So I wrote this on the drive down to my grandmother's house in Ojai. Never would have thought a seven hour drive could be so productive. :)
Thanks to you all for being patient with me. I. Hate. Homework. With a fiery, burning passion. But I love you all. So, here it is:
"Fine!"
Alison winced as she heard her friend yell, and opened the door to their room, only half-wanting to go in. This was the third time this week that she'd walked in on some point in Rapunzel and Eugene's now frequent arguments, and to be honest, she was starting to avoid the room as much as possible, if only to escape the strife she thought she'd left behind with her siblings at home.
She poked her head in to see Rapunzel toss her phone onto the chair by her desk and then curl up on her bed with an angry huff.
"Hey," Alison said softly, hoping not to spark her best friend's temper any further. Rapunzel sat up with a glare that could wilt flowers, but upon seeing who it was, tried to rearrange her expression into a smile; it only ended up looking like a pained, forced one.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Alison asked, her usual question after Rapunzel fought with Eugene.
The parody of a smile slid off of Rapunzel's face like ice cream melting in July. "No," she said, scowling darkly and falling back onto her bed. "Talking about it doesn't change anything, and it certainly doesn't make me feel better."
"Okay," Alison said, mentally counting down from five. Right on cue, Rapunzel surfaced again with another sigh, this one sad as well as frustrated and angry.
"He's just so impossible!" she whined. "Every time I try to reason with him, he just gets more infuriating and then starts saying that it's my fault. I'm not the one who kept cancelling our dates!"
"You are the one who walked out on his apology dinner," Alison reminded her as she starting working on her term paper. She looked up to find Rapunzel giving her a glare that, if looks could kill, would certainly have assured Alison a slow and painful death.
"Oh, don't give me that look, 'Punzel," Alison said scathingly. "You know I'm right. Until one or the other of you admits that you're both wrong, all you're going to do is fight."
Rapunzel sighed and fell back onto her bed, and Alison could tell that the conversation wasn't going to go any further. Wordlessly, she gathered together her things.
"Where are you going?" Rapunzel asked.
"To the library. I'll see you after dinner." With that, she left not three minutes after she had come in.
Rapunzel winced as the door closed. She didn't like chasing away her friend, and she knew that Alison was starting to get tired of her and Eugene's constant fighting. But every time she tried to get Eugene to just talk about it, he'd get all offended and annoying, and they'd just go back to square one.
To be frankly honest, Rapunzel knew that Alison was right. She and Eugene were both in the wrong here. She just didn't want to admit it to herself, and she had a feeling that Eugene didn't want to either.
She heard the ringtone of her phone go off from her chair, and with a grumble, she crawled over and gathered it. Probably Eugene, she thought sourly, and without looking at the caller ID, flipped it open. "Yes?" she answered curtly.
"Rapunzel, dear, it's your mother."
"Hey, Mom," she said in a notably lighter tone of voice, taking an odd mix of comfort and annoyance at her mother's call. "What's up?"
"I just called to see how you were doing. But you sounded upset, flower, what's wrong?"
Rapunzel sighed. She really didn't want to tell her mother, because she knew where the conversation would head, but her child's instinct to take shelter with her mother won her over.
"It's…well, it's Eugene. We're…we've been fighting."
Rapunzel could hear Gothel sigh sympathetically. "Dear, I'm so sorry. That's never easy."
She was surprised. Normally her mother wasn't this supportive. "I don't know what to do. We can barely say five words to each other without it turning into an argument. I just want to talk things out and get it over with."
"Men can be so impossible. I remember going through this with all of my high school boyfriends."
Rapunzel gave a little laugh that turned into a sob as tears suddenly ran down her cheeks. Gothel gave another sympathetic sigh. "I'm so sorry for you, dear," she repeated. "I tried to warn you."
There it is, Rapunzel thought. "Mom, I really don't want to hear it," she said, her voice watery.
"Yes, dear. I'm sure it'll work out."
Rapunzel didn't think she sounded very sure, but she let it go, simply because this was the first non-caustic conversation she'd had with her mother in almost a year. "I have to go, Mom," she said.
"Alright. I love you very much, dear."
"I love you more."
"I love you most."
Alison came back to the dorm room to find Rapunzel moping. With a frustrated sigh, she threw her books down on her bed. "Alright, that's it," she declared. Rapunzel sat up and looked at her, surprised.
"What's what?" she asked, a little confused.
"I am done with you sitting around, waiting for him to call so that you can try to work things out, but end up getting into an argument anyways. I am done with you sitting around, feeling sorry for yourself but not doing anything about it. And I am done with the two of you constantly fighting! Either you work things out, or you break up, and if you keep dragging this out any further, I swear to Buddha, I will move out and find someone else to live with."
Rapunzel recoiled a little, shocked. Alison could see that she had won, and promptly marched over and grabbed her friend's wrist.
"You are going to go over to his place right now," Alison said forcefully, dragging Rapunzel over to the door and pushing her into the hallway, quickly closing and locking the door behind her.
Rapunzel realized she'd been locked out, and pounded on the door. "And I am not letting you back in until you're done," Alison called through the door, "and when you come back, you'd better be either happy or bawling your eyes out."
Rapunzel sighed. "Can I at least have my coat?"
There was silence for a minute, then the door opened a little and a coat came flying out of the tiny opening. She sighed again, but slipped it on and made her way to the stairs.
