XVII - Crazier (Red's POV)

The June sun beaming through the windows woke me up earlier than I wanted, making me throw the covers over my head. It was late in the morning, almost midday. Chloe stirred beside me in bed before she woke up, too, throwing the covers off her.

"Red, it's summer, how can you possibly sleep with all these blankets?" she asked, sleep still coating her voice.

"Because," I started. "They block out the sun."

"What's so wrong with the sun?" Chloe groaned.

"It wakes me up too early," I bit out. Chloe just groans again, turning over onto her other side. We weren't in our dorm room—we were finally on summer break. Her parents had a small beach house down by Auradon Bay and they had agreed to let us stay there for two weeks on the condition that we don't trash the place. Chloe and I had just settled in last night after her dad dropped us off, and we were so tired from traveling that neither of us had eaten dinner. I was reminded of that fact when I heard Chloe's stomach start rumbling.

"I'll be in the kitchen, love, come down for breakfast whenever you're ready," I said, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek before I left the bedroom and headed downstairs to the massive kitchen.

The house was quite the opposite of what I would've expected from the outside. The exterior of the house looked like a regular home, it didn't stand out against the other buildings in the area, but the inside was sleek and modern. Numerous bright open windows let in the morning sun. Despite not being used often, the cabinets were fully stocked with so much food it seemed like there were endless options. There was a small rack of cookbooks in the kitchen, so I took one down and skimmed through, searching for something that looked appetizing. I eventually settled on pancakes and scrambled eggs. I was hunched over at the kitchen counter studying the recipe to make sure I got it right when I felt a set of arms wrap around my midsection. The action itself is small, but I find myself smiling at Chloe's dorky way of showing affection.

She spins me around so I'm facing her, capturing my lips in a kiss. "I know you're trying to be sweet by making me breakfast, but I want you first," she whispers in a husky voice.

"What?" I asked, confused until she picked me up, setting me down on the counter. Her lips meet mine again in a crushing kiss as she yanks my pajama shorts off.

"Chloe," I breathed out.

"Please?" she asked, pouting, and I nodded in permission.

"That's my girl, my good little princess. Come on, let's go take a shower, love," Chloe said when she was done, getting up from her knees to kiss me.

"Chloe, I can't take another," I said, wrapping my arms around her neck and laying my head on her chest.

"I know, baby. We're just gonna shower, no sex," she said, sliding her hands up my thighs, grabbing underneath my ass as she carried me to the bathroom around the corner. She sets me on the bathroom counter before going to grab more towels from the linen closet. When she comes back she kisses my forehead, setting the towels on the closed toilet seat lid and turning on the water.

She stays true to her word, and all we do is shower—no teasing, no sex. That was the thing with Chloe, she knew when to give and when to stop. Even when I didn't say it verbally she could read my body like it was a picture book. I never imagined I would be with someone like this. When I imagined my future I'd always imagined it in solitude, no one around me to be subject to my mother's wrath. I especially hadn't imagined it with someone like Chloe Charming. It wasn't because she was a girl—Wonderland was much more open to same-sex relationships than Auradon was—I just imagined my mother selling me off to the man she thought would be the best fit for me, someone who was just like her.

I didn't want to think about that, what that life would be like if I were married to someone like my mother. She was known to be ruthless, and my childhood was never a walk in the park. She loved hitting me, but she loved breaking me more. Her favorite way to hurt me was psychological torture, and she always found new ways to do it. For all my life I wondered why she didn't love me. What did I do that made me so weak, so easy to hurt? Why didn't I deserve to be loved? And when Chloe came into my life it just made my heart ache even more when I learned how good love could feel.

I hadn't even realized I was crying until Chloe was wiping tears from my cheeks. There was a look of concern on her face, searching my expression to find any inkling as to why I was suddenly upset.

"Baby, what's wrong? Talk to me, please," she said, her voice worried. The words don't come, and instead I throw myself onto her and she responds immediately by wrapping her arms around me. Surely I'm insane—crying in my girlfriend's arms in the shower over the childhood that nobody knows I had but her. Soon enough I'm sobbing in her arms and the water keeps falling over us from the rainfall showerhead. I didn't want to do this, I hated crying, especially in front of her because I saw how much it upset her. But that's what trauma does, it takes you at the time you least expect it to.

