“It’s all right. He was right. Seeing you laughing and happy today, Brielle, you’ve never looked so beautiful. It’s like you’ve come to life. There’s more color in your cheeks, you are laughing, you haven’t had one bad spell,” she confessed.
To her surprise, Brielle didn’t try to argue the truth of it, but the way her mouth curved up to the right was as familiar to me as my own breath. She was hiding something.
Even still, there was no turning back now.
“Before the ball, before you got sick. Your father told me that I wasn’t the cure for you. I was the symptom.”
It was a miracle the words escaped her throat at all, with how thick they were and how bitter they tasted.
The smile fell from Brielle’s face, and even beneath the moonlight, the color drained from her face. Shaking her head, she gently pushed off Calcifer, who plopped onto the floor with an indignant huff of breath. Brielle sat on her knees and took Luci’s hands in hers, tears welling in her eyes.
“Luci, no, he shouldn’t have ever said that. He’s never understood, and he’s wrong,” she said. “You are the other half of my heart. There is no life for me without you in it.”
“You have the prince now,” Luci said, fighting not to fall apart.
Brielle's smile crept up once more, but it was sad like an innocent adrift on the ocean.
“He’s not mine, Luci,” she said.
What an odd thing to say. Of course, their bargain said that he wouldn’t hold Brielle to the engagement, but that was just a formality.
“Not yet–”
“Do you want to know why I’ve been so happy here? Why did I do all this to begin with?” Brielle asked.
Luci shrugged, unsure if she did or not.
“You are always so stubborn.” Brielle groaned, throwing back her head. “I did it for you, you ridiculous woman. I’ve been happy because of you. All of this is for you.”
The world stilled, even the birds and the trees hushed their journey in witness to Brielle’s confession.
“What do you mean?” Luci asked.
Brielle sat back and sighed. “I thought you would be happy here if I gave it enough time. That would stop standing in your own way and give in. As always, you are too stubborn, and so I see it will take more time.”
No sense at all. The individual words made plenty of sense, but together they were just nonsensical. Even still, they soothed something dark within Luci that was suffocating her. That moment between the words and Brielle's understanding of them, there was nothing that gave away that she agreed with her father’s assessment. Instead, Luci at least knew that Brielle rejected them even if that didn’t make them untrue.
“You are not a symptom, Lucinda Blackthorn, and if I hear you say that ever again, I will force-feed you pickled sardines until you admit you are a ridiculous human being.”
Wrinkling her nose, Luci scooted back from Brielle, who was slightly terrifying when she got like this. Not to mention that there was potentially nothing as horrifying as pickled sardines. The problem with loving someone with your whole life was that they quickly learned your weaknesses.
Undeterred, Brielle crawled towards Lucy, white night gown shimmering like a mermaid from the ocean’s depths. Luci braced for the impact of whatever she’d earned, but Brielle merely placed her hand over Luci’s heart and met her gaze.
Glistening tears welled in her big eyes, but didn’t fall. Her lips quivering, she pressed harder against Luci’s chest.
“You are my home, Lucinda Blackthorn. Not a place, not a prince, not an idea– just you.”
Noah was wrong. Living for someone else didn’t mean you lost yourself. It couldn’t, because of this feeling. This pressure over her chest and the rightness of it all was better than any independence. Luci didn’t need to know who she was so long as Brielle did.
Reaching her hand out, she pressed it to Brielle’s heart just as they had when they were girls.
“You are my home, Brielle Treveon. Not a place, not a prince, not an idea– just you,” she echoed.
The first tears fell in unison, and the world was right. Even if Luci was the symptom, she would stand by Brielle while they found a cure. A symptom was only a bad thing without a remedy, and if that remedy was a prince, then so be it. Luci would stand and bear witness because there was no price she wouldn’t pay for the woman who was her home.
Brielle sniffed and wiped at her tears, settling back on her knees.
“There. Now, no more nonsense,” she said.