NEVERMORE : A twist to the tale
– Chapter 16

“You’re dressed as a fairy. Are you good or evil?” The little princess in front of me squinted her brows as I grabbed the scoop of ice cream and put it on the cone.

“That depends on who you’re talking to.” I leaned over, displaying a sharky smile. “I used my magic powers to put fairy dust in your ice cream. One of your wishes will come true.”

The little girl’s face lit up, and she closed her eyes as if she was about to blow out a candle to make a wish. The way she ran away from the store to go back to her mommy to tell her the story about how she met a real-life fairy made me grin in the empty space. We weren’t opening for another fifteen minutes, but I made an exception for her because, believe it or not, I was somehow in a joyful mood.

I went back to my computer—which I had plugged in instead of the hot chocolate machine because choices had to be made—and continued my short erotica story using my remaining free time. It was a new dom-neighbor-next-door trope—because my story about fae kings got refused by daddykink.

Bending over the counter, I typed the story, sentences flowing across the screen, kicking off that empty white page.

“You’ll take it,” I whispered, immersing myself in my role. “You’ll take it like the good gi—”

“Aurore,” a husky, deep voice echoed, and my fingers crashed on the keyboard.

A draft passed, and I didn’t move, too afraid to look at who was behind me. I cleared my throat and shut down my computer, replaceing a semblance of composure. I glanced at the ice cream clock. We’d only opened a minute ago—that customer had an annoying sense of punctuality.

I shifted around to meet Spectre, dressed in his usual morose gray, looking out of place in the candy-pink scenery. It was as if he was coming out of a sexy Halloween parade to jump inside an enchanted forest for unicorns.

“Ajax. Do you have some kind of meeting with Ever After, or are you here by some unfortunate circumstance to torment me?”

“I came for you.”

I blinked. “For me? How did you know I’d be here?”

“You told me you work here,” he said simply, as if I had made him a detailed plan on how to replace me in this maze. “I just had to search for you and your purple aura emanating like a tornado in the middle of this pretentious pink world, my fairy.”

I snapped a fist on the counter, leaning toward it like a gangster about to draw their gun. “So, you bought a ticket for Ever After, while you could have just waited to see me like on Monday?”

He moved forward with that confidence and regalness of his. “I don’t like waiting while I can take matters into my own hands.”

“What matters?” I gulped, pretending to be busy readjusting my already too perfectly arranged counter.

“Our date,” he affirmed. “Our mandatory date.”

“I believe I already refused.” I managed a crisp smile, the images of our heated kiss making my hands moist. “I’ll go alone tomorrow. It has already been arranged.”

“I know.” A fine cunning line was on his lips. “I’ll come to pick you up, and I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t bail on me. That’s why I’m here in person.”

“What you’re doing is psychopathic and villainous.”

“I thought if someone could understand psychopathic and villainous, it’d be you. You said you liked villains.” His tendency to remember everything I’d ever said was starting to irritate me, and worse, it was attractive. Like a game you couldn’t stop playing even if you knew it’d end badly for you, because the more you played, the more you had to lose.

I hate him. I hate him. I—I took a deep breath. “You’re incredibly stubborn for someone who is too busy to date and with the emotional sensibility of a stone.”

He leaned on the counter, and his approach made my hair hiss alert like a warning to not kiss him again. “You should take that as a compliment.”

I laughed. “Why do you want that date? You can’t possibly really want this? Do you even like me?” I gunned my eyes at him, but he didn’t budge, his Adam’s apple bobbing out. “You like me? You do?”

“I tolerate you,” he gritted out.

“Right! Probably because the great Ajax is used to disliking things, not liking them.” And again, my lips quirked up at the sight of his grumpy self.

“People get bored of the things they like. Liking is not a compliment,” he grumbled, but that didn’t matter.

“You like me,” I played with him in the hope that maybe he would let all of this go away, and begged for my heart to stop hammering like this was some romantic moment. “That’s why you can’t stay away from me.”

“That reverse psychology won’t work on me. We—”

“Excuse me,” a woman cut us both off, and I felt a blast of annoyance. “Are you ordering an ice cream? Because we’re waiting in line, and if you aren’t, please step away.”

I bent my neck to the side to see a line of people waiting behind Ajax. Crap. I had never had this many customers before.

“My apologies.” He offered a charming smile to the lady, one that made her smile in return and made me want to slap him with a mixer. Ajax never smiled; he always wore a hostile growl. “I’ll take an ice cream.”

“Which flavors would you like, sir?” My hand tightened on the ice cream scoop.

He searched through each flavor. “Are you ready to accept my order?”

“No,” I deadpanned, which made me sound impolite while we both knew we weren’t talking about ice cream.

“Give me a good reason to refuse.”

“Choose your ice cream balls.” I slammed the scoop against the palm of my hand, which startled the lady behind him. “Sir.”

A knot formed in his jaw. “I’ll take the—” He lowered his voice. “Rainbow blue one.”

“Rainbow blue?” I screamed in a laugh for everyone to hear, which made Ajax’s face twitch. “I’m sorry, it’s just hilarious.”

“Are you making fun of me?” He looked around him, and if I didn’t know him too well, I’d say he was embarrassed.

“Yes, I am.” I couldn’t stop laughing. “I took you for a classic ice cream kind of guy, but you, Ajax, the grumpy man with a black soul who never gives a real smile, ordered a rainbow one. It’s ironic.”

