"What are you doing here, Lucy?" Mom asks, opening the door to her apartment and stepping aside so I can come in.
Upon seeing my mother in the old apartment I'd grown up in, I'm immediately fighting off my guilt for not visiting her more often.
My mom doesn't take care of herself.
I'm not surprised either because I'd always taken care of us.
Our little home had been drab, but tidy when I'd lived with her. Now unread mail covers the dining table, protein bar wrappers litter the dirty shag carpet, and old cereal boxes sit open on the kitchen countertops.
"I came to talk to you about—" I stop myself. It's so hard to say it. "Alvar." His name is managed in a whisper.
"I don't want to talk about it." Mom walks over to the window of her apartment gazing away from me at the rain pattering on the glass in glistening droplets.
"I met him today," I blurt out.
Mom's gaze snaps from the rain to me.
"You met him?" Mom says, her tone dripping with sarcasm. She may lack in terms of housekeeping, but dramatics are her forte.
"I am pretty sure I did."
"What did he look like?" Mom's voice is hushed with shock, perhaps she didn't expect me to be serious.
"Tall, with dark hair and blue eyes. Looked no more than thirty," I mutter. "He had a striking white scar on his face."
"Just like I remember him!" A tear falls from one of Mom's tired grey eyes.
"Just like you remember him? How is that possible?" I cross my arms over my chest, a wall to protect myself from slipping back into her delusional world. I snap the rubber band on my wrist a couple of times.
"His world is so different from ours, including aging and time passing," Mom explains. "But we need his world to be at peace with our world or all we know will be lost."
"You're not telling me he's like a fairy or elf. He's human, right?" The words sound like madness as they escape my lips. Crap. I can't believe I'm starting to believe in Alvar. It's just all too uncanny.
"I wouldn't be surprised if his people spurned many of those beliefs into existence," Mom says with brief amusement crossing her face. "But his world is called Axos and he rules the most powerful country in that world: Underland."
"I know," I say dryly. It's all coming back. All that I'd pushed from thought to preserve my sanity. I remember: Axos, Underland, my wedding plans...
"You know? You know now, huh?" Mom gets up from her chair and she crosses and paces in front of me in her living room, slippers crinkling against the plastic wrappers.
"Uh, Mom, let me—pick that up," I say, out of instinct I kneel down and start gathering up the garbage.
"I would keep this place clean if you hadn't left me like you did!" Mom says, back at her old game of blaming me for all her problems.
"Mom," I say, taking a deep breath. I have to say it though. "I'm getting married."
"You certainly are getting married, Lucy! You're getting married to Alvar and from what you're telling me, it's going to be soon." Mom drops in a sit on the old blue sofa we've had for as long as I can remember.
I draw in a deep breath and say slowly, "No, Mom, I'm marrying Mike."
She glares at me in disbelief.
As if Mike's the man from another world.
"Who the hell is Mike?" her tone sharp and accusing.
"Mike is the 'friend' I introduced you to at my graduation party. The one you freaked out about." I drop the trash.
That's it. She'll never treat me like an adult. I can't keep doing this to myself.
"Does Alvar know?" Mom asks, snorting at the fluttering wrappers.
"Um, I didn't tell him if that's what you're asking," I say pointedly, crossing my arms over my chest.
"He mustn't find out you are trying to marry another or everyone you know, everyone you love, will be in danger." Mom's face turns white as a sheet. She seems haunted with memories of something I do not know, but the idea of a large, intense man like Alvar causing danger to anyone does not surprise me.
"Sit down, Lucy. I think you need your memory refreshed," Mom whispers, patting the sofa.
I do as I'm told, like I always do, despite every part of me wanting to reject her reality as my own.
"Alvar told me he needed an Earth human bride to keep peace with our world," Mom begins.
Either we're both crazy or she's telling the truth.
"I made a promise to Alvar that you were to be his." Mom doesn't look me in the eye while saying this. She stares at her hands folded in her lap and sighs. "You were going to die while you were still in the womb and I told him that if he'd save you—"
"So you promised me to this person before I was born? Is he like the devil or something? Having powers like that to save a life?"
