(Almost) Happily Ever After

by Annabelle Costa

  (Almost) Happily Ever After

  a novel by

  Annabelle Costa

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Once upon a time, there was an ugly duckling. Over time, and with the help of the 1875 Watt Three-in-One Ionic Hair Styler, she turned into a beautiful swan. Well… more like a moderately attractive (on a good day) swan. And then that swan met a handsome prince (or handsome swan?), and they lived happily ever after. The end.

  Except…

  Did you ever notice that in fairy tales, they never tell you what happens after the happily ever after?

  For example:

  Cinderella is rescued from her evil stepsisters by Prince Charming. He fits the glass slipper onto her delicate foot and they share a magical kiss. And then they live happily ever after.

  Except I always wonder what “happily ever after” means exactly.

  Do Cinderella and Charming ever fight? Does he sometimes forget to change the toilet paper roll and drive poor Cinderella totally up the wall? Does she spend too much money using the royal credit card on a dress to the Royal Ball and he explodes and tells her he’s not made of money? Do they have a baby that screams all night and they argue about whose turn it is to get up and comfort him?

  Well, maybe not. They are rich, after all, and they can probably afford someone to change toilet paper rolls and comfort their baby. Still. They must fight over something. It can’t be entirely happily ever after.

  Maybe they fight about her name. Cinderella. She was only called Cinderella because she was covered in dirty cinders all the time from the cleaning she was forced to do for her evil stepsisters. Maybe the prince likes the name because that was the one he fell in love with. But Cinderella would understandably prefer to be called by her given name. Hortense.

  Or maybe not.

  I was an ugly duckling who always dreamed of a magical happily ever after. I wanted to find a prince who would whisk me off into the sunset on a white stallion. Then finally, after many, many (many) years of looking, I found him. He wasn’t exactly the prince I always dreamed of, but he was so much better. And we kissed and lived happily ever after.

  Well, almost.

  Chapter 1

  I am failing. Again.

  I can’t believe this.

  I’m holding the test paper in my shaking hand, staring down at the circled red “62.” I can’t believe I’m a woman in my thirties and I’m still being graded with a red pen. It makes me feel about fifteen years old. And not in a good way.

  Damn. I knew going back to college was a mistake.

  This is something you never see in fairy tales. After Prince Phillip kisses Sleeping Beauty to wake her up, she doesn’t suddenly decide that she’s neglected her college education while she was sleeping all those years. The princesses in the fairy tale stories seem utterly unconcerned with higher education or their careers in general. Even the more headstrong ones like Ariel in The Little Mermaid seem satisfied to just be a prince’s wife. I mean, I’m sure that being a princess does have its own lofty set of responsibilities, but I’m just saying, the happily ever after in fairy tale stories never seems to involve the heroine, say, going to medical school.

  Not that I’ll ever make it past college at this rate.

  I watch the other students chattering excitedly around me in the dimly lit lecture hall. I decided to take classes during the day so it wouldn’t cut into my meager time with my fiancé, but as I look at these fresh-faced eighteen and nineteen year olds who all probably managed to outscore me on this exam, I recognize my mistake. Being here makes me feel older than the hills.

  Great. That girl with the green hair and eyebrow ring is holding a test paper that says “89.” How could green hair and an eyebrow ring be beating me? How is that physically possible?

  And that guy with those… what do you call those disgusting things that kids wear in their earlobes these days? The rings that form a giant hole right in the center of the earlobe that you can practically stick your fist through sometimes. You know what I’m talking about. Well, that guy got a 91.

  “Libby?”

  I look up at the kind face of Reid Shaw, the Teaching Assistant for the introductory biology class at NYU that I’m (apparently) falling. Reid is a PhD candidate who runs a weekly teaching session in addition to the twice weekly lectures by our professor. He’s also younger than I am, but at least he’s only younger by about five years instead of fifteen. He’s a big guy—tall and stocky, almost bear-like in appearance, with long, light brown hair that he always wears in a ponytail. He has a shaggy goatee, and dresses in baggy T-shirts and shorts that always smell mildly like Washington Square Park. (That’s my nice way of saying I think he might smoke a joint before class.)

  Reid is aware that I failed. Even if he didn’t grade my exam himself, he’s the one who dug it out of the rapidly diminishing pile of exams that have been organized alphabetically by last name. He saw the score.

  “Yeah,” I mumble. I can barely look Reid in the eyes. I failed. How could I fail? Again.

  “Maybe we should make an appointment to talk,” he says gently. “Like, outside of office hours.”

  I feel tears pricking at my eyes. I don’t want to cry. Not here. I don’t want all these kids to see the old lady sobbing because she can’t hack it in freshman bio.

  “Are you okay?” Reid asks me. He looks like he’s on the verge of reaching out to give me a hug.

  “Fine!” I say a little too enthusiastically. I force a happy smile. “I… yes, I think it would be a good thing to talk. Later. Because…”

  Well, I don’t really need to complete that sentence. It’s obvious why we need to talk.

