Page 95 of Rapunzel Is Losing It

“Wedding?”

“I told you I’d be wearing a pink dress. You didn’t think you could get out of it just because you got kidnapped by your uncle, did you?”

“I love you,” I said again and kissed her.

“Good,” she giggled into the kiss, so I moved from her lips to her neck, “or raising our future child together could have been very awkward.”

I pushed her back against her desk. “I love you,” I whispered against her skin as I undid the buttons of her blouse and kissed my way down to her collar bone.

“Good,” she said, her breath hitching, “or asking you to move in could have been really awkward.”

I loved hearing all her plans for me, for us. I wondered just how many I could draw from her before she’d lose the ability to form full sentences. Pushing her blouse off her shoulders, I moved my mouth down to her quivering chest. “I love you,” I whispered into the dip between her breasts.

“Good,” she whispered, “or our honeymoon in the Caribbean would have been very awkward.”

“Honeymoon?” I chuckled and lifted her onto the desk. Some folders and pens clattered to the floor, but neither of us cared. Instead, Cordelia’s beautiful long legs immediately fell open for me, her plaid skirt riding up to expose the soft flesh of her thighs.

“My family has a small private island in the Bahamas. I’ve not been there in fifteen years, but we’ll get to use Beck’s jet in exchange for him and Del getting married here.”

“Of course you already have that figured out,” I chuckled and knelt down between her knees, so I could kiss my way up her thighs, “I love you.”

“Good,” she breathed shakily when my mouth connected with the top of her thigh, “or it would have been very awkward for me to tell you that I love you, too.”

Victor was makingthe memories more bearable. They still rattled me. I wasn’t sure if there was ever going to come a point when I wouldn’t start screaming at the image of my mother’s body hitting the ground, when I wouldn’t start crying when I heard the four words that sealed my fate“Grab the girl, Nick.”, or when I wouldn’t feel like suffocating under a leather glove.

But when I woke up, Victor was there. He pulled me against him. He kissed my forehead and ran his hands through my hair and down my back until my breathing slowed down.

Every day became a little easier.

Victor started moving around the house. He cooked and meal prepped. He inventoried the entire kitchen and put labels on the cupboards, so I’d find every little thing in his absence. Irina only left once she was sure Victor was well enough to care for both of us. We kissed, and we played chess, and we kissed, and we watched the new Earth Day documentary on Netflix, and we kissed.

“I leave you alone for a week,” Victor chuckled when he brought me a cup of tea in the winter garden.

“Too soon.” I shot him a withering glare. “Besides, Irina was here. She helped. She’s nice. But I couldn’t focus on anything when you were gone. So I just…”

“Turned into Monet?” He gently lifted a flowery canvas to reveal the one behind it. That one was a speckled version of the winter garden: blue skies, white beams, plants upon plants, and my small gurgling fountain. Victor looked up from the canvas and narrowed his eyes at that corner of the room, figuring out the exact angle I must have painted from.

I should have probably looked into a better place to store these. The sun coming in from all angles wasn’t going to be kind on them, especially not now that it was getting warmer by the day.

“Painting helped. I know my mom was always trying to make it exciting and fun,” I ran my hand along my speckled easel, “but it helped me stay calm. It was comforting.”

“I understand.” Victor came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my middle, drew me against his chest. The way his body cocooned around me was a whole different kind of comfort. “That’s how I used to feel about fighting. Like the rest of the world didn’t exist. I just focused on the constraints of the octagon.”

“And now?”

“Now I feel it when I’m with you.” He kissed the back of my head. “Zhizn’ moya.”

My life.

“Do you think we’re too codependent?”

“No.”

“You didn’t even think about that.”

“I don’t need to.” He kissed my neck. “I won’t doubt our relationship just because it’s not ordinary. You said that our brains are altered by trauma, right?”

“My therapist technically said that, but yes.”