"Why does it hurt so bad?" I asked, my voice muffled by her chest. Chloe takes my cheek in one of her hands, making me look up at her face.

"What hurts?" she asked, the worry on her face growing by the second. "Did I hurt you?"

"No, not you. I mean—yes, you but not really," I said. Chloe squeezes my body before she turns the water off. We step out of the shower and I wrap a towel around my body, not bothering to touch my dripping hair. My face is still splotchy from the crying and Chloe takes me in her arms again, this time carrying me up the stairs and into our room. When she sets me on her bed she tries to walk away but I grab her wrist, pulling her to the bed. Her curls drip beads of water onto the floor, and if we both lay in bed like this the sheets will have to be changed later, but I don't care.

"Stay with me," I said. "You make the hurt go away." At that, she slides into bed beside me and I lay my head on her chest as she holds me. I hear her heart beating in her chest, and the sound itself soothes me.

"Talk to me, princess," Chloe said. "Tell me what's hurting your heart so I can fix it. What did I do to hurt you?" I look up at her face, and she looks pained. I said the wrong thing, but it wasn't exactly not wrong, either.

"It wasn't you," I said, swallowing the bundle of anxiety in my throat. "I was thinking…about my Mom. I was just…why didn't she love me?" I feel the tears well in my eyes again, spilling over onto my cheeks. "Why wasn't I good enough for her? What did I do wrong? Why did she love hurting me?"

"Fuck," Chloe says, breathing out the word. She pulls me entirely on top of her, now, holding me tight. She's upset, and I know she is because she's cursing. The only time she curses is when she's upset or we're having sex. "Because she was wrong, baby. Fuck, she was so wrong. You are good enough, shit you're more than good enough. She hurt you because you were a child, and you couldn't fight back. Hurt people hurt people, Red. Look at me."

I raise my head to look up at her. She holds my chin gently, making me look at her, "You're safe with me, and I want you to know that I will never hurt you. If I ever hurt you, God I don't think I could live with myself knowing I did that. If I ever hurt you I give you my explicit permission to kill me yourself."

I shake my head immediately, "No, I can't live without you now. You showed me how good love feels, and if you're gone I'll never feel it again. I'd rather live the rest of my life with a broken heart than have lived my life having never known love without you in it, because at least with a broken heart that means you were there, that you were real."

"You don't understand, Red," she said. "You're everything to me, and if I hurt you, if I broke you…I wouldn't be any better than your mother. I don't deserve you. You've gone through so much and you still love me with everything you have even if you didn't really know what love was in the beginning. I want to take everything you think you know about love and break it so I can show you what love really is."

"Chloe, everything I know about love I learned from you," I said quietly. She smiles at that, and it sets me at ease. I hadn't truly realized how much I loved her until now. In all my outbursts she never got mad, she never raised her fists at me, never blamed me for anything. I was safe with her, and she didn't have to be perfect with me. We were both overcoming our own personal struggles together, and that was the kind of thing that made love beautiful. We needed each other more than we knew, we wanted to be better for each other and we wanted to do it together, that's what love was. Chloe taught me that.

"God, I really fucking love you," Chloe said as she sat up, grabbing my hips to pull me closer so she could kiss me. "Why don't we finish getting ready and go to the boardwalk?"

My gaze trails down her body, and I'm horrified when I find deep, crescent-shaped gashes on her left shoulder. "Oh my God, Chloe, your shoulder. You're bleeding."

"What?" she asked, confused. I get up and pull her in front of the mirror to show her the gashes. "Huh," is all she says when she sees them.

"I'm so sorry," I rushed out. "I didn't mean to, it just happened when we were in the kitchen and—"

"Red, it's okay," Chloe said. "You didn't hurt me. I'll just put a band-aid on it and it'll be okay, yeah?" She goes into the bathroom and when she walks back out there's a blue band-aid on top of where the crescents were.

"See? All better," she kissed my forehead. "No one will know what those are from anyway."

