~Beauty~

"Her friend called out for her to hurry downstairs or they'd be late. Begrudgingly, she stepped into her boots and slung her backpack over her shoulder. As she traveled down the hallway, a hand burst out of her bathroom and pulled her in. The door shut behind them and through the moonlight slipping in through the window, she recognized her lifelong pal."

"He pressed his fingers to his lips to silence her impending scream. From the first level of the ancient house, she heard her friend - the very same friend that stood in front of her- call her down again. She felt a rush of cold air run up her spine. 'I heard it, too,' her best friend whispered. 'Don't go down there.' "

Teigan's leg was bouncing beneath his seat. "I think I know who it actually is."

"And that's the end of chapter ten," Bethany said, closing the book. He deflated into his seat with a pout.

"One more chapter?"

Tiegan had seemed fairly uninterested in reading when she recommended he pick up the book she recently finished. Bethany knew with every fiber of her being that he would enjoy the thriller. This was why she had finally sat him down a couple of days ago and read the first chapter to him. Once she started, he didn't want her to stop. He would sit at the opposite end of the couch and listen to her for as long as she went on - which was never long enough for him. After probing him on why he wouldn't pick up the book for himself, he explained that reading often felt like a chore because of his dyslexia. She tried to encourage him, telling him that the practice would help. When he wouldn't budge, she caved in and read to him. She was beginning to enjoy the activity just as much as he did.

"We have to get to work cleaning up that backyard."

Teigan had finally received some interest in selling the house and naturally, the potential customers wanted to take a look around the place before buying. In order to make it more appealing, the both of them concluded they should get rid of the playground wreckage in its center.

Beth got a weird feeling in her stomach when Tiegan showed her the emails from the interested buyers. It was the feeling in your stomach that you got when the rollercoaster took its first big plunge - excitement and dread mixed into one.

Teigan got up, hunching his shoulders in defeat. He trudged over to the backyard and glanced back when Bethany hadn't moved from her spot. "Come on, then!"

She caught up with him as he held out a sweater for her to put on. The weather was warm enough for their jackets to be unnecessary. Pretty soon the roses in the garden would be in bloom and the sun would stay out in the sky until late in the evening.

Carina was sitting on one of the patio chairs out back reading a magazine. Her head perked up when she heard them. She greeted them with a warm smile, getting up and trading places with them inside.

"You two sure you want to take care of all that yourselves?" She regarded the heap of plastic with repulsion. She pulled her red cardigan closer to her. "It might be fused into the earth at this point."

Beth gazed at it herself. She might have had a point. Still, Carina had seemed especially busy lately. She was always doing something whether it was making a lavish dinner that no one particularly requested, doing a deep cleaning of a room she had cleaned only two days before, or going out to buy groceries at the first sign they were running low. Bethany worried that the aging woman could be outdoing herself.

"We got it. You deserve a break anyways," she said. "I'm sure Teigan has given you a lot of work to do after all these years."

Tiegan placed his hands in his pockets, narrowing his eyes at her. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Carina pursed her lips. "That you're messy. See you all for lunch?"

"We'll be there," Teigan said, waving her away before she could dish out more complaints about him.

The two stepped into the backyard. Up close, Bethany could see that the playground had been further damaged by the elements. The holes and cracks in the plastic were lined with ice and colossally bigger than it had been before the first snowfall. They would have to carry all the pieces out into the front yard which would prove to be a sweat inducing procedure considering the bigger pieces like the slide and the climbing wall.

They commenced their mission by taking apart whatever they could to reduce the weight on the single parts. Much like when they had decorated the Christmas tree, they worked effectively without much communication. They were two different parts of a machine. Teigan disassembled a part and then he passed it to Bethany who tossed it into a separate pile.

It's not that Bethany was uncomfortable with the silence but she had burning questions she needed answered. Questions she hadn't felt confident enough to ask until recently. "I'm probably being nosey but how do you afford a maid? And a house like this?"

Teigan was screwing apart the swings from the wooden beam. His expression didn't change as he answered her question which at least let her know he wasn't offended by her prying.

"My mother was wealthy because of her parents. When she was transformed into a rose my father got all of the money she had saved up. Wherever he is, he pays me to stay out of his hair." He detached the swings and handed her the seat to place in the pile they were making. He met her gaze, the blue in eyes pale in the sunlight. "We don't talk or anything. I get a monthly allowance and that's that."

"It must stink to still be tied to him." She placed the swing down into the pile. She would want to be rid of someone as destructive as Teigan's father as soon as possible. She imagined that wasn't much of a choice when he was younger but when he was an adult and finally had some semblance of a choice to get out, that choice was taken from him.

Then there was the other side of the coin. She reckoned that much like she did with her mother, he still cared for his father. There had to be some sliver of him that was stubborn in its effort to gain his approval and make him proud. It was the disease that came with having a family. Even when you cut ties, there would forever be rope burns on your wrists.

"It does." He sighed and held the slide beside him. It was covered in weeds. "It would be nice not to have to depend on him anymore but I still need him or rather, his money."

Bethany had already set her heart on Teigan breaking the curse but his words only made her want it for him more than ever. He needed a chance to become self dependent. He needed a chance to strive for something better.

She glanced at the rose in the black vase at the center of the rose garden. "Tell me about your mother."

"She was incredibly patient." A subtle smile crept onto his lips as he recalled a fond memory. "She was the person at a party that was constantly asking if there was anything she could help with. She would only eat after everyone had their fill."

His mother reminded her of Carina. She wondered if that had anything to do with why he had chosen to hire her as the maid. "She sounds lovely."

"She loved me - unlike my father. But . . . she didn't love me enough." He helped her lower the slide into the pile. It landed with a loud clack! against the other material. "If she had, she would have left my father to protect me."

"Why didn't she leave? She sounds like she had the means to."

"I don't know. I don't think any reason she could give me would feel good enough. I mean, she said she was about to. Then I was cursed and she never had the chance."

Beth wiped the sweat from her forehead and said the thing Grayson had said to her when he was first let into her life. She was sincere when she said it, her own experience making her words carry extra weight, "I'm sorry you had to grow up like that."

Teigan visibly tensed up. When he looked at Beth, she felt like he was seeing straight into her. He averted his gaze to his feet and pressed his lips together. "I know the way we met is . . . troubling but for what it's worth, I like being around you."

He didn't wait for her response but instead got straight back into work. She knew he did it to avoid an awkward response. He did because he thought she felt very differently from him and that stating this truth would disturb her. It was a little endearing that even after the countless days she spent playing board games with him, watching movies with him, or listening to the playlists he made for her that he still thought she might despise him. She had even turned away the enchantress's offer to help her secure her freedom.

She shouldn't have had to say it but she did anyway. She said it because she wanted him to know it. She wanted to make her stance crystal clear.

"I do, too."