"How did you find out about Zoé?"

Monsieur Fontaine sat at his desk and gestured for Angel to sit down. Reluctantly, he did.

"She, uhh," he coughed to ease the nervousness out of his voice. "She told me, sir."

"What?" He got up his chair and paced around the room. "Why would she do that? She knows better. We've taught her better. What if you had gone to the press? What was she thinking?"

He was no longer talking to Angel. He was only addressing himself, lost in his world of worries.

"We're..." Angel barely knew how to label their relationship. Friendship seemed too limited meanwhile there was never any declaration of love. Only the heaviness in his heart every time he was in her presence. "We're friends," he said, not wanting to overstep.

"Friends," he tasted the word. It seemed to repulse him. "How can you be friends with someone in a painting? You'll be dead by the time she's out of that painting. We'll all be dead."

He ran a shaking hand through his hair. His face hardened but his eyes remained an open book of pain and helplessness. A man like Monsieur Fontaine was never used to feel helpless.

With his back turned to Angel, he tried not to scream in agony. What had happened to the perfect family he had envisioned? The one he had spent half of his life working for?

He used to blame his wife, Magdalene, for tricking him. Perhaps it wasn't trickery but his mind needed someone to pin the blame on when he had to watch both his wife and daughter leave. A long time dead witch from a faraway land was not enough for him. So his wife was the unfortunate innocent who took the fall for driving love away from him.

Now, there was a naive young man sitting in his office with the same look in his eyes he had when he met Magdalene. The worst part was that unlike him, this man knew what he was getting himself into and still jumped in head first.

"Where is she?" Angel asked when he felt that the man was not going to deliberately offer information.

"Somewhere," he answered without leaving room for more questions.

Angel was tenacious. He wasn't going to give up on Zoé like her father had done. "Where did you put her?"

He continued to stare at space. "Don't worry, she's safe. You can leave now."

"No," he replied. "I can help her."

Monsieur Fontaine abruptly. "What can you do I haven't tried yet?" He shouted in fury.

Who was this man who thought he was going to free his daughter from a curse? Something he had failed to do despite countless of attempts. This was no fairytale. His daughter didn't need a knight in shining armor to rescue her.

"Let me try to help her," Angel pleaded. "Maybe I can..."

"You can't," he interrupted harshly. "No one can."

"I don't believe that. There must be something."

Monsieur Fontaine suddenly left his spot that was facing a framed drawing of white roses. Zoé's favorites. He rummaged through a cabinet. He came back to Angel with a heavy volume. He dropped the thick book on Angel's lap.

"What is this?" Angel ran his hands over the aged book. The rough covers left a long scratch in the middle of his palm.

"The crusher of your dreams," Monsieur Fontaine rounded the desk and sat in his chair. "This is the only lead that the family have had for centuries. It was the witch's. It has all the curses and potions. I've read it from cover to cover but there are no loopholes."

"Thanks." Angel placed it inside his backpack and got up to leave this suffocating room. Despite the bright red carpet and the flowers, this room was a dark hole.

"Don't do it," he warned him. "It's just going to suck the life out of you. Then, you'll end up like me – with no one to come home to, no one to love. You'll be just a walking robot, afraid to close your eyes at night."

Angel stopped and looked at him in the eyes. "I won't be like you. I'll never give up because Zoé is worth it."

***

It had been hours. The library closed on him.

The answer was nowhere to be found. He found the spell the witch had place on Zoé's ancestor but there was no way to break it. Most of the other ones had some type of loophole like a kiss or the burning of something.

He couldn't very well go kiss her. Never mind that the painting itself presented a barrier between his lips and Zoé's, he also didn't know where she was nor whether or not she felt the same way.

For the burning part, there was nothing to burn. The only thing that had been passed down was this spell book and the curse.

He was screwed.

His roommate groaned and grunted at the light he had on. The noises escalated to the point he had to go to the park. He found a bench under a street light.

His eyelids were closing down on him. He kept rubbing his eyes and sprinkled water on his face from one of the public fountains. After his head hit the back of the bench twice, he decided to call it quit for the night.

The book was halfway closed when his half shut lids suddenly retracted as he stared at one word.

The word.

***

"Do you think I'll see him again?" Zoé asked her dad.

Monsieur Fontaine didn't look up from his newspaper.

"Are you listening to me, papa?"

"Yes," he replied with his eyes glued to the paper. "I was also listening when you asked the last hundred times."