"No, his people have abilities we do not have. Abilities to cause healing." Mom's crying as she talks now. "I explained so many times while you were growing up how I had to save your life even if it meant that..." her voice trails.
"So I'm supposed to just bind my entire life to a dangerous king who requires a human bride to keep peace with our world?" I finish for her, and shake my head. My stomach is churning and I fear I'm going to vomit. "That sounds like a great life to look forward to, if you ask me."
"Some of the people of Axos are not friendly toward humans. Alvar does this so his kingdom cannot attack our world and take it for their own," Mom says. "He is saving us by this diplomacy. His powerful kingdom is in treaty with all other countries in Axos, if he says not to attack, no one will dare attack."
"I can't be his bride. How do I let him know he needs to choose another 'cause I'm taken now? Sorry, buddy, you're too late," I say, jutting my chin forward.
"You can't marry someone else. You have been his chosen bride for many years. The agreement was for you and only you to take the place as his queen at his appointed time," Mom states firmly. "To tell him you are not his bride would be more than a horrible insult to him and his people. It would mean war between them and us." She pauses and sucks in a breath. "And I believe they will win."
How does she know that though?
"So what do I do? What do I tell Mike?" I ask, crossing my arms over my chest. "What do I tell my friends?"
"Your friends?" Mom sniffs. "You mean that bitch, Emily?"
"Mom, you've never liked any of my friends because they didn't believe you and they encouraged me not to believe you. Don't you realize how crazy you sounded talking about another world needing a bride from here to keep the peace? How backwards and medieval that sounded to every person I've ever had?"
"They turned you against me!" Mom shrieks back, "I understand it sounded crazy, but everything I ever told you is the truth! Now you believe me because you've seen things you can't explain too. You should have always believed me, Lucy. I'm your mother, but you only believe now because you see!"
There she goes making me feel guilty.
I snap my rubber band so it hurts.
"Alvar told me I could live in Underland to help you prepare for the wedding and then to live with you," Mom informs with a triumphant smile. "I couldn't have given you up otherwise."
I don't know if that's supposed to sound comforting, but I don't bother arguing with her, instead I ask, "When will that be?"
"Since he's paid you a visit. Like I said before, it will be soon."
"How soon?"
"I'm guessing within the week since your birthday is coming up," Mom says, giving me an annoyed expression and lays back on her bed. "I'm done talking."
"Okay." I get up from my seat. "Bye, Mom. I'm-I'm sorry again."
"It doesn't really cut it, does it?" Mom says, blinking glassy eyes at me rapidly. "I love you, but you hurt me by not believing me." She stops as her voice chokes and the tears begin to fall. "I don't know if I'll ever be able to forgive you, Lucy."
The words and her expression cut me deep.
I leave her and stumble out the door of her apartment fighting to maintain peace of mind, but it's impossible. My life revolves in a toxic circle I can't get out of: Everyone else guilt-tripping me for believing Mom, and Mom guilt-tripping me for believing her delusional.
And then that all too familiar feeling of "I am lost, I don't belong" creeps in and takes me captive.
I don't want to be a bride of Alvar.
I didn't choose that.
Alvar hasn't even asked me to marry him! Doesn't he know you don't just betroth people in this day and age anymore?
You fall in love first.
Yes, they can call me a hypocrite. Being passionately in love isn't what I've done with the current man I'm marrying, but I do love him and at least he'd had the respect to ask me what I thought first.
Mike's comfortable and what's better, he makes me comfortable.
Mike calls me while I'm in the car.
"Hey, are you okay, Lucy?" Mike asks. "You sounded weird on the phone."
I tense my grip on the steering wheel.
"I don't want to talk right now," I say stonily.
"You visited your mom, didn't you?" Mike knows me too well.
"Yeah."
"You shouldn't have done that," Mike rebukes. "I keep telling you. You need to move on from her. You should have talked to me before going."
Everyone thinks they can tell me what to do.
Emily. Mom. Mike. Alvar.
