Anne stared at the strip of paper in her hand and tried not to vomit from a variety of emotions. Two stood out: happiness so brazen that it sang inside her and the instinctive panic that came from her discovery. Then a third one slithered its way inside her already quivering stomach: shocked that it could happen again in this lifetime.
“Shit. Holy shit.”
She wasn’t one for bad words, but the two pink marks threw her in a loop. Carefully, she placed it in the trash and stood up, then made her way out of the restroom stall and looked at herself in the mirror. A pale face looked back.
“This can’t be real.”
“What can’t be real?”
Rosalia stepped into the restroom, peering at herself in the mirror, too, and scrutinizing her makeup. While the woman looked soft and cute in the forest with her plain dresses and bare feet, it was elevated to a radiant beauty with eyeshadow, lipstick, and a body-hugging summer dress that complemented her honey skin well. A satisfied smirk danced out before the woman focused back on Anne, who had already schooled her expression.
Inside, she was a torrential storm that battered at all corners. Outside, she managed a smile. “Nothing. I just meant my eyebags.”
Perhaps it was a mistake as Rosalia’s features gleamed, and her hand was already slipping into her bag to rummage for her makeup kit.
“Great! Not great that you look like a raccoon, but great that I can finally put—”
“It’s too late for that,” Anne blurted out, nervous that the woman would touch and immediately feel how much she fought to not tremble. “We are done with shopping, aren’t we? You got the items you needed. We are heading home, and there’s no need for makeup for that.”
Rosalia frowned. “Yes, I got the items I needed. But you still didn’t get new shoes.”
“Shoes can wait. My feet are tired from all that walking—in city shoes,” she added, not missing the bizarre look given to her. “I’m not used to city shoes.”
“Well…”
“Besides, weren’t we supposed to plant new seeds today in the new clearing? The others might get impatient and plant them ahead of us.”
That worked better than expected as Rosalia straightened and huffed. “They can’t do that. I purchased them from abroad and handled all the complicated shipping details. I have to plant the first seed.”
The woman looked so offended that Anne felt just a little bit guilty for their white lie. But she went along as Rosalia dragged her back home and towards the clearing. A big sigh of relief petered out as Rosalia found the space empty.
“We need to start planting now,” the woman declared. “What do you think we should plant first?”
“You decide. I need to go.”Before I explode.“My feet need rest. Don’t wait up for me.”
The woman didn’t question her excuse, already too preoccupied with the seeds lined up for planting. Anne took advantage of it and was out of there, walking at first before she burst into a sprint as far away from the center of the territory as possible. She avoided the guarding spots, too, and headed straight for the mansion, then snuck towards the back until she arrived in the greenhouse. The empty rows of wooden stands indicated that it hadn’t been used in a while, but a sweet scent drew her towards the back where pots of colorful blooms lay. She stopped in her tracks, eyeing the budding stems.
An image of the little girl who had once been so real popped into her head, holding a flower just as small. The dam she had been holding on to broke so hard that she could only fall and curl up on the ground as she was hit with memory after memory of how it felt when she had first given birth: that same unbearable joy whittling at her defenses before everything had been torn away from her. She sobbed quietly, the loss mixing with the discovery, the fear burning brightly until she couldn’t breathe.
She had endured that loss once with brutal pain, the kind that was silent as it beat her to her knees. She had risen from her ashes and had a chance to live again instead of the cold, dead state she had been stuck in for so long. Now, here was yet another chance given to her—the biggest there was, except she knew that losing it a second time around wouldn’t just break her. It would kill her.
“We shouldn’t be here…forbidden…get in trouble….”
Laughter rang out, soft and just a little nervous. Anne shrank in her spot to avoid being seen while she tracked the movement of the two figures. Peachy’s laughter fluttered out again, but it was the corresponding gentle tone that caught Anne’s attention the most.
“I won’t go inside,” Michael promised. “I don’t want to risk Rosalia’s wrath when I accidentally step on her flower pots. But I wanted some privacy, and this was the second-best option. The first was a restaurant or a private spot in the city.”
“Your bedroom’s private,” Peachy pointed out.
“Yes. My bedroom also has my bed, and you know how distracted we get when there’s a bed available.”
Peachy didn’t respond, but her body language showed that she agreed. “Then why are we here? Why do you need privacy? Why—Michael!”
There was a gasp as the man went on one knee and presented her with a box. When it opened, the spark had Anne blinking before realizing what it contained and what this was all about. She turned away, feeling like an intruder in an intimate moment meant only for these two. But there was no way Anne could sneak out without getting discovered and ruining this for them, so she stayed where she was and tried not to listen in on the rest.
Peachy’s soft sigh told her the woman’s answer, anyway, and it wasn’t long until she heard Michael’s grumble. Again, the softness to it jarred her, not used to the man acting so…gentle. There were more murmurs and giddy laughter before Michael’s words rang loud and clear in her ears.
“Thank you, Peachy. For giving me a chance again. For not giving up on me.”