"Where are you going?"

"Why? You wanna come?"

Rapunzel faltered. Was he being serious? "Okay."

Wait, what?


Rapunzel II


He seemed just as surprised as her what with the way his eyebrows shot up past his fringe. "Really?"

"Were you not being serious?"

"I was," he protested quickly. "I just didn't think you'd say 'yes'."

Rapunzel didn't know why she agreed. Maybe it was her soul longing for freedom. Maybe it was the rebellious part in her wanting to go against the rules—her mother's rules, school's rules. Maybe she just wanted to spend time with someone, anyone, outside of the confines of school. Maybe she just didn't feel like writing a math test that she knew she was going to fail. Or maybe it was everything combined. A potent mix. Uncontrollable. Unpreventable.

"You can imitate your mom, right?"

They were sitting in Jack's truck cruising down Woodland Road towards town, the radio playing softly. Rapunzel had cleaned up her palms and knee with snow and tissues that she'd found in the truck's glove compartment.

"Sure," she replied. She'd actually become somewhat of an expert, considering she'd been doing it for years (alone in her room after arguments).

"Good," he said with a grin and took his cellphone out of his pocket. "Here. The school's number's saved on speed dial."

Rapunzel took the phone and just held it for a moment, loving the feel of the expensive object in her hand. She didn't have one of her own, because she couldn't afford one, however, her mother's excuse was that she didn't need one. Rapunzel's jaw clenched at the thought.

"Try not to sound nervous," Jack said. "I almost got busted once the first time I tried it."

She glanced at him from the corner of her eye, but his eyes were on the road. Her gaze fell back to the phone and she pressed the green phone icon, went to his speed dial contacts like he said, glanced over them and frowned when she couldn't find one labeled 'school' or something similar.

"Uh, which one?" She asked.

He glanced at her briefly, then down at the phone and back to the road. "Godmother. That's the school secretary."

"Why Godmother?"

He looked over at her again, his expression amusedly confused. "Everyone calls her that. She even calls herself that."

"Oh," she nearly whispered. How did she not know this?

"She likes to act like she's the school shrink," Jack went on. "You know, like we can go to her with all our problems and with the wave of her magic wand everything will be fine. I swear, adults act like they've never been teenagers before."

Rapunzel wasn't sure if she should laugh.

"Oh," she mumbled again and pressed the contact. She held the phone up to her ear and tried to steady her heartbeat as the dial tone rung. She couldn't mess this up.

There was a click as the receiver was picked up. "Burgess High School. This is Ms. Fortuna. How can I help you?" A cheery voice asked.

"Good morning, Ms. Fortuna," Rapunzel greeted in her best imitation of her mother; high pitched and slightly nasally. She ignored Jack's snort of amusement at her impersonation. "This is Ms. Gothel. I'm calling Rapunzel in sick today."

"Oh, dear," Ms. Fortu—Godmother cooed sympathetically. "This must be her first absent in four years."

"Mhm," Rapunzel replied. "She should be back by tomorrow."

"Alright, I'll note it down," Godmother said, voice never faltering in its bright tone. "You know there's been a cold going around. Mr. Overland called not ten minutes ago about Jackson. He's out sick as well."

Rapunzel glanced over at Jack. "Is he now? Poor boy."

Jack must have sensed they were talking about him, because he looked over at her, blue eyes twinkling mischievously.

"Well, give the dear my best," Godmother singsonged.

"I'll do that."

"Have a nice—"

Rapunzel hung up the phone and gasped. "Oh, my—I did it! I cant believe I did it!" She squealed, eyes gleaming, but her grin disappeared quickly. "I can't believe I did this…Mother would be so furious."

"Hey, what she doesn't know won't kill her."

"This is gonna kill her."

She could sense Jack looking at her with slight unease. "Okay, kill is a bit—"

"I am a horrible daughter. I'm going back. I have to go back. You have to take me back. I can't do this."

"Are you serious right now?"

"No." A moment's pause, then, "I don't know."

"Well, look at it this way. You're already off the hook and school's about to start anyway, so you wouldn't even make it to first period on time."

Rapunzel glanced at the digital clock on the dash and sighed. "You're right. You're right."

