Page 56 of The Underachiever’s Guide to Love and Saving the World

COURTNEY

We sat together in the dining hall of Winston’s cousin’s inn. I straddled the bench, facing Bryce and picking cobwebs out of his hair. My ass was falling asleep from sitting with good posture for so long (apparently, heroes didn’t slouch).

Bryce was telling me, “I was worried sick about you, darling,” which I knew equaled You idiot, what were you thinking?

Our crew exchanged glances like worried children whose parents were fighting.

Winston and Cuthbert sat so close they might as well have been the same person—actually, why did we need both of them?

Pants had her legs on the table because she wore pants and could do so.

The blacksmith picked at his nails with a knife, looking deceivingly threatening.

“I wasn’t in danger,” I said. “Think about it. The skeletons didn’t kill us. The dragon didn’t kill us. It flew off when it realized capturing us was futile. Greg doesn’t want us dead.”

It didn’t make sense; most people wanted us dead.

“Perhaps the beast is simply in a foul mood because it’s hungry,” Winston said. “When I haven’t had a strudel in a couple hours, blah blah blah.”

Later that evening, Bryce and I found ourselves alone in our room. We’d spent the majority of our time in this world alone, just the two of us. Now, the aloneness felt lonely where before it had felt anything but.

Bryce pulled his shirt off over his head and walked to the washbasin, where he went to work removing the last bits of spiderweb. He splashed water up his arms and face.

“I tried to use magic,” I said, perching myself on the edge of the bed. “When the dragon tried to take you.”

My unspoken meaning sat between us like an accusation.

Bryce scrubbed a towel over his face, wiping water from his eyes. “I tried to use magic too.”

My stomach churned painfully. He searched for my affection and found the same thing I did when I searched for his.

Nothing. After everything, I’d still abandoned him.

Of course I still cared for him, but the easily accessible feelings that fueled magic…

those were hard to find when I could hardly even find the real Bryce anymore.

Bryce tossed the towel over the basin, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he was throwing in the towel in a metaphorical sense as well. When he looked at me, behind the unreadable mask of perfection there was… nothing.

Even if we were perfect, we couldn’t be a perfect fairy-tale couple.

“We’re going to be this way forever!” My mouth said it with celebratory cheer, the same way one might announce, Happy birthday!

I hugged my knees to my chest. Bryce closed the distance between us and climbed onto the bed, pulling me close, pressing his nose to my hair, and holding me tightly. I clung to him like, if I squeezed hard enough, I could pull out the real Bryce, my Bryce.

Maybe we could get through it. Maybe we’d learn to be content because it was the only way to be together. Maybe it would be enough to know that, under it all, we were still the same people.

“I want you,” he whispered like he was saying, I miss you .

His thumb swept softly up and down my thigh with painful restraint, representing a million things he wanted to say but couldn’t.

I turned in his arms. Sought his lips with mine.

A tiny bit of warmth flared inside me—the first touch of magic I’d felt since we’d taken the potion.

Our lips met, and the warmth ignited into fire, giving me hope.

“We don’t need magic,” I said. “Show me how you feel yourself.” Show me we’re not so different now.

Show me the mind I care for won’t forever be trapped in the body of a stranger.

Bryce deepened the kiss, lacing his fingers into my hair. I went to graze my teeth over his lip, but my jaw froze, leaving my mouth motionless for several awkward seconds. No teeth. Got it. Probably, inflicting any pain, even light pain in the name of pleasure, wasn’t allowed.

Bryce pulled away and gave me a blank look. “Is something wrong?”

“No.” I pulled him back. My tongue stiffened, forming unplanned words.

“We should engage in sexual intercourse.” I nearly melted from embarrassment.

I’d wanted to suggest he bend me over the nearest surface and do some of those depraved things with his mouth he was so good at, but I guessed that kind of explicit language didn’t represent heroism well.

“I’m going to—” He swallowed. “I’m going to make sweet, sweet love to you in the light of a full moon for hours. So gently.”

I imagined the things he wanted to say were too filthy for his heroic mouth too. The potion had made him exactly like every other character in this world. He was a giant, freakishly happy cheeseball, and I half expected him to start trying to sell me a ShamWow or something.