Rapunzel steeled herself before knocking on the apartment door. On the bus ride over, she'd agonized over how she'd start the conversation, trying in her head to sound both firm, but not forceful, and willing to compromise. Mainly she just ended up sounding silly.
She heard the faint sound of footsteps, then the slide of the bolt, and the door opened to find a surprised, slightly frumpy-looking Eugene. Immediately his expression slipped into a guarded one, unsure as to why she was here.
"Um…hi," she said lamely.
"Hi," he answered, his tone of voice noncommittal.
"Well, can I come in?" she asked, and winced inwardly at how impatient her voice sounded.
She could see him think over it for a second, but he nodded tightly and stepped back to let her in. She stepped inside, and once he closed the door again, they stood there awkwardly, her in her sweatpants, T-shirt, jacket, and sandals, he in his more-than-a-little worn jeans and sweater.
"So…Alison told me to come over here and talk to you or she'd move out," Rapunzel said, trying for a joke, but it was obvious that he didn't take it the same way.
"Ah. Well, far from me to bother Alison," he returned sullenly.
"Hey, she's affected by this as much as we are," Rapunzel shot back. "And besides, she's right. It's not like we've gotten anywhere on the phone."
"Fine. Let's talk," he said, crossing his arms across his chest.
"Oh, don't be like that."
"Like what? Annoyed? Frustrated? I think I have a right to be."
"You? What about me?" Rapunzel said, starting to get angry.
"I was trying to make it up to you. I was trying to apologize. You took my apology and threw it in my face without even the courtesy of a 'sorry.'"
"I was the one who had to spend all of those evenings alone, because I'd set it aside for us! I was the one who had to sit around feeling resentful, who had to have that disappointment when you would call and cancel. Did you honestly think that you could just say 'Oh, honey, I'm sorry' and it would all be fine? That a dinner was going to patch things up?"
"I thought it was a good place to start," he retorted hotly, "but I didn't really get a chance to go any further than that."
"Oh, don't pretend that this is all my fault!" she yelled. "You didn't even really give me a real apology!"
"Fine! I'm sorry! Is that a 'real' apology?" he said, now yelling as well.
"Too little, too late!" she replied furiously. "The first time you canceled, I figured it was just a scheduling mix-up. Then after it kept happening more and more, I thought that maybe you were avoiding me, that you didn't want to be with me anymore!"
He looked at her blankly for a moment, caught off-guard. He certainly hadn't expected her to say that. "You thought…ah, jeez, Rapunzel…" He ran his hand through his hair, turning around as he did so.
With a painful shock, suddenly Rapunzel was thrown back to a twelve-years-past memory of her father walking out the door, her mother sobbing and begging him to stay. Unable to help herself, her eyes welled up with tears, which quickly spilled over as she spun around, yanked open the door, and ran out with a sob.
She vaguely registered Eugene calling after her, but she didn't want to face him, afraid she'd lose complete control over her emotions, and instead continued pelting down the stairs to the ground floor. Once there, she ran over to the bus stop, where she collapsed on the bench, sobbing her heart out.
She heard footsteps behind her, and knew it was Eugene. She turned away and held up a hand, as if to stop him. "Wait," she said. "Just…just give me a second."
Instead, he took her hand and circled around to kneel in front of her. She looked up, her face still half-covered with her right hand. He was looking at her hand, small in comparison to his.
"Do you remember going to the Light Festival for the first time?" he asked.
She sniffed. "Of course I do."
"And you remember going out on the lake in that boat?"
"Yes, of course."
"When we were sitting there, and I was watching you get so excited over all of those lanterns, I knew right then that you were the one I wanted to be with. And I knew that I would do whatever it took to be with you." He looked up now to face her. "I still hold by that, Rapunzel. I'll do whatever it takes to make things work. I love you."
She gave a small, watery smile. "All this time I've been afraid of losing you. Every experience I've had with a man told me that they all break your heart. I should have known better, at least with you. I love you, too."
He smiled and kissed her lightly, then pulled her to her feet and wrapped her in a hug. She held him just as tightly, happier than she'd been in weeks.
As if on cue, the bus pulled up, ruining the moment perfectly. Rapunzel pulled away, scrubbing her eyes dry. Eugene reached over and brushed away a few straggler tears.
"I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" she asked, turning to board the bus.
He smiled. "Definitely."
She returned the smile and got on the bus, paying the driver the toll. She sat down and found, to her surprise, that she was still crying.
An older man was sitting across the aisle from her. Seeing her tears, he leaned over a little. "Are you alright, miss?" he asked, concerned.
She nodded. "Yes." She smiled a little. "Yes, I am."
And she was.
So, since it was actually mentioned in one of the reviews (thanks, helikesitheymikey!), and I was going to do it anyways, I will now address the plot hole of what Eugene was doing when he kept canceling on Rapunzel. Well...I don't really know. I never really intended to go into that. I just needed something to get them fighting. Which sounds horrible, but hey, that's why I hate plot chapters.
Well, there we go! I hope you all like this chapter. I'm debating on writing an epilogue, and I probably will, so keep watch for an update on this story.
Thanks so much to you all for reading this story! It really makes my day to see reviews. This is my most reviewed story so far. I'm glad you all like it!
Y'all know what you have to do now, right? Review, review, review! Reviews are love!
~RAH
EDIT: Eff me, I just realized that I used the wrong name for Rapunzel's mother. Originally she was named Laurel, but I went ahead and changed it to Gothel, which I obviously forgot in this chapter. Hopefully that didn't confuse you all that much. ^^;