This was bad. The whole thing was bad. She was going to get in so much trouble! She'd be grounded for months. Maybe Mother would even pull her out of school. Maybe she'd lock her in the Tower like she used to when Rapunzel misbehaved. She remembered the walls closing in, pressing closer and closer until she could hardly breathe.

"I can take you back home if you want."

"No!" Rapunzel exclaimed suddenly and she blushed at the incredulous look Jack gave her. "Sorry, but no. Don't take me back yet."

He pulled his gaze back to the road. "Okay," he drawled out slowly and she could sense him second-guessing himself if it was a good idea to invite her along.

"Sorry, I'm a bit jumpy," she said and exhaled deeply. "I've just never done anything like this before."

"Yeah, I figured. Don't worry. I'll keep the illegal stuff to a minimum."

She looked at him wide eyed.

"Kidding," he said quickly. "Jeez. What kind of reputation do I actually have at that school?"

Rapunzel laughed breathlessly and handed him his phone back. "The troublemaking kind."

He chuckled at that.

"So…" she hummed into the silence. "You ditch quite a bit."

He shrugged. "A fair amount I guess."

"And she believes you each time?"

His mouth curved into a crooked smile. "Well, flirting does help."

Rapunzel stared at him. "You flirt with her?"

"Oh, don't give me that look," he said with a laugh. "She thinks it's my dad."

Rapunzel wasn't sure if that was worse. "What if he ever comes to the school?!"

"Don't worry. That won't ever happen."

"How can you be so sure?"

"'Cause he left us a long time ago."

Rapunzel froze, mouth parted, eyes looking anywhere but at him.

"It's fine. Seriously, don't worry about. It happened a long time ago."

"My dad left us too," she said, not really knowing why. Maybe she thought it would be reassuring in a way? Maybe it could be a thing to bond over? "I never met him. At least I don't remember ever meeting him."

"That sucks."

"Not really. I mean, I can't miss him, because I don't remember him. Not like you. I mean that must really suck for you, because…" She trailed off immediately after realizing what she'd said and clamped her mouth shut.

He looked at her sideways, but he wasn't frowning or glaring or gritting his teeth. He was smiling. Nearly smirking. "Like I said, it's fine. I'm used to it."

"Used to what? Him not being there or people being completely insensitive about it?" Rapunzel asked, rubbing her forehead, momentarily hiding her mortified expression from him.

"Both."

"Sorry."

"Are you going to be apologizing this entire time?"

She dropped her hand. "No. Sor—" She exhaled sharply in exasperation. "It's a habit."

He chuckled again and she was starting to ask herself why he found her so amusing.

She glanced out the window at the snow covered trees flying by. It wasn't much warmer in the truck than it was outside and she started rubbing her hands over her thighs to warm up her freezing limbs.

"There's a blanket down there you can use," Jack said and pointed a finger at the floorspace between them. "My heater's broken."

To her surprise Jack's truck was clean. A bit messy, but clean. She half-expected soda cans and empty food packages and crumbs to be scattered about, but instead there was a fat coloring book slid into the pocket on the door, a package of crayons in a cup holder, a grey stuffed bunny sitting on the dash on the passenger side, an ice scraper at her feet and a car magazine lying on the middle seat.

"You like coloring in your free time?" Rapunzel asked half-seriously and pulled the book from the door, after having covered herself with the red fleece blanket.

Jack snorted. "Yeah, it's one of my past times."

"I like painting," she said and flipped through the book. Some of the pictures were sloppily colored in, but most were blank.

"I was kidding," he said slowly, like he wasn't sure if she got the joke.

She refrained from rolling her eyes. "I wasn't."

He cleared his throat. "I've seen some your artwork at school. There was that exhibition that one time. You painted that picture with the lanterns," he said, surprising her. "It was really good."

"Thank you." Her voice sounded a bit too surprised by the compliment and she caught him glance at her again, however briefly.

She slid the coloring book back into the slot on the door, leaned forward and grabbed the bunny off the dash. It was soft and looked quite worn.

"That's not mine," Jack said quickly and when she looked over at him she could swear he was blushing lightly. "Belongs to this kid I babysit."

Rapunzel raised her eyebrows. "You babysit?"

He glanced over at her. "Don't look so surprised."