With a feeling of impending doom, I recalled reading an article about how Batman wouldn’t go down on Catwoman because it wasn’t “heroic.”

I should have thought this through more.

We kissed again, all slow lips and long, dramatic sighs. I could practically hear the soaring dramatic music.

Bryce pulled back. “I have the sudden urge to light many candles.”

What the hell? “Whatever do you mean?”

“Every moment with you is meaningful and should be treated as such,” he said robotically.

He scrambled out the door and disappeared for a long while.

It took him several trips to gather enough candles to satisfy him. The act of lighting all of them took long enough that I propped myself up with pillows and was almost asleep by the time he was done.

“There, that’s better.” The mattress sagged as he crawled up beside me.

I cracked open an eye, and my heart sank. His mind might still be trapped inside his body, but I knew that Bryce was truly, truly not himself because he’d essentially created a fire hazard. Lit candles covered every available surface.

“Wow,” I sighed dreamily, swooning with happiness I didn’t possess. “I feel good about the number of open flames near my soon-to-be-sleeping body.”

Bryce beamed. “I am glad you are glad.”

He leaned over me, pulling the covers over his shoulders like we were in a PG-13 movie.

The mood was effectively dead.

We both looked at each other, smiled like it was the happiest day of our lives, and simultaneously claimed to have headaches.

I left Bryce asleep and went outside for some fresh air. I leaned against the inn, cool night air raising the hairs on my arm. Focusing on breathing, I let my mind work out the complicated feelings churning in my head.

We’d taken the potion for the wrong reasons.

Well, objectively, they were the right reasons, but subjectively, they were the wrong reasons for us , and now everything was ruined.

I crammed myself back into a life that wasn’t mine.

I gave up Nothing, and it cost me everything.

Maybe I was likable now, but I felt as unlovable as ever.

I’d once again started chasing perfection and a quintessential Happily Ever After, but I realized now that wasn’t what I wanted. What I’d had with Bryce in Ohio before coming to this world felt more like a Happily Ever After than anything I could achieve now.

All I could do was hold on to the small scrap of hope that, somehow, Bryce liked the old me—the me I was before we even came here. Then at least a piece of our relationship could still be real.

“Are you all right, Lady Courtney?” The blacksmith leaned over the porch railing, looking down at me.

“Quite fine,” I said. “A lovely night, isn’t it?”

The blacksmith shook his head. “I know that look. That’s the look of love lost.” Pushing off the railing, he crossed to the steps, boards creaking under his girth.

He lumbered off the porch and came around to me.

“It’s been a hard day, my lady. No matter what it might feel like, Sir Bryce loves you. ”

I would have snorted if I could have. Instead, I nodded and stared nobly into the blackness, looking at absolutely nothing. “Perhaps.”

“He does care for you,” the smith insisted. “He told me as much.”

A little flutter went through my heart. “He did?” I breathed. “What did he say?”

“When you were fighting the dragon, he said he realized how amazing you are.”

The fluttering inside me turned to ice. I’d hoped Bryce regretted the potion as much as I did. But after seeing me as a hero fighting a dragon, he’d come to his senses and realized he liked this new version of me more. Now he was yet another person who liked my outsides better than my insides.

I’d always suspected he’d like Chosen One Courtney far more than he’d ever cared for Normal Courtney.

Normal Courtney was never enough. Normal Courtney was someone’s brief infatuation until curiosity was satisfied, and they learned she was nothing more than exactly what she looked like.

Normal Courtney was the selfish bitch, the lazy deadbeat, the washed-up loser.

Tears burned in the back of my throat. It was all too much. Pushing past the blacksmith, I ran. I didn’t know where I was going, only that I needed space.

This world won its little game. I learned my lesson. I’d been put in my place and molded into something that the rest of the world could accept. I’d experienced “growth,” and yet I’d never felt smaller.

I’d changed for the better. I’d worked hard, and people had faith in me. I was well on my way to defeating Big Bads and completing my hero’s journey. I was perfect and lovable.

My old dream had come true.

Now, the dream was a nightmare.