"But—how did…I was…you…," Lindy sputtered, in complete and utter shock at what had just happened. How could he have possibly known it was her? Adrian's smile was like the Buddha's—calm and knowing. And it hadn't faltered, once.

Then it came to Lindy. "Kendra told you," she stated flatly, crossing her arms.

He shook his head. "I haven't seen Kendra in five years. But evidently you have," he replied, looking her up and down.

"How?" Lindy asked in a sobbing whisper. "How could you know it was me?"

Adrian gently pressed his fingers to her temples. "Well, for one thing, your story had a big hole in it. It's Professor Adamson, not Professor Walters, that teaches at CCBC. But I knew something wasn't right with you before that. When you first walked in, you scratched your wrists—the left first, then the right. Your wrists always itch when you're nervous, and you scratch your left wrist first because you're right-handed. Then I saw you walk down the stairs. You've always had trouble walking in heels, and Kendra put you in some nasty stillettos. I'd know that walk anywhere: like a chicken walking through a minefield. And-and when you got a glass of wine, you just sat there staring at it. You can never just drink a drink; you always stare at it like you're waiting for it to explode."

Lindy huffed in indignation and tried to pull away, but Adrian held her still. "I'm sorry, Babe. I know that was mean of me, but I had to start with the harsh stuff so that you'd believe the goosh. What it really came down to was looking in your eyes. I know, cliché, but it's the truth. Your eyes might be a different shape, they might be a different color, but I know the soul living behind them. One look and it couldn't have been anyone else."

Lindy stared at him in disbelief. "Really?"

Adrian nodded sternly. "Absolutely. Okay, now tell me: what were you thinking? Why would you do this?"

"You really don't know? Don't you remember how you just spent the last hour and a half?" When he looked at her blankly, Lindy thrust a frustrated arm in the direction of the reception hall. "With her, Adrian! Laughing, talking, drinking, with her!"

He looked back at the inside room. "Jessica?" he asked innocently.

Lindy looked away, shaking her head. "It was Kendra's idea to do this—to test you. I wasn't going to. I was just going to tell you that it was okay to let me go."

"Let you go? What the hell, Lindy?" Adrian's blue eyes seemed even bluer in his anger.

"Adrian, what do you think is going to happen when you go to Guam for two months-when you're with Jessica for two months alone? She's perfect for you, don't you see it? An engineer like you, rich like you, beautiful like you? You two were in your own little world for nearly two hours! What exactly would have happened if I had come along with you? And don't tell me it would have been a good time, because it wouldn't have been, not for me. I'd just stand there for hours and listen to the two of you talk to each other!"

Adrian opened his mouth to protest, then slowly closed it again as he felt the pain in Lindy's words. "Lindy…you're right. I did spend most of my time talking to Jessica. But that's because she's my friend. Just a friend, nothing else. Yes we talk a lot, we joke a lot, because we've been doing the same thing for four years. And yes, we're going to be spending a lot of time together when we're in Guam—working."

"You won't be working the whole time, Adrian," Lindy argued, feeling the tears beginning to choke her chest. "Please don't lie to me and say you haven't noticed how hot she is."

Adrian shrugged. "Jess has got a pretty face. Blonde hair, blue eyes, just like me. I think we kinda look like siblings, honestly. Icky."

Lindy knew Adrian was trying to lighten the mood, but her heart was just too heavy. "I'm glad you think this is all a joke," she said miserably.

"Honey, I can joke about this because what I feel for her could fade into nothing when it compares to what I feel for you. Before, when I was a beast, do you know I'd look at you and it would hurt? It hurt because I wanted you so badly, be near you so much, but I couldn't. I couldn't let myself. I used to think that if I ever had the chance to hold you anytime I wanted, that I'd never let that go. And that's never changed." Adrian pulled Lindy into his arms. She tried to look away but he caught her chin in his hand, forcing her to look at him. "I know I slip sometimes, that I get caught up in other things. But I will never take this for granted. You're all I've really ever wanted, Lindy. Everything else is just a part of living life."

Lindy felt the tears falling down her cheeks. She felt like a fool. Kendra had been right. True, they'd chosen different careers; their passions were different for different things. And true too, they'd fallen in love as kids and they were adults now, but it didn't matter. Adrian loved her as much today as he had five years ago.

Powerful sobs began to shake her, and it was seemed that it was only Adrian's arms around her that kept her from falling apart. He must have realized this too, because before she knew it, he'd moved them both to a bench on the far end of the patio, beneath a weeping willow tree. She kept her head buried in his neck as he stroked her back.

"There's more to this than just Jessica or Guam, isn't there," Adrian murmured to her after a while. Lindy looked up at her boyfriend, into his knowing gaze. She exhaled, shut her eyes, and allowed herself to sink back into a dark ocean of memory…

It had been Will that called and gave them the news. It was a Sunday morning, on what was supposed to be the start of an all-too-rare and wonderfully lazy day for them. Adrian found out first, because their friend had deliberately called Adrian's cell phone instead of Lindy's, and the two of them tried to find the best way to tell her what had happened…

Lindy's sister Jane had tracked down Will and gave him the news originally. She was waiting at the hospital when Adrian and Lindy arrived after the three hour drive back to New York. Her eyes and cheeks were red, but she wasn't crying. She told them that she and Lindy's other sister Liz were in the process of making all the arrangements, that Lindy didn't have to worry about a thing. Adrian offered money to help with the plans, but Jane politely refused, telling him that taking care of her sister was more than enough.

"If you want to see him, now's the time," Jane said to Lindy in a soft, coarse voice. "We're not really doing much more than finding a spot for him. I don't know if he deserves much more, honestly." Jane's eyes were hard like granite.

