Roni

Chapter Fifteen

The grueling night is almost over and Roni has never wanted to crawl in her bed and hide away from the world as much as she needs to tonight. Her mind is constantly being over worked lately from all the sneaky people in her life and she's honestly starting to feel mentally drained which is so unlike her.

"Hey Roni, is Emma here?" Henry asks as he walks through the front door.

His smile shines brightly while he struts toward Roni, expressing how happy he is to see the bar owner. The young man climbs onto the stool in front of her and places a book down on the counter, his grin cracking deeper into his cheeks.

Big brown eyes drop down to the book below, like they were somehow magnetized to the damn thing. A white book rests between them, with the words, "Once Upon A Time" written elegantly in gold. A golden frame with an apple tree in the center of it, decorates the cover and for some strange reason, Roni feels this urgency to reach out and just touch that apple tree, but she refrains.

"What's this?" She inquires with her eyes still fixated upon the alluring story book.

"This," Henry places his hand flat against the cover, persuading Roni to glance up to discover a proud smile creeping along his face. "...is my book. I wrote it and this is the story Lucy believes we are all from."

He chuckles softly to himself, but Roni remains abnormally silent. If Henry would have come breezing into her bar with this information a month ago, she would be laughing right along with him. However, tonight, she finds no humor on this maddening subject because something deep down in her gut is screaming for her to find a corner to curl up and read this entire book.

"Hey kid," Emma says, startling Roni from her wandering and torturous thoughts. "What's that?"

"It's his book that he wrote, with the characters Lucy thinks we are from," Roni explains, turning to gauge Emma's reaction in which the blonde suddenly grows very serious.

"May I?" Emma reaches out and points to the book, like she's half expecting the cover to fling open and the pages to magically swallow her whole.

"Of course! That's actually why I brought it. I want you to see the character that Lucy thinks is you." Henry begins opening the book and flipping through the pages, laughing lightly to himself before stopping upon the page he was in search for. "It's actually quite crazy just how much you two look alike." He comments mostly to himself before he flips the book to face the two women watching him carefully and gently pushes it forward, encouraging them to dive right in.

It's more than uncanny, eerie or coincidental and Roni is unexpectedly being pulled into some spiraling twilight as her mind screams, it's her, it has to be her. These two women are identical from the same unruly blonde waves to the matching green piercing eyes that steal Roni's breath away every time she gazes so deeply into them, they just have to be the same Emma.

Emma snatches up the book and smiles with adoration as her index finger glides tenderly across the page. Her green eyes glisten with tears causing Roni's head to tilt in confusion. Roni's mind is a mess as question after question is ringing loudly in her head. Why is one picture, having such a strong effect on Emma? It's just a fairytale story...isn't it?

A surprising small sniffle catches Roni's attention, forcing her attention back toward Emma who is ducking her head down in a lame attempt to hide her bubbling emotions. The blonde balances the book in one hand and slowly flips through the other pages. Her attention is focused and determined on the beginning pages of the book. When she finally stops, Roni takes a chance to catch a glimpse at her girlfriend's face. Those enticing eyes are filled to the brim with unshed tears while she's anxiously biting her bottom lip. Emma swallows down her emotions before she slowly turns the book back around and hands it over to Henry.