  Reid furrows his brow. “Don’t freak out, Libby. We can fix this. I’m sure of it.”

  I’m not so sure.

  _____

  So here’s my problem with introductory biology:

  I find sex boring.

  Well, not all sex. The kind of sex where there’s a hot guy with his hands all over me isn’t boring at all. Although since my engagement a year ago, those hands have always belonged to the same hot guy—but still, it isn’t boring. Just the opposite, actually. I’m not the kind of woman who’s going to bite my lip and think of England—I much enjoy a little of the old in-out.

  You know what kind of sex is boring?

  Plant sex.

  In case you didn’t realize that plants were fornicating, well, let me relieve you of that delusion. Consenting adult plants need to make new baby plants, and they’ve got to do it somehow. But the way they do it doesn’t involve two sweaty, green stems pounding against each other. It involves… well, that’s the part I’m fuzzy on.

  Best I can tell, plants have both sets of sexual organs. All pla
nts have a penis and a vagina. And the sperm is called pollen, which gets spread everywhere, making everyone sneeze, and eventually landing in another plant’s vagina. And then the other plant is pregnant.

  Wait no, I don’t think that’s right.

  Here’s the thing: I can’t make myself care. I went back to school after over ten years away with the single purpose of becoming a veterinarian. That is my dream. But for some reason, before I can study animals, I have to study plants. I have to learn about how plants make their own food from sunlight, how they have cell walls instead of cell membranes, how plants grow up from a baby seed to an adult plant. And I hate every second of it.

  As I sit on my comfy sofa at home with my cat Petunia settled on my lap, I review the requirements for veterinary school. In addition to completing an entire year of biology, I need to do a year of chemistry, a year of physics, and a year of organic chemistry. Why do I need to take both chemistry and organic chemistry? Can’t I just take regular chemistry and shop at Whole Foods, and call it even?

  I don’t know how I’m going to get through all that if I can’t even make it through half a term of biology.

  The lock to our apartment turns and I grip Petunia tighter. It’s only six o’clock—far too early for my fiancé to be home from work. Could this be a burglar? A burglar who somehow has the key to my apartment and is coming inside during broad daylight.

  Well, Petunia will save me if it’s a burglar. And in exchange, I’ll record the whole thing with my phone and make her internet famous. (I’m joking. If anyone even vaguely unfamiliar enters our apartment, Petunia immediately disappears into a tiny hole under our kitchen sink and doesn’t come out for two days.)

  It turns out that the would-be burglar is actually my fiancé Will. My handsome prince. The guy that rescued me from my evil stepsisters (i.e. my bitchy roommate) and brought me to live in his royal castle (i.e. his two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan, overlooking Central Park). Right now, my handsome prince looks rumpled but adorable in the white dress shirt and tie he wears to his job as an attorney. His glasses barely conceal the purple circles I’ve been noticing more and more under his eyes since he made partner at his firm a year ago.

  “What are you doing here?” I blurt out.

  Will looks at me in surprise. “I live here.”

  That was sort of a dumb question. But really, he hasn’t been home by six o’clock on a weekday in… I honestly can’t even remember.

  Will wheels around the side of the couch. That’s something about my fiancé that’s different from your typical handsome prince—he can’t walk. Like, ever. Forever. Well, not forever in that he’s never been able to walk, because he could, years before I met him. But he never will again. Not unless there’s some sort of crazy miracle breakthrough, which Will has assured me multiple times is absolutely impossible.

  It was odd when I first met him, but I’m used to him wheeling around everywhere now. I’m used to the sight of his legs lined up (always) perfectly together, with his feet pointing straight ahead in the footplate of his wheelchair. I’m used to the way his legs don’t move when Will wants them to, but do sometimes jump from involuntary muscle spasms or bumps in the sidewalk.

  “I mean,” I say, “you don’t usually get home this early.”

  Will sticks his thumb into the knot of his tie to loosen it, then pulls it off completely and tosses it on the dining table. “I know.” He grins at me. “You know that case I’ve been busting my ass on for like three months? The guy finally settled.”

  “That’s awesome!” Despite how awful I feel about my exam, I’m genuinely happy for Will. After all, we’re going to be married—his successes are my successes.

  He puts his hands on top of mine, which chases poor Petunia away because she’s really skittish, even for a cat. He squeezes my fingers. Will’s palms are so callused for a guy who works as a lawyer—they couldn’t be more rough if he was a construction worker. That’s the consequence of wheeling himself around for more than half his life. His hands have really taken a beating.

  “I’ve got the next two days off,” he says to me. “I want to spend every second with you, if that’s okay.”

  “It’s okay,” I agree. “But I’ve got to set some exceptions and ground rules.”

  He nods soberly.

  “You can’t come with me into the bathroom,” I say.

  He chuckles. “You’re such a prude.”

  I poke him in the arm, and he clutches his shoulder, pretending to be wounded.

  “Also,” I add, “I’m walking dogs on Sunday morning for the shelter, so you have to come with me and help.”