They all have a plan for me. My entire life is mapped out differently by each of them.
I give a disgusted groan and hang up the phone on him.
I'm done talking. I need somewhere quiet to brood.
I park by a coffee shop and get myself a latte because coffee is life.
Since I don't want to get back in my car, I perch myself on the curb and watch the cold mist of the late autumn float around an old cornfield the coffee shop faces.
I shiver as I sip down the warmth of my latte.
If Alvar is real, and if he is coming for me... what will it be like to leave this behind?
This is everything I know. This is where I grew up.
"Underland is a tropical climate. There is no winter in my kingdom. I believe you'll like it in Underland, Lucy." The voice is familiar.
"Alvar," I say, and note the man I saw in the grocery store is sitting next to me on the curb. "Where did you go off to?" I ask dryly, because life is a shit-show, I might as well make some humor out of it.
I take another sip of my latte and regard him without shame. Besides, now that I'm aware of who he is, I want to take a closer look.
He wears dark wash jeans that cling to narrow hips and a simple white button down that fits his broad frame incredibly. His thick, wavy, black hair, is styled over his scalp, his strong jawline speckled with a five-o-clock shadow, and blue-violet, otherworldly eyes are visually enticing, but that scar...
What causes a scar like that?
An accident? Animal claws? No, it's too clean to be from an animal.
However he got it, it gives me the creeps.
"It's quite unsightly, I know." Alvar's right index finger trails over the scar, he seems to sense my scrutiny. "The Bridge is unpredictable. But I knew it would open on your twenty-second year when I met your mother. That makes this time dangerous for everyone here and time is of the essence to close off Earth from Axos."
Whatever that means.
"I don't know why you think I'll make a good bride for you," I begin with a sigh.
"You are the only one," Alvar answers. "We all have to make sacrifices for our people and the greater good. If it makes you feel any better, it is a sacrifice for me too."
That does not make me feel better.
"Why do you care about Earth humans? If your people dislike us, why do you care about keeping peace?"
"You don't need to know, you just need to trust me that this is necessary," he says, his hand cups my chin and he turns my face toward him. I can't resist.
I am again under his spell, a spell mixed with attraction and fear. There is something not human about him.
"I have a life here," I muster out in a defiant whisper, my throat tightening. "It's nothing special, but it's mine."
Lie. I'm flailing about for something, even if it's a small something, to be mine.
"What is your life here like?" His voice soothes and his calmness is catching. "Do you love this life here?"
Alvar's strange eyes are a place of darkness and light mangled together. He's old for his appearance, and I find myself wondering what his sad eyes have witnessed.
"I—I can't love it. There is no certainty about anything. There never has been," I hiss. "My life is in chaos!"
"Chaos?" the word seems to strike an interest in him, he leans forward, his finger traces along my jaw. "For that I apologize, Lucy. I promise I'll make you very comfortable as my queen."
"Comfortable?" I snort. "You're the reason I have no certainty and why I can't live my life," I say.
"I believe you will love me, Lucy," his tone is sincere, but holds a frightening darkness to it. It says nothing of his love for me. "I will give you more than you could ever dream as my queen!"
"How dare you assume I'll love you?" I yank myself from him, "You don't even know me!"
"You haven't taken another to your bed," Alvar says as if he can read me like a book.
Nice to know I look like a virgin.
"That's none of your business," I say through grit teeth, blushing so hard I'm sure my face will burn off.
"Even if you have, I want you to know that it is my duty to marry you and I will honor you and your desires as your husband," Alvar states.
My mouth hangs open and I gawk at him shamelessly. He deserves it, talking about us as if we are a duty-bound couple in a medieval fairy-tale.
Mike had put the abstinence rule into place early on in our relationship, he explained his reasoning was he wanted our first time to be special, and he came from a family where sex before marriage was frowned upon.
I'd liked this just fine considering my background, and I'd never felt the urge to break his rule with him.
Before Mike, I hadn't had a single boyfriend in High School because Mom forbade it. She'd hammered down strict precautions from an early age to ensure I remained "pure" because I was "promised to Alvar".
