Not Your Average Fairytale

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

"Do you have any pajamas I could borrow?" Clover asked shyly, standing in the room she and Ashleigh were supposed to be sharing.

"I don't, sorry," Ashleigh replied, feeling guilty. "But Arabella probably does, let me go grab you something!" She quickly dashed out of the room, leaving Clover standing in the room by herself.

She hadn't slept over with a friend in years. It was something her mother didn't normally let her do—in fact, she wasn't even sure she was technically allowed to this time.

On the inside, she was trembling with fear. This was nothing like anything she'd ever done; she would normally never disobey her mother. And technically, this time she wasn't—her mother hadn't told her she couldn't, but she hadn't gotten the chance to either.

When she'd called earlier, her mother's phone went to voicemail, so Clover simply left a message saying that she was staying over with Rosalyn. Then she turned off her phone before she could get a message from her mother telling her to return home.

The buzz of rebellion was slowly fading off and leaving a pit of dread in the bottom of her stomach. Tomorrow, her mother was going to murder her. Honestly, she had no idea how she was going to even be allowed to be a part of any of the stories after this.

"Clover, are you alright? You look like you're about to be sick," Ashleigh said as she walked into the room, rushing over to the girl.

"Oh no, I'm fine," Clover said, embarrassed. She gratefully took the clothes from the other girl. "It's just my mother. She's really strict, and it worries me that she might be a problem during all of this."

"So you're nervous that you're going to get in trouble or something?" Ashleigh guessed.

"Well, yeah, I mean I've never done anything like this before—"

"Anything like what before?" she asked, confused.

"I didn't ask for her permission to stay here," Clover explained. "I mean, I've never even really had a sleep over before, and I've never disobeyed any of her rules and I—"

"Wait, slow down," Ashleigh said, stopping her. "You mean you've never done anything without your mother's permission before?"

"Nothing big, really," she admitted.

"What about your hair?" Ashleigh asked, reaching out to touch one of her purple tresses.

"We saw someone at the store with this color of hair, and she commented that she really liked it. It was only after she said that that I mentioned I thought about dying it. She supported the idea and paid for the salon herself," Clover said, sighing.

"So, you're trying to say you've always done exactly what your mother suggests you do," Ashleigh guessed, and Clover slowly nodded. "But the whole music thing?"

"My mother and Sebastian's mother are close friends. We practically grew up together. He's one of the few people my mother trusts me with, and so she only let me go because it was him," she answered.

"Well, I'll promise you this," Ashleigh said, "if we aren't going to let an evil queen stop us, we certainly aren't going to let your mother stop us."

Back in the living room, Sebastian, Everett, and Baylor sat around, arguing about which two guys got the final beds and which guy had to sleep on the sofa. "I'm telling you, it should be Baylor, he doesn't need as good of sleep because he's already finished his part of the story," Sebastian argued.

"Not fair," Baylor retorted. "Because I finished my part of the story, I'm officially royalty, which means I should get one of the beds. Come on, Everett."