The Forgotten Fairytales (11 page)

“She’s different and you know it. Anyone else. Anyone but her, got it?”

Wolf shoved him and Finn stumbled backward. “Don’t ever tell me what to do. I’d hate to ruin that pretty face of yours.” He laughed again. “What am I talking about? I’d love nothing more than to fuck you up.”

When I opened my mouth, words didn’t come out, only sounds. God, what was wrong with me? How much did I drink that I couldn’t speak? My legs were like jelly. I wasn’t sure what else happened, what was said between them, but before I knew it, I was puking in the dead grass.

Finn knelt beside me and trailed his cool hand over my back. “Just breathe, you’ll be okay. I promise.”

If elephants could play street hockey, they were doing so on my head, and the biggest one just scored a goal. The pain was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. Nausea coiled in my stomach like a snake wishing to kill me. I wished it would kill me.

Finn passed me a tall glass of water and a few aspirin. Despite Finn’s good intentions, I was not going to drink the water. No matter how hellish I felt. What did I drink anyway, a magical elixir that made you drunk super fast?

He shrugged off his coat, draping it over my bare shoulders.

“Thank you,” I whispered, rubbing my temples. “I’m sorry I ruined your night.”

“You didn’t,” he said. “I had fun. I should have warned you about the drinks.”

“Why didn’t you?”

He grinned. “Would you have listened?”

My smile matched his. “Probably not.”

“Exactly.” There was a little too much enjoyment in his voice. “Plus, getting smashed is like an initiation.”

Great, now they’d accepted me. Here. Into the home of the criminally insane.

Owls cooed in the distance, the night rustled around us, preparing for dawn. Beside me, Finn picked up the small flute sitting on the table between us. Closing his eyes, he brought it to his lips and the most enchanting melody filled the air. A song so familiar I felt as if I should know the words, yet I didn’t. Instead, I hummed along and soon the hum turned into an Ah. Surprisingly, the music weakened my headache.

A few measures in after I joined, Finn stopped. I looked over to find him staring back at me with wide jade eyes.

“You sing.” It wasn’t so much a questions as an observation.

“I do.” Not much though. In fact, ever since Dad heard me sing and told me I sang like my mother, I decided to stop. I didn’t want to be like her. She was a quitter and nobody liked a quitter.

“How come you aren’t in choir?”

I grinned. “Just because I can sing doesn’t mean I like to sing.”

Finn sat back, his bows pulled inward, his shoulders tense. Did my singing stress him out? So weird.

The events played over in my mind and somehow I found myself in the woods again. The fog lifted and I remembered the fierceness in Finn’s eyes as he tore Wolf off me. I shivered at the thought of how far things had escalated between Wolf and I. If Finn hadn’t come, I knew I would have done something regretful.

“Why were you there?” I blurted out, thankful my voice matched the cool atmosphere and not my racing heart. “I didn’t think royals socialized under their class.” Gosh, I sounded like Danielle and Wolf and everyone else in the damn school.

“They don’t,” he replied. “But labels aren’t my thing.”

The dim moonlight streaked across his tired eyes. Norah covered her mouth, stifling a yawn. “For the record, I don’t believe this is true. I mean—no offense—but fairy tales belong in books, not in real life. You can’t classify a person solely based on one story.”

A few years back, my dad took me to see Wicked on Broadway. I fell in love with the concept of how Elphaba became “wicked”; losing her sister, betrayed by her best friend, the so-called “good” one, losing the one you loved, being hated.

Couldn’t that be the same with any story? Couldn’t the villains just be misunderstood? No one knew their back-story, just what had been said in books, but not in truth. And what really made a person evil to begin with? Perhaps their actions were justified. The wicked witch certainly was. Hell, I would’ve flipped if I was her.

“I agree.” Finn’s voice snapped me from my thoughts.

“You do?”

“I mean, I know why people are classified. It makes sense, but a title doesn’t make them any less human.”

I smiled and nestled my head in the pillow. My stomach tightened as Finn smiled back at me—a real smile, not a smart-ass grin like Wolf but a real genuine smile. Despite the rough beginning, at least I met a decent person. A little weird and out of it sometimes, but decent nevertheless.

“There is one story, one my mom used to tell me at night that I liked a lot.” His voice was a whisper, soothing my aching mind, weakening my eyes so keeping them open was a chore. “About the princess from the temple.”

“What about her?” I yawned.

“Well, the story says a prince was drowning in the sea and woke up on the shore, saved by this beautiful princess. But he passed out from the trauma and when he woke up again, the princess was gone. He searched for her but only found one other girl, one just as beautiful, but she didn’t enchant him the way the other princess had. Nevertheless, his father decided it was time for the prince to marry. If he had to take a bride other than the one who saved him, then he said he’d marry the one he befriended, even though he only loved her as a friend and nothing more.”

I yawned again, barely hearing as Finn’s voice trailed off into the night. “On the day he and the girl were to marry, he ran off to a temple to pray and there he found the princess, the one who saved him, the one he loved. That same day, they were married.”