I feel my face flush, remembering how I gave them to her, and she just giggles at the red on my face. We get ready together, not bothering to be fancy or proper. Both of us were just in shorts and t-shirts. There was a comfort in the easiness of her, in being able to just exist with someone, in not needing to be perfect all the time. It was like taking in a breath of fresh air in the spring after being cooped up all winter.

When we stepped out of the house, the air was salty from the ocean nearby and the sun was beating down on us. It reminded me of the time I went to Bramble Bay with Chester and Ace, but I tried to push the memories away. I couldn't think of them, not now, and probably not ever. I couldn't bear to live with the fact that I was the reason that they were gone. I was the reason why Chester was turned into the Cheshire Cat, and why Ace became a soldier card. Maybe in this timeline that didn't happen, maybe they were alive, and maybe in this timeline we were friends still. I hadn't told Chloe about them yet. It wasn't because I didn't feel safe or ready to, it was just that it had never come up before.

Chloe holds my hand as we walk together down the boardwalk. It was bustling with people, especially since school had been let out for the summer not even a week ago. As we meandered through the different stores and took in the street performers and natural sights, nobody stared at us. Part of me was scared that maybe we were still the "weird" couple, but it had come to a point of acceptance now. We were just us, and nobody talked about it anymore. The boardwalk was a mix of open cafes, boutiques, and hidden gems. I could smell food cooking, and that was when I remembered neither of us had eaten breakfast yet. My stomach let out a low rumble, and I hoped Chloe hadn't heard it, but was sadly mistaken when she giggled before pulling me into one of the nearby shops.

The temperature inside this store was a stark contrast to outside. It was cold and sweet. At the counter there were tubs of colored…something? behind glass. I couldn't quite describe it, it wasn't something I had seen before. The entire store was colored in pastels—pink, yellow, blue. It felt calm, but I still struggled to take in the new environment. In all the time I'd spent looking around the room, I hadn't realized that Chloe now held two cups of whatever was behind the glass counter in her hands.

"Come on, let's sit down," she said, a smile forming on her face.

"What is this stuff?" I asked when we sat down at a metal table. Chloe sat across from me, tossing her hair back behind her shoulders.

"This," she started, sliding one of the cups over to me, "is ice cream. It's sweet but be careful, it's cold, too."

"What's it supposed to taste like?" I asked as I examined the contents of the cup. It was a pale pink, matching the interior aesthetic of the shop. Chloe's was white with black spots on it.

"Yours is strawberry, and mine is cookies and cream," she said, putting a spoonful of the stuff into her mouth. I decided I should at least try it, so I scoop up a small bite, putting it in my mouth. The flavor explodes immediately, melting in my mouth. Chloe was right, it was cold but on a day like today it was just what we needed.

"It's good," I said, scooping another spoonful and eating it.

Chloe giggles again, "I hoped you would like it."

"How did you know I've never had ice cream before?" I asked.

"I just figured you hadn't," she said. "You said your mom banned sugar."

"She did," I laughed. "How could someone ban something so good?" We both laugh at that, finishing our ice cream and throwing away the paper cups and plastic spoons before heading back out to the boardwalk.

Chloe takes me down to the beach. The wind was picking up now, whipping my hair wildly around my face. We were walking barefoot in the sand by the tide. The sky was beginning to bleed into shades of pink and orange, clouds streaking across the vibrant colors as the sun melted into the horizon. We weren't far from the house, but it seemed as if we were lightyears away from civilization. In the distance I saw a group of teenagers playing volleyball, laughing when one of them fell into the sand.

"If this is what forever looks like I never want it to end," Chloe said, breaking our easy silence.

"It won't end, that's why it's called forever, silly," I said, teasing her.

"I have a surprise for you when it gets dark," she said. "I think you'll like it. It's quite romantic if I say so myself."

"Look at you, always a charmer," I teased.

"Well it is kind of in my name," she said, stopping our walk and taking my face in her hands, kissing me softly.

"And I can't wait to make it my name, too," I said when we broke apart, trying and failing to hide the smile on my face.

"You know I can't wait to make you mine, but not yet, love. We haven't even graduated high school, yet," Chloe said, and I groaned.

"And…you ruined the mood," I teased.

"I'm just saying, we're still in high school, we need to at least graduate first."

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say."

