Overdose

I try to hide the way my breath hitches as we step outdoors once more. It never gets old. The sun is generous and warm and its rays on my skin feel like liquid happiness. I take in a breath for what feels like the first time in a long time.

"Humans are easily impressed, hm?" My emotional response to the gardens doesn't go unnoticed by Ashford, whose eyes seem to bore into my face.

I shift under his gaze. "Bodes well for you then, I guess."

His eyes flash. A slow grin plays on his lips where I had expected anger. "Yes, impressed seems an apt descriptor for you last night."

I blink. Is this...

banter?

Are we joking with each other? I scan his face and find no malice or ill-intent there. "Does impressed mean something different in Faerie? Or are you just bad at reading humans?"

He laughs. I'm surprised at the good-natured tone of it. "I think I did pretty well, reading you."

I swallow. The air around us feels slightly thicker. The truth is that he did, infuriating as the truth often is. "It's nice out. Is it always sunny here?"

"If I was capable of the human habit of sarcasm, I believe I would call your subject change 'subtle'," Ashford says. I hate the way the light hits his face, accentuates his high points. A part of me is sure that if I reached up to touch the skin of his cheekbone, my hand would come back bleeding.

"If you had the '

human habit of sarcasm

', you would be a lot funnier." I finally summon the willpower to look away from him and take in the scenery around me. Every time I come out here, I discover a new wonder to be amazed at. Right now, it's the vibrant fruit that dangles from some of the trees, their branches curving to impossible measures with the fruit's weight. It seems to defy gravity's laws itself.

"You are quick," is his only response. It makes me tear my eyes away from the environment to look at him once more, trying to gauge what he means.

"You sound surprised," is all I can manage to interpret. Ashford has a way of talking in a pseudo-intelligent style which only serves the purpose to blur his meaning. I guess it is the closest a faerie can come to a lie.

He meets my eyes. "I am. You were not successful in your mortal world. Much like one of our lesser faeries."

His wording stings but rings true. I was not successful. I was an addict chasing a high that never quite satisfied me. I was a manager at a shitty job that I didn't care about and frequently came close to losing. I was a girl with no parents who had been vomited out of a system that cared less than Ashford did, at 18.

"I don't want to hear your judgement on my life, Ashford, as much as you may want to give it. You are not so successful yourself, given the whole eternal banishment thing." I say it as an insult, a jibe, and I wait for it to hit. He merely tilts his head to the side, considering my words.

"You're probably right," he says after a moment. "Different types of failure, but failure nonetheless."

I scoff. "You were born a prince, no? You had a lot further to fall than a girl with no parents who got shit out of the system as soon as she was old enough."

"No parents? That seems... impossible."

I roll my eyes. "Not literally. I never knew my father. My mother... I wish I didn't know her. Doesn't matter. I was taken out of her care eventually anyway."

"Ah," he says. "I don't think you would be so fond of my parents, either. Familial affection is not the same as I have heard it is amongst humans." He looks at me. "

Some

humans," he corrects. "Love is not the neverending ordeal you humans think it to be. At least it isn't here. I guess when you are immortal, very few emotions escape transience."

I exhale. This got serious. It is weird hearing Ashford in this way. This

open

way. I don't want him to close off so soon and try my best to keep his disposition undisturbed. "I don't think love is real in the way humans think it is, either. We love stories where it moves mountains and conquers enemies, but I've never seen that kind of love with my own two eyes."

He ponders what I say for a moment. "You've never been in love, have you?"

His question strikes me in the chest and my instant reaction is to be defensive. I can already feel a quip in the back of my throat before I stop myself. I take a breath. "No."

He nods. There's a shared quietude between us; not awkward, but just a natural pause in the conversation. The sound of the rustling of trees provides an interlude.

"You have," I say. "That girl, Rosia, she's the one you were in love with, right? Your reason for being here."

His eyes find mine. He is shocked, then resigned. "Again, you are quick."

I don't push for anything more, just wait. In this moment, this strange moment of something resembling friendship between us, I feel like he will tell me, like he will tell me anything. Maybe it is because he has been without someone to tell for so long, or that he was unused to company outside of Besta and it has taken him until now to open up. Either way, I am right and he begins to speak.

"I was in love with her, yes. She betrayed me. I am paying for that until my mother deems it retribution enough."

"And she looked like me?"

He studies my face and for the first time, I see softness there. In spite of his sharp, angular face, there is some gentleness in his expression and I know then that he is still in love with her. "Almost exactly. Except she is blonde." My hand flies to my mouth. He clocks my expression. "What is it?" he asks.

