Page 71 of An Enchanted Moment on Ever After Street
‘That’s what I’ve been saying for years.’
I give him a scolding look, but he won’t turn to face me so it was probably a waste of a good admonishment. ‘You’re as white as a sheet, you look and sound like you’re in pain…’ I let my eyes run down his body and wince at the sight of his left leg. ‘And I’mfairly sure ankles aren’t supposed to bend at that angle. Is that broken?’
‘Yeah. At least a couple of ribs too.’
I try to examine him for further injuries, but it’s too dark to see much, especially with his hand still up in front of his face. There’s mud all over him, being washed away by the rain, but the one thing I can see is blood. Even in the darkness, red stands out against his pale skin. ‘You have a head injury. Let me see.’
‘Low-flying tree branch. Or low-flying meintoan innocent tree branch.’ He sounds like he knows the sentence doesn’t make much sense. ‘It’s just a scratch.’
‘Scratches don’t bleed like that.’ The beating rain is washing the blood into his hair, and all I want to do is take hold of his hand and pull it out of the way.
I’m desperate to touch him but unsure of where won’t make him hurt more. He’s shivering constantly and the rain has soaked his white shirt, making it see-through around the muddy patches and sticking it to his body, and the darkness of raised and jagged scar lines stand out against the blanched fabric, lines that criss-cross his torso, the right side much worse than the left. I can’t stop myself touching him. Just gently, letting my hand rest over one of the scars on his shoulder. ‘Can you move?’
‘My ribcage was rebuilt with titanium plates. I know something in there is broken, and I don’t know how many pieces my ribs are in. Any wrong movement could cause something to shift and puncture a vital organ. I don’t want to risk it without paramedics nearby. I’ve had complications from broken ribs before. The best thing I can do is stay still.’
The panic I was feeling had started to abate because I’vefoundboth of them, but the idea of broken ribs and punctured vital organs sets my dread level soaring again. ‘Have you called for help?’
‘My phone’s still in the ballroom.’
Of course it is. I scrabble to get mine out of the hidden pocket Sadie always puts in her dresses, but I’m too wet and the screen won’t respond to my fingers, and I nearly throw it in frustration because it willnotunlock, and the rain is still coming down so hard that it’s going to drown in my hands if I’m not careful.
‘Witt!’ I shout into the night, and quickly explain to Darcy that I’m not the only one out looking for him. ‘Witt, I’ve got them but we need help. Call an ambulance!’
‘Ask for police and then Mountain Rescue,’ Darcy says. ‘Normal paramedics won’t make it down this terrain.’
‘I’m on it!’ The distant reply comes from the other side of the river after I repeat those instructions loudly, hoping Witt might be less wet and muddy than I am and be able to make his phone work.
Darcy hasn’t complained about my hand on his shoulder, so I give it another careful squeeze, but he’s still got his head turned away and he won’t look at me.
‘I’m so sorry I let her go.’ His fingers drum gently on Mrs Potts again. ‘You trusted me with her and I put my own… issues… before her safety, and I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.’
‘You don’t have to apologise for that. You were shocked. Hurt.I’msorry, Darcy. If I’d had any clue Rick was going to do something like that…’ My voice catches and I have to break off. I can’t imagine what Darcy felt on that stage. Even in his worst nightmares, he’s probably never imagined being unmasked so publicly.
It feels like looking back on something that happened three lifetimes ago, but in reality, it was less than an hour ago that we were all standing in a grand castle, listening to U.N.Known give his first ever public interview.
‘It’s my fault. I was unprepared. I let my guard down. You’ve made me believe that people are better than they are, and…’ His voice falters too and he trails off.
‘Mostpeople are. I’m not sure Rick counts as a person after that. You were only up there for me. Without me, you wouldn—’
‘Without you, I wouldn’t be a lot of things. Including as happy as you’ve made me in the past couple of months, and I wouldn’t change that for anything, not even to avoid what happened tonight.’
Thunder rumbles in the distance, moving further away, but doing nothing to take the rain with it. The wind screams around our ears, strong enough to whip up my saturated ballgown, and I try to hold it up, to shelter him in some useless way.
The hand he’s holding up is shivering constantly, and his whole body is being wracked by tremors from the cold. Even his teeth are chattering, and I don’t know what to do to help him. I fiddle with my skirt, wondering if I could somehow rip the underlayers off and use them to cover him, although it’s so sopping wet that the extra weight on top of broken ribs probably wouldn’t be a good thing.
I’m sitting on my knees next to him, keeping my hand on his shoulder, but scared of getting any closer in case I jolt one of his injuries or make something worse. ‘Please put your hand down.’
He makes a noise of refusal and it makes me realise I’m going to have to take matters into my own hands. I’ve never wanted to push him, but he’s injured and we’re stuck outside in a horrific storm, it’s freezing, and this can’t go on any longer. I reach out and slide my hand over the top of the one he’s holding up, letting my fingers slot between his and curl in. ‘You were going to show me earlier, in the ballroom.’
‘That was then. I got swept away in the magic of it. Got lost in a fairy-tale fantasy where someone could actually learn to love a beast.’
‘Do you know how harmful that wording is?’ I snap at him, overwhelmingly infuriated by this whole situation. ‘Love is either there or it isn’t. Saying that someone needs tolearnto love you is like telling yourself that you’re not good enough to simplybeloved. I haven’t “learnt” to love you – I’ve fallen in love with you. With your voice, with the words you say, withwhoyou are, with every part of you, and now I need to be allowed to fall in love with the parts you hide too.’ I curl my fingers into his hand and tug it gently away from his face.
And finally, finally, he lets me.
He lets me pull his hand away and turns his head slowly towards me, and I most definitely stop breathing. I keep my grip on his fingers, holding on tightly, until my eyes lock onto his beautiful blue ones. I’ve been desperate for this moment for so many weeks now. To see his face right in front of me, because hechoseto show me.
The head wound at the edge of his forehead is bleeding profusely, the rain washing blood down his face, highlighting scars in his skin. It’s too dark to see much, but I can tell his nose is sort of squashed, flat and wide, but in a way that suits his gorgeous face. One side of his jaw is misshapen and covered by the bumpy scar tissue he let me feel earlier. There are deep crevices and dipped jagged lines of the skin grafts he once told me about, and the brow ridge bone above his right eyebrow is over-prominent and bumpy, like it’s been broken apart and healed in a different shape to the other one, but there’s nothing that makes him not-gorgeous.