Every talk Mom had given me about sex included Alvar in the picture.
Needless to say, sex and romance have equaled the most uncomfortable topic for me. To this day Emily still teases me about my virgin status.
"I see the fear written on your face, but do not worry. I know you didn't believe I existed until you saw me, Lucy," Alvar says assuredly, patting my hand. "But I must confess I had no idea how beautiful you were going to be." I can sense the warmth of his hand and it prickles to life a sexual awareness I loath him for.
Stop feeling attracted to him, it's messed up! I internally tell my body, this shouldn't feel like a connection, it should be creepy.
"In three days I will come for you. You have till then to tell your friends goodbye."
In a flash of light, his presence leaves me.
I have no idea what is going to happen, but defying someone whom most people don't know exists isn't going to be difficult.
All of Mom's talk of him being powerful and able to destroy humankind doesn't make sense. If that were true wouldn't it be obvious his realm existed? Wouldn't there be records of previous wars with his world?
I get off the curb, and head back to my car.
I want a stable, sensible life.
I'd never had that growing up, and Alvar promises nothing of it.
He won't give me a choice.
He doesn't have the right to tell me what to do!
Who does he think he is? He's arrogant, controlling, loathsome, and he doesn't own me!
"I won't marry him," I declare to myself while driving my car back home and add louder in case he somehow can hear me, "I'm not going to be your puppet, Alvar!"
I arrive home and see Mike's car in my apartment's parking lot. I roll my eyes, but I'm also relieved.
Thanks, Mike, for coming to my rescue.
"What are you doing here?" I ask.
Mike is lying back on the couch watching an episode of a crime series, and munching on popcorn. His dark blonde hair is styled in a tousled look that suits him and he flashes me a huge smile. He's only a couple inches taller than me and his teeth are a crooked, but they add to the awkward charm he possesses.
The face of someone I'm actually attached to.
"You sounded really down and I wanted to surprise you," he says, "popcorn?" He holds out a handful toward me.
"No thanks."
Mike bends down next to the couch and I hear the crinkle of paper.
"What's that?" I ask.
He holds out a bottle of wine. "It's the good stuff, Lucy. I figured you needed it."
"Which is another way of saying, 'not cheap'?" I cock an eyebrow and grin vaguely.
Mike chuckles. "I shouldn't have scolded you about your mom. It's your choice not mine."
"Thanks, Mike," the urge to sob in relief at his sweetness overwhelms me. This guy has held the position of my buddy since before we even went out. During our time at college he didn't care about my Mom being crazy and the emotional baggage I'd accumulated from it. Like Emily, he'd stuck with me through all the strange.
"You're great. I love you," I murmur, and embrace him close to me.
He pours the wine into two glasses and hands me one.
"To us!" He cheers, tapping glasses with mine.
"Yes!" I drink the glass as quickly as possible.
"Whoa! Slow down, girl!" he warns me. "Wow, today must have been bad! I should have bought some boxed stuff instead of an expensive Pinot if you're going to drink like that!"
"You can say that again," I grumble dryly.
"I'm so sorry, sweetie," he says and pulls me in for a kiss. With his lips pressed to mine, I close my eyes, but then Alvar asking to kiss me starts replaying in my mind and I involuntarily wonder what kissing a man like Alvar would have felt like.
No, I don't want to know what kissing Alvar feels like! Why am I thinking such a messed up thought?
I draw back from Mike abruptly, practically pushing him off of me.
"What was that about?" Mike asks, hurt crossing his face.
Too bad he doesn't miss anything.
"Sorry, I'm—uh—just really tired after everything that happened today. Not feeling up to making out." I might as well be honest with him.
The timer beeps from the kitchen.
"The pizza's done!" Mike says.
"I'll get it," I say, trying to escape the awkwardness of the situation. I open the oven door and in my distraction grab the pizza pan without an oven mitt.
"What are you doing?" Mike shouts, making me jump. "You'll burn!"
"Oh!" I let go of the hot pan in surprise, and it drops on top of my oven with a clatter.