"I just really want to see him again," she pouted. "He's so cute and he always listens unlike you."

"I'm going to see what I can do for dinner." He placed the newspaper on the table and left the study.

Zoé sighed when she was left alone. She wanted to cry, scream, and hit something. She wanted out of this prison.

The past few weeks were the best ones of her life. She never asked for Angel to stumble her way but he did. Now, she didn't know whether she was grateful to have knowing him or angry for not being able to keep him.

She didn't even get to say goodbye. She didn't have the heart to. Even though she knew it was time for her to go, she never told him anything. She didn't want their last night together to be stained with regret and pain. It was as beautiful as she wanted it to be. His handsome face watching her, his eyes lost in the wonders, and his attention all for her.

All of a sudden, she felt herself being dragged away. She started to scream but it was over before she could utter a word.

"What is this?" she cried.

This was wrong. Everything was wrong.

She stared bewildered at the painting. The painting that once kept her separated from the rest of the world was now facing her.

This was wrong.

"He did it," she heard her father exclaim. He engulfed her in his arms. "He did it."

Zoé's head was still swirling with new information. Her body was overwhelmed at the old sensations she had forgotten about – the warmth of her father's hug, the breeze of air tickling her skin.

"Wh...what's happening?" she demanded. "How did I get here?"

Monsieur Fontaine finally released her only to shower her face with kisses and softly pat her hair. He didn't want to let her go, afraid she was going to be trapped again.

"It's nothing, you're safe." He hugged her tighter this time.

"But how?" Zoé refused to accept her freedom. There was a catch, she knew it.

Her eyes fell on the painting. Just five minutes ago, that green grass was rubbing against her ankles.

Something was very wrong. She felt her heart race with every step she took closer to the painting until it was right before her eyes.

No, it couldn't be. A boy was standing in the doorway of the farmhouse, looking at her.

"No," she cried. Her hands flew to her gaping mouth. A soundless scream was muffled under her palms. "No."

She rejected her dad's attempt at comfort.

"Did you tell him to do that?"

"Non," he said, "but I was hoping he would."

She ran her fingers down the hard texture of the canvas. "Why? Why would you let him do something like this?"

"I found out a long time ago that the only possible way to lift off your curse was to pass it unto a different lineage."

"So you tricked Angel into doing it?" she shouted at him. Tears were free falling down her pink cheekbones. The strands of her hair were tickling the length of her neck and her face, something she wasn't used to. Everything always stayed in place in the painting.

"I didn't trick him," her father clarified. "I only gave him the book and hoped he was going to come to the same conclusion as me. I wanted to lift the curse but you'd still be affected if I passed it down to my lineage. I needed someone else. Someone who loves you as much as I do."

"He loves me?"

Monsieur Fontaine smiles for the first time in more than twelve years. "Darling, he's trapped himself in a painting. For you."

"He loves me," she repeated. "Now, he's gone. I'm really never going to see him again."

Silently, she watched him standing in the doorway, unmoving. This wasn't what she wanted. She knew how incredibly dull life could be inside that painting. She wouldn't wish such a life for her worse enemy, certainly not for the man she was in love with.

He was screaming for an adventure. She wanted to give him that. Watch his eyes glow as his mind grasps the exotic lands and cultures and lock them away inside him.

"Get him out," she cried. "I don't want this."

She was on the floor crying when she heard the faint sound. It was almost undetectable then a blue light coming from inside the painting followed it.

Her dad quickly pulled her out of the way.

"Angel," she called out.

Angel stood in front of them, confused. "Uhh," he grinned, "I guess the good old act of true love never dies."

"Angel," she cried as she sprung into his arms. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again."

"You won't get out of telling me the ending of Missy versus the Irish clown so easily," he laughed.

"It was a happy ending," she said. Behind her, Monsieur Fontaine slipped out to go celebrate the return of his happiness. Magdalene would have been happy too, he thought.

"Like us right now," Angel continued.

Zoé stared up at him, smiling with rouged cheeks. "Why did you take my place?"

"You told me to find out who I was. I can't really do that if my muse is gone."

"I thought you only liked me for the crazy adventure stories," she whispered with her eyes glued to him. She felt like they were the only people in the world.

"You are the only adventure I want."

"I love you," she said.

"I love you," he said as he bent down to kiss her.

The end. 

Thank you for reading my short story. I hope you liked it. 

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