  “Done,” he says.

  “One last thing,” I say. “I know you want to celebrate, but I want to stay in tonight.”

  “I’m with you on that one,” he says, rubbing his right eye. “Christ, I feel like I haven’t slept in the last three months. Let’s watch a movie and get Hawaiian pizza.”

  That’s what I love about Will. Even though he’s a partner at Saperstein and Hitchcock, one of the most powerful firms in the city, and I’m a… well, I don’t know exactly what I am at this moment. Secretary slash student, I guess, although God knows how long that will last. Anyway, my point is that even though we’re really different, we just click when we’re together. There’s nobody else I’d rather veg with on a Friday night.

  Will transfers onto the couch to be next to me. If I suddenly lost use of my legs and had to get from a wheelchair to the couch, I’d probably need half an hour to do it and possibly end up on the floor. Will takes about five seconds to transfer—but to be fair, he’s a lot stronger than I am. He locks his wheels, scoots his butt forward in the chair, then pulls his legs out of the rest onto the floor. He leans toward the couch with his fist against the cushion, then a second later, he’s on the couch. He takes another second to straighten out his legs, then pushes his chair out of the way.

  He puts his left arm around me and I lean my head against his muscular shoulder. If he were some other guy, I might put my hand on his leg or something. But he can’t feel it, so he’d prefer I didn’t do that.

  Will grabs the remote with his right hand and loads up Netflix. The streaming movie choices pop up on the screen.

  “The Fantastic Four rebooted?” he suggests.

  “Isn’t that supposed to be awful?”

  “Yes. Okay, how about The Boxtrolls?”

  “Too much of a children’s movie.”

  “White Chicks?”

  “Oh my God, that’s not a movie people actually watch.”

  “Zoolander?”

  “I’ve seen it too many times.”

  “The Wedding Planner?”

  I turn my head to stare at Will. “Are you genuinely telling me that you would sit here and watch a Jennifer Lopez and Matthew McConaughy romantic comedy with me?”

  “No,” he admits. “I wouldn’t. But I’m beginning to wonder why we’re paying ten dollars a month for access to thousands of streaming movies, all of which you hate.”

  “Let’s just watch our recorded episodes of Sex in the Wild,” I say. Sex in the Wild is this great show about wildlife mating habits. It’s really interesting. If only they had an equivalent show about plants—maybe I could have passed my exam.

  “Sounds good to me.” Will loads up our DVR. “Hey, by the way, didn’t you have a big midterm or something a few days ago? Did you ever get that back?”

  I wince. “Um. Not… yet.”

  Is that terrible? That my loving and kind boyfriend remembered to ask about my exam and I lied to him about it? But he’s so happy and relaxed about his case wrapping up—I don’t want to bring down his mood. Anyway, it’s not like I failed the whole class. It’s one test. This will be fine.

  Chapter 2

  I wake up the next morning with Will still snoring softly next to me. This is the first time in months that I’ve woken up to find him still in bed. He is always. Working. It’s insanity. I wonder if maybe now that this case is o
ver, he’ll have more free time.

  Probably not. I’m sure they’ll have another case for him before too long.

  I spend a minute watching my fiancé sleep. Will and I have been together for about three years now. At nearly thirty-three, I feel like I look about the same as I did when we first got together. Will, on the other hand, is getting into his mid to late thirties, and the years are wearing on him. There are more creases around his eyes, and the gray that was invisible when we met is now showing at his temples.

  Of course, it all makes him look really sexy. That’s what’s so unfair about being a woman. When men get old, the gray and wrinkles make them look sexy and distinguished. We just look old.

  The peaceful moment is interrupted when Petunia gets up from my side of the bed, where she spends the night, and leaps over to Will’s side. She puts both front paws directly on his face, which causes him to jerk awake, looking somewhat startled.

  “Christ,” he says as she leaps off the bed in search of food. He glances at me as I clamp a hand over my mouth to keep from giggling. “Not funny.”

  “Slightly funny,” I say.

  He gazes at me across the bed and a grin spreads across his face. “I forgot how sexy you look in the morning.”

  He’s such a liar—I look like a frizzy monster in the morning. Although the way he snuggles up to me and starts kissing my neck makes me think he’s not entirely lying.

  And then his kisses start heading southward. Ooh, he’s frisky when he’s had a full night of sleep. I’d almost forgotten what sex in the morning felt like.

  Of course, it’s not sex. With Will, it’s rarely sex the way most people think of it. When I tell people I’m dating a guy who’s paralyzed below the waist, I know they’re all wondering the same thing: can we have intercourse? The answer is yes. We can. But it involves him popping a Viagra, waiting for the Viagra to actually kick in (and if I’m being honest, it only gets him hard enough maybe half the time), then me doing most of the work because he can’t move or feel anything. So even though there are days when I do long for that penetration, most of the time, I’m happy to go without it. Especially since what Will does with his mouth and tongue is unparalleled