How could she not? From the gossip at school, she'd come to believe he was an irresponsible prankster, but now she was starting to realize that there was more to him than that. She couldn't believe that she'd actually believed the rumors. She'd heard plenty about herself that were completely false, like that she was a gypsy in practice or a part of some cult, because she lived out in the middle of nowhere.

"You just don't seem like the babysitting type," she admitted.

He looked at her quizzically. "Why not?"

'Too attractive' didn't seem like the right thing to say. Luckily she didn't have to answer, because his phone dinged.

He dug it out of his pocket but then quickly set it down when they approached an intersection just outside town. "Can you read that out for me?" He asked.

Rapunzel took the phone and the screen flashed as the message popped up again.

- where you at frosty? -

She relayed the message to him verbally. "From…Robin Hood?" she added and her brow furrowed.

He laughed. "Yeah, I figured."

"Who's Robin Hood?"

"My friend Merida."

"Why do you call her Robin Hood?"

"Firstly, because it pisses her off," he said and took a left onto Main Street. "Secondly, she's into archery—don't ask me why, 'cause I don't know. Maybe she has some medieval fetish or something. And thirdly, her parents are pretty well off and she likes sharing the wealth."

"Hm," Rapunzel chuckled. "She calls you 'frosty'?"

"Yeah, she thinks she's hilarious."

"Well, so do you," Rapunzel countered, "…about yourself."

He nodded in agreement. "True. But the difference between me and her is that I actually am hilarious."

Rapunzel couldn't help her smile. "So, where are we going?"

Traffic was slow and they crawled along the icy street like snails. The sidewalks were snow-covered, icicles hung off ledges and frost decorated windows in intricate swirls.

"You like hot chocolate?" Jacks asked and shifted gears as the traffic started to clear up again.

"Yes," Rapunzel confirmed with a wide smile.

"Hot chocolate it is then."

He pulled into a parking spot on the side of the road and they quickly made their way into a small café on the corner. After a small argument at the counter over who was paying, which Rapunzel quickly lost, they settled into two small armchairs by the window, a small, round table between them. Rapunzel snuggled deeper into her jacket and the chair, enjoying the warmth of the little café, and clutched her giant mug of cocoa with both hands. The hot drink was topped off with a swirl of whip cream, cocoa powder and red peppermint shavings.

"Thanks for this," she said and looked over at Jack. He had removed his winter coat to reveal a dark blue sweatshirt that made his azure eyes seem even brighter.

He gave her an easy smile. "No problem."

She smiled back and looked back down at her cocoa when she felt a blush start to creep onto her cheeks. She took a spoon and carved an alcove into the whip cream. The taste of sugar and peppermint and chocolate overtook her tastebuds and she couldn't remember the last time she'd had something so sweet. She loved it.

"Why did you ask me to come with you today?"

Jack didn't reply right away and just drummed his fingers against his leg as he took another sip of his cocoa. "Why did you?"

Rapunzel leaned back in her seat and stirred her hot chocolate some more, eyes following the white and brown swirls as the whip cream slowly, slowly melted. "I don't know…I guess, I just…" She trailed off again and shrugged. "Every day is always the same. I just wanted to do something different."

A Christmas song jingled over the speaker system and Rapunzel had to stop herself from actually singing along.

"You still didn't answer my question," she realized.

Jack inhaled sharply through his nose. "Yeah, 'cause I don't really have an answer. I mean…why not ask you?"

"Is that why you decided to skip today? 'Why not?'"

He shrugged. "More or less. It snowed. 'Thought it'd be a waste to spend today in a classroom."

Rapunzel looked back out the window. The window was frosted at the edges and she could see huge snow mounds piled up on the edge of the street and sidewalk. "So, what did you plan to do otherwise?"

He looked over and smiled. "Didn't plan anything. Thought I'd just see where the day takes me."

Rapunzel smiled into her mug and took another sip of cocoa. He was much different than she'd previously thought. He said and did ordinary things like any other ordinary boy and yet everyday he found just what he was looking for; adventure, laughter, fun, freedom. It was everything she longed for.

"So, you want to do something different," Jack said and she should have known by the smirk on his face that it'd be something far outside her comfort zone.