I took the cone and threw two scoops of rainbow ice cream inside, a grin not leaving my face. I added two candies to make a little snowflake man like I did for the children.

“I prefer ice cream with weird names and candy flavors. My brother used to make fun of that too.” Ajax wasn’t offended. “It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?”

I handed him the ice cream. “No more than an old spinster who collects fairy-tale dresses. The ice cream is on me. The sight of you with it is making my day.”

Someone cleared their throat in the background, growing impatient, and yet my eyes remained glued to Ajax.

“You’re trying to get rid of me.”

“Perhaps.” I raised a brow. “You’re not the only stubborn person here.”

Cold and invisible Ajax turned around to face the woman behind him, and with a deadly tone he said, “I’m paying for everyone’s ice cream.”

The crowd gasped.

I gasped.

Even the clock hand stopped.

Ajax was serious. And he wasn’t going anywhere.

“There. I believe I bought us a couple more minutes.” He took a seat at the counter, readjusting his suit in a professional way if it wasn’t for that blue ice cream in his hand. “Place your order, Miss. I’m just here to hand over the credit card.”

I held out a chuckle, and Ajax kept his word. He paid for ice cream for everyone in the line, to the delight of the parents and children but to my biggest displeasure. We didn’t even talk but stared at each other until the end of my shift, which arrived some hours later at the time of the night show. The worst part in all of this was that time flew at a pace it never had before, and the knot in my heart spread wider, encrusting itself like a virus.

The crowd long gone, I was cleaning the tables as Ajax lifted himself from his seat. He was about to talk, but I capitulated first. “Fine. Tomorrow, I’ll let you go with me on that date. But don’t get your hopes too high. It’s a fake date.”

“Very well.” He didn’t give me a smile, as if he wasn’t even satisfied with the outcome.

“Are you not happy about it?”

Done with my work, I grabbed my stuff and exited the store, following behind him. We walked the cobblestone path in the midst of the people gathering by the castle and fountains to watch the show about to begin—the swans would dance on the lake, the characters would take life, and fairy-tale magic would charm everyone as fireworks would signal the end of an inspiring story.

The last couple of months, watching the night show, I used to want to burn the whole thing down in a scream. It all felt stupid and pointless. But today, it didn’t bother me to see the happiness on everyone’s faces and the promise of a forever happily ever after. It made me hopeful. Again.

“But you are.” Ajax analyzed me, being a stranger in the middle of a universe that wasn’t his own. “You look happy right now—even though I’m next to you. What do you feel?”

“Peaceful, safe, and almost inspired.” I drew a mere smile for a fraction of a second and retreated in the opposite direction of the show, away from the rush of excitement around us. “My sister will be coming here for her birthday. She’s gonna love it. My goal is to write everything this place is conveying. This kind of bliss. Of dreams.”

“Why don’t you?”

“I can’t.” My sigh was carried away by the music of the parade. “I told you, I don’t believe in it anymore. It’s not for me.”

“Then, write what is truly you, not what everyone including yourself is expecting of you.” He paused. “You don’t strike me as someone who stops believing. I wish I could understand your elation with all of this.”

I met his stare, the lights of the fireworks tainting his face with hundreds of colors. Colors that almost made him look like some misunderstood prince. “You don’t replace this magical?”

“It’s not real.”

“Doesn’t mean it can’t be. It may not be real, but your emotions and what you feel are real, so who cares?” I defended. “Reality or dream, it doesn’t matter. It’s the same.”

“You’re seeing the world in a strange way,” he said. “And I mean it as a compliment.”

“Maybe that’s the reason I’m lonely.”

The crowd laughed, carried away by the spectacle, while here we were, turning our backs at this moment, cut off from it.

Ajax noticed this too, and he furrowed his brows, towering over me. “It may feel lonely to live in your own world, but at least you’re not powerless over living in the world others created for you. You’re making your own tale.”

I swallowed, his comment leaving goose bumps on my skin.

“Believing is not always easy; sometimes I just want to give up, but if I do, it’d feel like I’m dead inside, and I don’t want that. So, I feel stuck between those two parts of me.”

The orchestra played the melody of love in its splendor inside the park, but did true love truly exist? All that love brought me was disappointments and failures. Every time I had loved or those around me did, we ended up getting hurt over and over again. Everyone leaves, so it’s better to reject the possibility of getting hurt again before being abandoned. That’s why I needed to kill each butterfly I allowed myself to feel with Ajax before the story repeated itself.

“You should enjoy the show and get inspired. After all, it’s what our contract is about, right? An alliance toward our goals.” What I am to you. A muse with an expiration date. “This is truly what you want—to leave for the US?”

“Yes.” He didn’t think twice. “If I stay here, I’ll get buried underground. It suffocates me. It’s my only solution if I want a career worthy of the name.”

“Looks like you have something to prove to the demons of your past,” I whispered. “I need to go back home to work. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He nodded. “You have hope for everyone else, yet you don’t allow yourself to be who you truly are.”

“Because I’m broken, Ajax. And you painted it,” I snapped. “You immortalized the day that broke me.”

His face remained closed off. I drove further away from the fireworks rising in the sky, and blossoming happy endings.

There were different versions of one storybook tale.

For the endings, some were happy and touching. Others were gloomy and tragic.

Some delivered a message of hope as others warned us against the big, bad world through darkness.

I thought I could make my own tale, but perhaps I was stuck in the wrong story all along.