Separated

Chapter 29 - Nikolai

New Chapter!!!

Warning: mention of suicide is explored within this chapter. Please take care of yourself and read what is most comfortable for you.

Enjoy this day with another chapter of reading!!! 🫀🩷
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If I was being honest, I did for a hot second think that she was going to reject my offer. Tell me that I wasn't worthy of her time, let alone a dance.

But much to my delight, she placed her small soft hands in my larger, rougher hands and allows me to take her away from the reality we existed in. I am quite certain that us being together had earnt a few glances here and whispers there but neither myself nor my little Printsessa paid them any attention. I was way to absorbed in the fact that she trusted me enough to let me take her somewhere else besides here.

We leave the building in itself and take a few left turns and a few right turns until we reach the garden area of this place. I hadn't ever really paid much attention to flowers or botanical life in general but under the moonlight, I could understand why so many people enjoyed nurturing and looking at them.

"Lilies." She stops, crouching down to admire the flower.

"You like them?"

"I guess so. It's just, they don't usually grow well in places like this." She says confused but mostly in awe. 

"You know Alaina right? Alaina Taylor?"

"Yes. She's really sweet."

"She takes care of all of them."

"She does?" She lifts her head, her red lips slightly parted, and her brown eyes sparkle against the moonlight.

I nod in response, and she goes back to admiring the flowers – I mean lilies.

"Do you know the flower meaning of these?" She asks sounding hopeful.

"Purity." I reply.

She smiles. If it were any other woman, a smile would never faze me, more often than not, they were fake anyway. But it was her. Her with neutral face she clearly adopted from her father and brother. Her with controlled emotions, never really letting people see them.

But she was letting me see her smiles, her anger, and her vulnerability.

She was letting me in. She was letting me take a step or two inside who she truly is.

"You should smile more often. You look beautiful with a true smile." I say without much thought, but her smile deflates a little, turning the original radiant smile into one of a mournful smile.

"They are one of the many things I lost to that night." She whispers as she glides her fingers against the petal of the lilies.

A part of me that I didn't even know existed crumbles. Those two days didn't only rip her away from her protected life, it took away her sense of normal. The normal mundane smiles, laughter's, and happiness. It took away her normal of being able to live like any happy girl and woman.

"I'll find as many as I can and give them to you Printsessa."

"Then, I'm counting on it. And what is Printsessa?"

"You."

"No shit sherlock. What does it mean?"

"Wow the ever elegant looking and talking Minori Sakurazuki just cursed with a drizzle of sarcasm. Gotta report this news."

She gives a playful shove to my leg before telling me to shut it.

"So, what does it actually mean?"

"Just like how it sounds, princess."