"I

am

blonde. Like my mother. The only feature I shared with her, actually. I always dyed it dark because I hated the reminder."

His eyebrows raise. He is caught off-guard. His mouth opens and closes as he tries to gather the means to respond.

"I mean, I thought it was weird that my roots weren't showing or anything but-"

"Human hair doesn't grow here. You are essentially suspended in time." He begins to walk away and at first, I feel confused, until he then beckons me to join him.

"Where are we-"

"Shush. You'll see."

And, eventually, I do. Just beyond the house, in a clearing amongst the trees, is a dainty wooden bench. He sits on it and motions for me to follow suit. I sit beside him. He gestures to a little engraving on one of the planks. There, carved into the wood itself, were three words: Rosia and Ash. "This was our favourite isle to come to. Feels fitting that I've now come to hate it in my exile."

I laugh. Ashford looks up at me, a hint of hurt in his face before he frowns, and the emotion is gone. It isn't unlikely that I misread it. "I'm sorry," I say. "I shouldn't laugh. It's just such a human thing to do, carve your names into your favourite bench. Never took you for the sentimental type."

The frown is smoothed out and a ghost of a smile appears on his lips. "57 years does a lot to a man. I was merely a boy before this. Love-struck, I guess you could say."

"She really fucked you over, huh?" It's the first real push and, for a second, I think he'll refuse to elaborate, show the apathetic, closed-off side of him that I have become well-acquainted with.

Then, "You want to know. I understand. Maybe I have been unfair in withholding information."

"Is that... introspection I smell? Who are you?"

"I can also refuse to say. That is also an option."

"Alright, alright. I get it, you're still a dick. Now continue."

He merely raises an eyebrow before shaking his head. "I was... not well liked within Faerie. Certainly far from the favourite royal. I drank a lot and never really rose to my responsibility. When I fell in love with Rosia, I got worse. I didn't care about my status before, but after, I would do anything for her. My royalty was barely a thought. I got in a lot of trouble with my mother for it. But, of course, I was young and I did not care. Rosia was made welcome in the palace and I helped her gain a position in the Royal Guard, a lifelong dream of hers. I helped her rise her rank, helped train her, even. She eventually got to the point where her attachment to me was a stain on her reputation within the force." He pauses. He swallows.

"And so she betrayed you?"

He sighs. "Her eye had been on the Royal Guard all along. It is very difficult to get in and, considering her low status within the court, it was basically impossible for her to be a Guard had I not helped her. Once I had, she exposed me for treason against my mother to get rid of me. And, of course, my mother promoted her status as a result."

"Oh," I comment.

"I don't quite understand how, but it seems she was able to lie to my mother, the queen, about some treasonous plot to eliminate her and make myself king. Of course, when they heard her say it, knowing she cannot lie, I was banished before I even knew what was happening. Knowing how smart she was, she must've done some impressive twisting of meaning to manage imprisoning me."

"And how do I come in?"

He looks at me, hard. "I noticed your reflection in the river maybe a year ago. I thought my mother had done it to torture me further, show me the image of the love who betrayed me, until I realised you were not the same. Sometimes I wondered if I made you up, but one day, I went outside and found the river completely dark. I placed a hand in the water and then I was behind you on the road that night we first met. You know the rest."

I relaxed back into the bench, back hitting the frame. "So you really don't know why I'm here?"

"I do not, no."

"And you don't know how Rosia lied or twisted meaning despite being fae? Or why we look similar? Or how the river even showed my reflection in the beginning?" I press.

He sighs. "There are a lot of things I do not know about this situation." A pause. "I was a lot of things as a royal, but a traitor was not one of them."

I don't know what to say to that. I don't know what to say to any of it, really. It's not like I have had experience with similar issues, or have knowledge to draw from. Everything about this insane, bizarre situation is new and foreign to me.

"Do you miss your world? The human realm?" It's a question that catches me off-guard. It's so out of character for him to be this way that every time he opens his mouth, I'm a little taken aback.

"Yes," I say. "At least, I think so. Strangely enough, this whole ordeal has given me a lot of insight. Gotten me sober. I'd like to think things will be different when I go back."

He closes his eyes a second too long to be a blink and, when he opens them, I can read no expression on his face. We stare at each other for a while, a quiet understanding between us. We're both helpless. I realise, in that time, that he possesses the type of beauty that is difficult to look at for too long. Like looking into the midday sun. It is otherworldly, an arrangement of features that would never show themselves on earth. I look away.

