance makes so much difference.

I wish there were more people in my life like the ones on Ever After Street.

Everything you do here is so full of heart. I don’t want this to end.’

I kiss his cheek again and then settle my head back against his shoulder. ‘I don’t want you to go.’

‘In three weeks’ time, my office closes for the Christmas holidays. That’s the end of my time here.’

He sounds so sad and so… final… that it makes a boulder of anxiety settle inside me. ‘But you could come back, right?’

‘I’ve got an acquisition to oversee in Southampton. I’ve got to be there on the third of January. I’ve already cancelled once so I could stay here, I can’t pull out again.’

I try not to show how surprised I am, but it hits me like a punch to the gut.

I didn’t know he had any other commitments like that, or that they were so…

imminent. I thought he’d be here for longer in a professional capacity, and in a personal capacity…

Well, I didn’t think he’d be going very far at all.

Southampton in January is so… conclusive.

I swallow hard. ‘How long will you be gone?’

‘About a month, maybe. I don’t know, it’s never mattered before.’

‘Okay, so you’ll be gone for a few weeks, but after that… you could come back, right? You’ve been working remotely since September, how difficult would it be to continue doing that?’

‘Prohibitively so.’

I don’t lift my head but I feel him move to look at me. ‘I need to get back to the office because if I stay here, my focus will be on the museum, and while that’s been the intention for the past couple of months, it can’t continue, no matter how much I want it to.’

His words sting, and I know I’m responsible for roping him into helping with museum jobs, but I’ve got lost in how much I’ve enjoyed his company and valued his input and somewhere along the way, I’ve forgotten that this isn’t his job, and I appreciate his honesty, even though it isn’t what I was hoping to hear.

I feel a bit discouraged at how cut-and-dried he makes it sound.

It sounds like I’m never going to see him again, and that makes my heart beat faster for all the wrong reasons.

‘Okay, but there’ll still be… us, right? We can still see each other? Fifty miles apart isn’t that far, we can still…’ I waggle my finger between him and me, not quite sure what label to put on it right now.

‘If you still want to by then.’

‘Why wouldn’t I?’ There’s a guarded tone in his voice that makes me pull back until I can look him in the eyes.

It was a rhetorical question but he shakes his head like he doesn’t have an answer, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I tell myself I’m imagining the feeling of unease that settles over me.

To chase it away, I lean up until I can kiss him again, and his hands are in my hair, and on my back, holding me closer, and the kiss feels increasingly desperate, like he’s clinging on, kissing me as though it’s the last chance he’ll ever have.

The mention of him leaving has given us both the realisation that this is coming to an end, sooner than I’d hoped, and I’m surprised by how much I wish it wasn’t.

‘Before we have to think about that,’ I say when we pull back, but instead of snuggling up against him again, I decide it’s time to share an idea I’ve been toying with.

‘There’s an idea I’ve been wanting to run past you and I could do with your expert opinion, but it clashes with your cinema complex and maybe takes inspiration from it a little bit…

’ I blurt out before I second-guess myself.

It’s something that felt impossible when I was by myself, but with Warren here, it feels doable, but I don’t know how he’s going to react to an idea of screening films after my rejection of his cinema complex.

‘Have you seen the performances where they put on a musical in bars and pubs?’

‘Taking children to bars? Great idea, can’t go wrong.’ He gives me a sarcastic thumbs up, and I grab his thumb and pull it down and then don’t let go of his hand.

‘No, I mean, the singers perform a musical, but they mingle with the crowd. They act out the scenes and sing live in the space they’ve got.

They use the whole area as a stage and make the crowd part of it.

So I was thinking… what if we used one of the empty rooms upstairs to install a cinema screen, and we could screen Disney movies while actors act out some of the parts in front of the audience.

Beauty and the Beast, while Belle in her yellow ballgown and the Beast in his blue suit dance between the kids who are watching.

We could watch Cinderella on screen scrubbing the floor and blowing bubbles while someone playing Cinderella actually scrubs the floor and uses a bubble wand to blow bubbles across the audience.

Tangled while Rapunzel and Flynn hand out floating lanterns to release at the “I See the Light” moment in the film.

A real experience. Something immersive. It pays homage to your cinema idea, but retains the integrity of the museum.

Anyone can watch Disney movies at home, but we could give them something different, a reason to come here that’s more than just staring mindlessly at a screen.

And we could do popcorn, and maybe have quizzes and prizes afterwards, and…

’ I trail off because he’s watching me with an unreadable look on his face. ‘You think it’s awful, don’t you?’

‘Lissa, you’re like living magic.’

‘What?’

‘You love this place so much, you never stop thinking about it, trying to improve it, make it better and even more magical. I understand what the others said now about this being your magic. You’re the most inspirational person I’ve ever met.

I wish I had as much love and conviction in my entire body as you have in one toe.

This museum is not magical, but you are. ’

‘That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.’ I’m fighting back tears at how genuine he sounds. I squeeze the hand I’m still holding and his fingers tighten over mine. ‘You can’t say things like that and be leaving in three weeks.’

‘No, I can’t.’ He breaks eye contact and clears his throat, trying to cover emotions that sound like they’re clamouring to get out.

‘I love this idea. The quirky collections don’t need to take up more than two of those rooms, and it’s a great use for the third one.

I’ll support it as much as I can, but I can’t be part of it. ’

He seems sad and downtrodden, and that undercurrent of how soon he’s leaving is flowing through this entire conversation and clouding everything.

It’s unreal to consider that two and a half months ago, I thought his arrival was the worst thing that had ever happened to me, and now I feel like his departure is going to change everything again, but this time, in the worst way possible.