Adrian offered to go with her, as would be expected of him, but Lindy refused, as was expected of her. With that surface exchange out of the way, Lindy took her sister up on her suggestion. One of the attendants took her down two floors to where he was being kept. One of the things that always stuck with Lindy as she walked those few paces to the room was the feeling of being ice cold and boiling hot at the same time, the external warring with the internal. She felt ill: pounding head, trembling limbs, nauseated stomach.

Lindy was sure her heart had stopped beating as the attendant pulled back the sheet. She looked at him, and the first thing she felt wasn't what she thought it was going to be. Not anger, not pain, not grief. It was surprise. She hadn't expected him to look that way. He was so pale, so small. The bloodlessness of his skin seemed to erase the lines, and Lindy expected lines. He'd lived such a cold, hard life she prepared herself to see an old man lying there. But instead he looked young, untouched. The morgue's stark white sheets and crisp toe tag seemed to add to the effect in their own, lurid way.

And then Lindy suddenly felt old, very old. Knowing that she would outlive him, that she would live all those years with the memories of what he'd done while he got to escape into the black, forgetting arms of death. It was as if he'd been washed clean, but Lindy had been left stained…

"My dad," Lindy told him.

Adrian nodded. "Your dad," he confirmed.

"After your spell was broken and we moved in together, remember how I'd said that I realized that I had to just let my dad go? Well, I did…mostly. But there was a part of me that couldn't. I kept hoping that maybe one day he'd find me, that he'd have gotten clean and turned his life around, and he'd come back to apologize for all the things he'd done and he'd spend the rest of his life trying to make it up to me. I thought…maybe one day we'd have a real relationship. Part of me knew it was stupid to hope, but I figured…magic really does exist. Kendra showed us that it was real. And I thought too, that if a girl like me could get a guy like you to fall in love with her, then maybe-maybe anything was possible. And then—just like that—he was gone. No apologies, no last words, nothing. Just cardiac arrest from too much heroin. And after that…I didn't want to hope too hard or believe too much."

"Right after that…I really threw myself into my studies. And became good friends with Jessica," Adrian concluded.

Lindy nodded. "Yeah. I'm so sorry for doubting you, Adrian. You're nothing like my dad, you'd never hurt me the way he did, I know that. It was me. I just—I just stopped believing in happily ever after. I felt like I had to be ready to say goodbye to you. I didn't want to be taken by surprise again by something painful."

Adrian took Lindy's face in his hands. "I saw how he hurt you—before you even came to live with me. I saw in the mirror Kendra gave me. I wanted to save you and keep you safe from the very start. When your dad died, I wished I could have protected you from that, but I couldn't. All I can do is make sure you're never hurt again. So I'm going to promise you this one thing: I will never say goodbye to you. I know, I'm going to Guam for two months, but that's not goodbye. No matter how far apart we are, I'm always going to come back to you."

"Oh Adrian!" Lindy hugged him. "I'm so sorry, I really am. I love you! I'll never love anyone else this way, ever."

"I love you too," he whispered to her. They sat like that for a long time, holding each other. When they pulled apart, Adrian leaned back and grinned. "Well, that's more like it."

Lindy giggled, brushing away her tears. "More like what?"

Adrian jerked his head in the direction of the glass side of the opposite building. "See for yourself."

Lindy turned to look in the reflective glass. Sitting next to Adrian was a skinny, red-haired girl with sea-green eyes and freckles sprinkled over her face. Lindy gasped in delight, running her hand over her face. She didn't even realize the change had happened. Then she remembered what Kendra had said: it was all an illusion, and it would disappear when she didn't need it anymore. Nothing could be truer: she had Adrian's love. She didn't need anything else. "So...I guess you're not going to miss Vanessa?" Lindy asked in a tiny, hopeful voice.

"Ha! Nope, not my type. I prefer redheads with big hearts."

"Can you forgive me?" Lindy asked her love.

"For what, hon?"

"For lying to you. For that ridiculous disguise."

Adrian chuckled and kissed the top of her head. "Actually, I'd think I'd be a bit of a hypocrite if I couldn't forgive you. After all, I'd pretended to be someone else that whole time I was cursed. You could have been really angry at me, but you were just happy that we were together. I think that's a good way to think of things."

"Hey you guys!"

Lindy and Adrian turned to see Jessica standing on the patio. "Lindy! You made it! I thought you weren't feeling well."

"Hey, Jessica. I'm feeling much better now," Lindy answered, smiling a secret smile at Adrian.

"Awesome! Hey, come in when you get a chance. Christy was able to make it and I want you all to meet!" Jessica ventured back into the party.

"Christy?" Lindy asked Adrian.

"Yes, Christos. Jessica's fiancée," Adrian replied with a pointed look.

Then Lindy remembered the handsome, swarthy giant Jessica was talking to when she and Adrian were going out to the patio. "Ohh," she replied, hoping the night would hide the redness of her face from embarrassment.

Adrian put his arms around her. "Let's just forget about the whole thing, shall we? We'll just go back in and enjoy the party." He offered her his arm.

Lindy stood and took it. "I wish I could thank Kendra. She was right, I hope she knows it."

Adrian looked down at his feet and smiled. "Somehow, I think she does." There, between a small crack in the concrete floor of the patio, bloomed a single white rose that had not been there before. Adrian reached down and plucked it, then placed it in Lindy's hair. She blushed and smiled, sending her thanks to the enchantress in her thoughts.

"Face it, this is happily ever after," Adrian told Lindy.

She smiled, her heart racing the same way it did all those years ago when Adrian first told her that. The way it would for years to come when she was near him. "True love, like in fairy tales," Lindy added.

And they kissed.

The end.