Two fingers on my jaw swivel my head back to looking at him. He is close, I notice. This kind of stare is completely different and I can feel our surroundings fading from my view. There is only him, and I force myself to look at his cruelly attractive face.

"What are you thinking?" He asks. It is softly spoken and something in his tone dissolves any resentment at him I am still holding on to.

"You're a wicked type of beautiful," I say. Some part of me is aware that I should be embarrassed at my words, but the moment feels too intimate for such feelings.

A short laugh disguised as an exhale leaves him. His hand is still cupping my jaw. "You don't know what kind of beautiful you are to me, Jennifer."

My breath hitches. I feel like a teenager. I force myself to remember that there is no explicit compliment in his words, only the connotation of one. "The face of the one who betrayed you, I believe."

"And the one I loved most."

I swallow.

"You're a special kind of torture."

I exhale carefully.

"One I believe I rather enjoy."

He closes the distance and we're kissing. It is different and surprising and

soft

. It is unhurried and gentle and sweet. The desperation of yesterday feels like another universe. Gone is his need for domination and he doesn't push me for anything. I am the one to discard my dress, to tug on the hem of his shirt, to explore his body with closed eyes and fingertips.

His hands on my body feel like a blessing. I had never appreciated the smoothness of his skin until it was caressing my waist, touching my breasts. In this moment, I will do anything he asks and yet, he asks for nothing of me.

Straddling him now, I position his cock in line with me and ease myself onto him. His eyes don't waver from mine, but when I've taken him completely, he closes his eyes for a brief moment and swallows. When I begin to move, his eyes open and he is once again focused on me. I expect to feel uncomfortable under his gaze, pressured, but all I feel is how little air there is between us. Eventually, a hand guides my hips and he keeps the tempo slow, the other slips between my legs and touches me there. My back arches.

The world around us may have stopped for all the attention we were paying to it. This, now, feels like everything. We come almost simultaneously, him a second later, and then I'm spent, lying on his body, trying desperately to catch my breath.

He strokes my hair with a hand. I feel myself tense. He stops.

"What is it?" he asks as I pull back. His slitted pupils search my face.

I know exactly what it is and I wonder whether I can say it aloud. Despite what we had just done, the move felt too intimate, too personal. Too

real

. It is not a feeling I am used to. "Nothing," I lie. "We should probably head back."

Our surroundings come into focus once more and I realise they were never gone. I disentangle myself from him and slip my dress back on. He is still naked, staring, by the time I am ready to go back.

"What?" I ask him, a little irate. More so than he deserves.

He blinks a few times. "You said it. 'Nothing'."

I simply nod. My words sound different coming from his mouth because I know he can't lie. It makes me a hypocrite when his words sting just a little. "Let's go," he says, now fully dressed.

He leads us back to the mansion and we enter the other clearing of trees, by the back exit to the gardens. I glance back quickly, wondering when next I'll see it, when I pause. Then, I squint.

"Ashford?" I ask, voice quiet. "Do you see that?"

He follows my line of sight and goes pale. "Yes. I see that."

The river that runs through the garden is black. I can't tell if the water running through it is black, or if the riverbed is black, but either way, it is dark as night. It is just how he described it, that night he found me. I approach the river carefully, bare feet on the grass. When I'm close enough, I peer into the river.

It shows me the street he found me on, looking almost the exact same as when I had left it. My heart pounds in my ears. This is the street outside Max's apartment, only a couple minutes from mine. This is what I've been waiting for for over a month.

"Holy shit. This is my way back." It's only when I verbalise the thought that I realise the weight of it. I can go back. I can restart everything. I can move away from my shitty city and start over. I can actually try.

When I turn back to face Ashford, he doesn't share the same excitement on his face. "You want to go," is all he says.

"Yeah. Do I just stick my arm in? Or do I have to swim in it? Because I'm not a very good swimmer." I flick between looking up at Ashford and looking down into the stream.

"Forgive me, Jennifer."

I stop looking back at the river. An icy feeling creeps its way down my back despite the warmth of the day. "What do you mean?"

He looks at me. I almost know what he's about to do. "You will not touch the river, in any way, without my explicit consent. That is my first favour."

I can feel the power in his words, the way I am becoming bound to his will. I stumble away from him in disbelief. "Take it back," I demand. "Take it back. That's not fair."

He looks at me with some sort of pain in his eyes, as if he has the right to be pained. "I am sorry, Jennifer." He says nothing more as he turns to reenter the house.

My legs give way from underneath me.