“Let me guess, they lived happily ever after?”

Finn shrugged. “Who knows, but at least they were together, right?”

T
he longest we stayed in one place was when I was twelve and we lived in West Palm Beach. Dad loved the Florida beaches and I loved the palm trees. Dad signed a two-year contract at a local academy and enrolled us into private school. Back then, I had braces and glasses and even though I knew self-defense, I never stood up for myself.

The back of the classroom and the corner of the cafeteria were my only friends. From day one, I was a joke. Not pretty enough, pear-shaped hips and no chest. They called me a boy and spread rumors I was half-and-half. Desperate to be popular, I tried out for cheerleading and got laughed off the field. Guys tripped me in the halls, scattered my books, and even poured chocolate milk on my white shorts.

The summer after my first school year, the braces came off and I met Remy. Life changed. Remy introduced me to highlights and we spent the summer tanning on the beach and talking to boys. That summer was the summer I turned pretty, the summer I found confidence, the summer my boobs finally came, and the summer I had my first kiss. The old, nerdy Norah went away and I found myself.

I’d forgotten what it felt like to be that girl—until I saw Kate on the first day of school.

Now, Kate sat at a table near the entrance of the cafeteria, her head in the book used for our potions class. Her blonde hair draped over her face, hiding the scar and masking the nervous twitch in her brows I knew was there. I saw through the façade better than anyone.

“Norah!”

I peered over my shoulder and saw Desiree strutting toward me in a pair of skinny red jeans and a matching red leather jacket. Underneath was a plain black tank. Her high crimson stilettos muffled against the wood floors. Up close I realized she had two different eye colors—the left green, the right brown.

“You look beat.” She tucked her hands in the pocket of her tight red jeans. “Rumor has it you and Mr. Prince left the party together.” Just as I was about to open my mouth to reply Finn and James rounded the corner.

“We’re just friends,” I muttered, my attention torn between him, Desiree, and Kate.

“That’s what they all say.” She sighed. “Too bad his destiny is already
written in the stars
.”

“Uh?” Like that I gave her my undivided attention. “How does that work?”

Desiree rolled her eyes and the colors changed—jade and sapphire. “Danielle and James are probably the only ‘couple’ that’s actually together and happy. Well, they act happy, but I find that hard to believe. Danielle’s a bitch. No offense.” I didn’t take any; not when I knew the truth. A truth I was dying to tell someone about.

“Anyway, they don’t have to be in love, they just have to accept their fate. Take Beth and Adam.” She motioned toward Beth and the guy beside her, dressed in the same navy blue and yellow color scheme. “They aren’t a couple, but they’ve accepted the fact that they’ll end up together and aren’t fighting it anymore, unlike Pete.”

She pointed to a guy in a deep green shirt with ginger hair, who leaned over the table and poured salt in some guy’s water when he wasn’t paying attention. “He refuses to grow up; therefore he won’t move forward.”

“And Finn, are he and Pearl together?” I asked, almost whispering as if he’d hear me.

She scoffed. “They’re complicated. He didn’t show any interest until she got her voice back. If you ask me, he just gave up.”

“Gave up on what?”

“I don’t know. He’d get all weird and far off and ramble about some girl he needed to find. Something about rippling sunshine and glittering seas.”

“Glimmering sunshine and stagnant seas.” The words were like a reflex and I realized he’d said it the first day we met.

Desiree’s eyebrow cocked up. “Yeah.” How weird was it that I remembered his words? On top of that, it sort of reminded me of the story he told me last night. Could just be a similarity or I was a freak reading into too much. “Anyways, he struggles with the pre-destiny thing, swearing up and down he’s meant for someone else. That’s why he secretly hangs out with us.”

“We’re more fun.” Desiree and I twirled around to find Wolf standing behind us. Suddenly I felt like I was naked in the woods and his hands were crawling all over me. I shivered, holding myself close.

“True story.” Desiree agreed. “So, do you want to sit with me?”

Desiree had been staring my way, which meant she wanted me to sit with her. What was she anyways? She didn’t look like a villain. She didn’t like Danielle, and from what I remembered of last night she was sort of fun to be around.

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll meet you there.”

Desiree smiled wide and pranced toward the courtyard doors. As soon as she was out of earshot, Wolf stood in front of me, grinning from ear to ear, looking more wolfish than he had since we met. Now, in the light, I saw how his ears pointed a bit more than usual and his side burns were kind of wolverine-like.

“Danielle’s going to shit bricks if you sit with us,” he said.

“Like I care what the pretty-pretty princess wants.” I pivoted away and started for the lunch line. My mouth was dry, I desperately needed a drink,
non
-alcoholic. Wolf followed behind, the heat rolling off his body onto mine as he stood right behind me. Man, he had a knack for creeping.

Wolf stuck his hand in the ice chest and yanked out a can of diet soda and handed it to me. I thanked him and shuffled forward in the line. He stacked his tray with pizza, fries, sushi, some kind of mystery meat sandwich, and a pear.

“Wow, hungry?”