The Fairytale Life of Doris McQueen [#1] ✓

TWENTY-THREE

Chapter 23

Gemima Merryweather had lived a long time. She measured years as days and days as minutes. As time passed she had witnessed a lot of changes both in the world outside and inside herself. She had lived small lives in different parts of the world but had never managed to make many friends. She had a tendency to fight rather than be friendly and this had affected her social life.

 Brandon and Arabella had been two people that had stayed by Gemima when no one else had. Without them life had been tough and time had slowed down considerably. The weight of the guilt of their disappearance had been difficult to deal with. Gemima had thought that if she saved Brandon everything would become alright.

And it had. For a few precious seconds everything had seemed alright and then it had all started to crumble again. She knew she was cowardly and selfish when she took Brandon and flew away from that horrible castle but how could she stay and lose everything again? So, she turned her back on her Doris and Adam. Brandon needed to be safe. He deserved to be saved. He had suffered so long. She couldn't risk him getting caught and put away again. She couldn't risk losing herself.

Right now, as she drove away in Laurine's pink little car with Brandon sprawled on the backseat, Gemima didn't feel the happiness or the freedom she should have. She felt as she had always felt-weak, selfish and cowardly.

Doris sat outside the cold iron bars feeling weak, helpless and angry. "Adam? Adam!" Her voice echoed back and Doris shivered. What had happened?

There was the noise of chains rattling on the hard floor and finally through the strange darkness a creature appeared. It had long dark hair covering its face, head and arm. It wore torn rags-pieces of Adam's clothing that Doris recognised.

The Beast stopped on the other side of the bars with its head bowed. It wouldn't look at Doris and Doris had to stand up, reach out through the bars and lay her hand on its muscled arm, "Adam?"

His voice was low and growling when he finally looked up, "Go on, tell me that I look terrible."

Doris looked in his beady black eyes trying to find traces of Adam's mysterious grey eyes and sighed, "I'm sorry."

Adam must have frowned because a horrible expression passed over the Beast's face, "Why are you sorry? It's not your fault."

Doris shook her head, "I meant to say that since a long time."

Adam waited for her to continue.

"You know, the first day at school I saw you with your family and I immediately disliked you. You had everything that I wanted-a mother, a caring father, a doting sibling, a perfect family. How could I not be jealous? And then you turned out to be brilliant at studies. Plus, people loved you. I couldn't understand how a person could get so much happiness in his life. So, I tried to find faults in you. Deep down, I think, I always knew I was prejudiced but I never thought that deep," Doris half-laughed. "It was silly but I told myself that teachers favoured you because you were a sycophant, girls liked you because you were good-looking, boys liked you because you were an excellent football player. Over the last couple of days I saw that you don't have that perfect life that I thought you did but you still try. You try to be happy and you make things easier for others. You are a nice person and you don't deserve this. I'm so sorry."

Adam held Doris' hand lightly in his clawed hands, giving her space to pull away if he scared her. She didn't. He said, "I'm sorry too. For all the unnecessary arguments and fights. I know that I shouldn't have but I did act that way. You always got under my skin with that headstrong, proud attitude of yours. I tried to so hard to get accepted that it irritated me that there was someone who disliked me so much. It intrigued me too and sometimes I would just pick up a fight as an excuse to know you better. I guess I always liked you but I didn't know why so I tried hard not to..."