By the time the sky has darkened into black we're still wandering the beach, and eventually we come upon a blazing fire. For a minute I'm wondering who would possibly leave a fire unattended, but then I remembered Chloe said she had a surprise planned for me. She leads me over to the fire, sitting down and patting the sand in front of her. "Sit," she orders, and I obey. I lean onto her, resting against her body as she wraps her arms around me. There's nothing but the the sound of her breaths, the crashing waves, and the crackling of the fire. It's peaceful, and I never wanted to leave.

"How do you come up with all this stuff?" I asked. "You always have these romantic date ideas and I just take us on small dates."

"I like your small dates. They remind me that love isn't always grand gestures. I think it's sweet."

"But you always do so much, and I feel like I don't do enough."
"Baby just you being here is enough for me. Everything I do for you I do because I can, not because I think you need huge gestures. I know you know how much I love you. All of that is just extra. The only thing I want from you is just you. You being mine is enough for me."

"Hey, Chlo," I said, straightening myself but not leaving her arms. "Can I tell you something?"

"Of course. You can tell me anything."

"The reason I was so hesitant to make friends, especially you, is—was—because of my mother. Back home…I mean in the other timeline, I had these friends and," I had to stop, being reminded of Chester and Ace made my chest hurt. "My mother didn't like it, so she hurt them."

"Red, what happened?" Chloe asked gently.

I sniffed back tears, trying not to cry, "Every year my mother would host the Annual Tea Ceremony where she would come up with new horrible, pointless laws to enforce, but one year she decided it would be up to me to come up with a new law. I didn't want to, and I told her that. I told her all the time that I didn't want to be like her. But she made me and the weekend before it was supposed to start she went out of town looking for a new tea set. Me and my friends…we threw a party in the ballroom of the castle. It was my idea—I thought it would be fine. The party would be over before she was supposed to come back."

"Oh, Red," Chloe said, and my heart broke even more because this was only the beginning of the story.

"She came back right in the middle of the party. She was pissed, and we all ran. My friends and I hid out in the forests for about a week before her soldiers found us. When they took us back to the castle she threw us in the dungeons. The Tea Ceremony went on like normal, but she made sure to get back at me for throwing a party in her castle behind her back. She hurt them, but not physically. Chester, he was my first and only friend, and my mother turned him into a cheshire cat. He introduced me to Ace, and I thought I liked him, but that was before I met you and knew what love was. She turned him into a soldier card and now he has no memory of me and everything we did together."

Chloe's arms tighten around me as I start violently sobbing. The guilt ate me alive every day. I hated how they trusted me, and that I was the reason for their deaths. "Red, it's not your fault. You weren't the one that killed them. You can't blame yourself for what your mother did."

"No, you don't understand," I said between broken sobs. "They trusted me and went with what I told them to do. If I hadn't gotten close to them they would still be alive. That's why it took me so long to get close to you. All I could remember was what happened to them, and even though she's different now that didn't make me any less scared."

"Red, look at me," Chloe said, her voice somehow firm and gentle at the same time. "Your mother made her choices. We changed the timeline, so they're still alive now. I know it's hard to remember that sometimes, but they could still be out there."

Chloe was right. The timeline was changed, and in this one my mother was sweet and kind and would never think about hurting someone. It was possible that they were out there, alive and well, but it was even more likely that they didn't know who I was.

"You said their names were Chester and Ace?" Chloe asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"I was just making sure I heard you right," she said. "Nobody will ever hurt you again," her voice soothing me. "And if they try to, they'll have to go through me first."

"Thank you, Chloe. I mean it. You do so much for me," I said, burying my face into her neck and taking in her scent. She's cradling me in her lap at this point, gently rocking me back and forth like a child, but I don't care. She's safe and she always will be. She feels like home. I don't like to remember anything that happened pre-Chloe, and now I'll never have to go through anything alone ever again. She'll always be here, she'll always be grounding me to right where I need to be. I hoped I would never lose her. Losing her would hurt more than death itself, because at least in death you didn't feel anything, no pain or sadness. Losing Chloe would be the worst pain imaginable, and my mother had come up with some pretty creative ways of inflicting pain upon someone.

"I can't wait for forever with you," I said, kissing her neck before I fell into a dark, quiet sleep in her arms.