Mike hurries over to the sink and turns on the cold water. He grasps my hand to hold it under the stream.
"Let me see it," Mike says, concern furrowing his brow.
I splay out my fingers and wave my hand in front of his face. "See? Not even a mark," I say with a laugh, "I'm okay."
After dinner Mike prepares to leave.
"You sure you don't want me sticking around?" Mike pulls me into his arms while we stand at my door. "You know, our wedding is getting really close. I know I am marrying you. How bout we do something fun tonight? Something we've never done before."
He means take this to the bedroom.
In that moment, I stare up at him, wondering what it would be like to actually go through with it with Mike, and I can't picture it. My body isn't responding. My hands splay on his chest and I kiss his neck.
No fireworks.
I hadn't even touched Alvar and an electric current had seemingly buzzed between us.
And now, on top of everything else, I'm thinking about Alvar again!
"No, Mike, let's wait," I say, carefully removing myself from his arms with a smile, "We're so close to getting married."
"I never thought you'd be the one who'd make us stick with the abstinence thing," Mike mumbles with disappointment.
Why don't I want him like he wants me right now?
We've snuggled on the couch during every movie or football game, and we've had some make-out sessions that ended in Mike—um—enjoying it a bit more than me. So why am I hesitant about going all the way now?
I should defy Alvar by doing this with Mike, but I don't want sex with Mike. I want to be Mike's friend, not his lover.
Which means I shouldn't be marrying him.
"Okay, goodnight, babe." He leaves me with a peck on the cheek and a confounded expression on his face.
In the silence of my empty apartment, all of it sinks in: My mom wasn't crazy. Alvar is real and coming for me in three days. My young adult life, my education, my job, my relationships, all of them are meaningless here if Alvar is truly going to whisk me away to a completely different world.
And besides all of that, I shouldn't marry Mike because I have more chemistry with a complete stranger than with Mike!
All of my hard work in being a "normal" person has amounted to nothing!
Oh, my poor Mike, how am I going to tell him that his future with me is impossible even if Alvar hadn't come for me? How will I tell Emily that my mom really isn't crazy and there really is a magical king coming to take me away?
And with that thought, the rest of that wine Mike brought becomes my friend.
*
"Lucy, Lucy!" someone is saying my name.
"Mmm?" I groan, covering my ears at the painfully shrill sound. My head hurts. It's as if a ton of bricks rests on my forehead.
"Lucy, are you ready for the best bachelorette ever?"
It's Emily?
Come to see me wake up with an embarrassing hangover.
I hear a bunch of giggles.
Correction: not just Emily.
Crap.
I'm still wearing the clothes I'd worn yesterday and it's times like these that I wonder why I'd ever given Emily a key to my place.
I roll onto my back and focus blearily on the group standing around me.
What time is it anyway? I've never gotten drunk like that before. I'm normally the one glass-of-wine-at-a-party kind of girl.
"What are you doing here?" I moan, rubbing my head to ease the pain.
"Here's some water," one of the girls hands me a glass.
Who even is that? I think I sat by her once in a college class. What is she doing at a party for me?
"I'm not even going to ask why my friend who never drinks has a hangover, because we don't have time! We're giving you your bachelorette party!" Emily is grinning from ear to ear. It dawns that all of Emily's friends from college are dressed in skimpy bachelorette party outfits.
"I told you nothing too over the top," I croak instead of speak the words as I sit up.
"I'm not doing anything over the top, Lucy. No male strippers, no penis decorations—" Emily begins with a huge grin.
"Okay, I get it," I say, my cheeks flush and I silence her from going on, "My virgin ears can't take it!"
"We're taking you bowling first," one of the girls' chimes with a giggle at my comment about being a virgin.
"Isn't it a little early for bowling?" I ask, not sure if I can stand up, let alone hold a bowling ball.
"It's already 2 p.m., Lucy!" Emily says with a laugh, she grasps my hand and drags me out of bed. "Now c'mon! Let's get you into something slutty!"
Thank you for reading! Please vote!