Paper Rings Part VIII

July 2995

The fabric of Caleb’s shirt was white and thin, loose enough on his body to flow in the wind. With it, he wore black pants, boots, and nothing else, save for the necklace resting at the base of his throat. Black diamond, silver, and gold. Marie imagined it must have been more expensive even than the crown that rested atop the King’s head.

The closer they got to the water, the more control the breeze seemed to have over them, tousling their hair—his blacker than night and hers nearly as bright as pure gold—and forcing them to slow the speed at which they walked. Their hands were clasped firmly together as their feet made contact with the dock, the wood creaking beneath their weight. 

For once, it was them and them alone, even in the naked light of day. Caleb wore no hood or cloak, and they had no escort. The last time they’d had this privilege had been the day they had met, right where they were standing now.

“There.” Caleb pointed to a boat—a small one, the same one he had been wrestling with when Marie had first laid eyes on him—and they wandered in its direction, neither one leading the other.

He climbed in first, the boat rocking with the introduction of his weight, and reached out to help her in after him. He was smiling, his teeth bright and white and his eyes almost squinting to see her. 

She couldn’t help but laugh as she fell somewhat purposely into his arms. She didn’t need his help, and he knew it, but there were times when it was nice to have. All she could do as she kissed him was hope that it didn’t end any time soon. 

They drew apart, but he pulled her back in to kiss her one last time before going to start untying the ropes. She watched him for a moment, even as she moved to start preparing the sails. 

She could still see him on the day they’d first met. She could see him struggling, cursing and moving aggressively as he tried to tie his boat to the dock. He was still clumsy but not as much. There was more patience in his motions now, and rather than expecting things to come easily, he was putting thought into them. She couldn’t believe the difference a year could make, wanting to believe that it was at least in part because of the time they had spent together and the new ways of living and thinking that she had shown him.

When he had untied the last rope and she had successfully prepared the sails, she smiled at him. “You’ve gotten better at this.”

Caleb chuckled softly, his cheeks turning a slight shade of pink. “I’ve been paying more attention,” he said. His eyes sparkled with pride as he looked at her. “I’ve seen soldiers do it for me at least a dozen times now, and I’m starting to remember how they do it.”

He may have been a prince—the Prince—but that didn’t mean confidence was a given. Just like nearly everyone else, he had to work for it, and Marie could tell that he had. Each time she saw him, he carried himself with less hesitation, taking more initiative and trusting himself enough not to always rely on those around him. 

Marie had already noticed herself looking at him very differently in recent months, her perception of him changing entirely as she watched him interact with her family. They had come to like him quite a bit, as he had been around more and more, taking every opportunity he got, even as his responsibilities at the palace seemed to get more and more demanding.

He no longer struggled with taking his shoes off at their front door or hesitated when her mother embraced him. When Theo made a joke, he was quick to snap back, and her brother had come to respect him for it. He had found a surprising number of things to talk with her father about, and he had even bonded with Florian, primarily over the alleged irritations of being an oldest child, which Marie didn’t understand in the slightest.

Archie loved him the most. The little boy had thought he was the coolest person to ever walk the earth since the moment he’d first walked in their front door, and Caleb’s actions had only solidified that belief. When he had shown up for his fourth visit to their home on the back of his horse, Achlys, there had been no going back, especially not after he let Archie sit in front of him and took him on a lap around the village.

It seemed to her that Caleb welcomed the escape her family brought to him. Being the Crown Prince had always come with pressure, but now, something was happening with his family, and whatever it was, it wasn’t good. 

In recent weeks, she had noticed his face taking on more seriousness, his shoulders seeming to bear more weight.Still, he wouldn’t confide in her about it, and in the few times she had interacted with his parents and siblings since meeting them, she hadn’t been able to figure it out. They were making an effort to cover it up, and even she couldn’t know. After all, she wasn’t part of the family.

She thought that Caleb wanted to tell her, but maybe that was just what she wanted to think. People changed, but that didn’t change the worry she felt over the feeling that the light-hearted boy she’d first known him to be was slowly being snuffed out.

What she did know was that Leo had become noticeably thinner, and it wasn’t as if he’d had weight to lose. He wasn’t just skinny; he had become slightly skeletal in places, particularly his face and wrists. With his pale skin and nearly-white blond hair, he appeared ghostly. 

She couldn’t imagine the weight loss was intentional. The King was not okay.

But when she had asked Caleb about it, he had only shrugged and said, “He’s not sleeping.”

Out on the water, however, everything was open. They could still see land, but even the palace looked small, looming over the village like a weed over a patch of grass. The breeze was strong but not aggressive, and when they lowered the sails, they were able to float without drifting much, even without dropping an anchor.

Whatever was wrong on land, they were free of it now. Even if it was only temporary.

She joined Caleb on the bench he had chosen near the middle of the boat, resting her head on his shoulder. He may not have been part of the working class, but she had seen him with a sword, going back and forth with either Vance or his brother, James, and she could feel the muscle in his arms. Warmth radiated off of him, as she inhaled deeply, breathing him in. 

For the first time in a long time, there wasn’t a hint of tension in her body.

They sat in comfortable silence, as the breeze brushed their hair, the boat creaking as it rocked. Caleb rested his hand on her knee and kissed her forehead, pressing his face into her hair. 

“I didn’t realize,” he said wistfully, as he raised his head again.

Marie sat up too, looking up at him. “You didn’t realize what?”

He looked away from her, staring out at the water. “What I was missing,” he said. “What my position was taking away from me.” His smile was almost bitter. “What a real relationship feels like… Or a real family.”

His words lingered between them. Marie didn’t know what she was supposed to say to that, if anything at all.

“Your family is the one that I always wanted but thought didn’t exist.” Caleb rubbed his thumb against his wrist. It looked bruised, but, half-covered by the fabric of his shirt sleeve, she couldn’t be sure. “Everybody thinks that being a prince is a fairytale, but I always thought that having a family like yours was.”

“But it’s not.” Marie reached out and turned his head back toward her. He needed to shave, and the stubble along his jawline was prickly against her fingertips. “You could have it, you know, a different life. As long as you’re with me, my family would take you in. M—” She resisted the urge to say, Maybe that’s why the universe brought us together. “My parents would treat you as their son, and my brothers would treat you as their brother.”

“I know they would,” he said, “but unless I abdicate and leave it to James or Ana to figure out, I will be king one day. Soon.”

“And you won’t abdicate?”

“No.” The answer was not a surprise, but the sadness in his eyes when he gave it was. “I won’t do that to them. The trade-off for having power is misery. I know that. I’ve anticipated it my whole life, watching the weight of it slowly crush my father. I could try to ignore it, but not anymore. I don’t want them to have to learn that too. Nobody ever really looked out for me, but I can look out for them.”

“Caleb,” Marie said, running a hand through his dark hair. “What happened to changing things?”

“I still want to do that, but even if things get better for everyone else, they won’t for me.” He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. “I’ll still have to lead.” For a moment, he paused. When he opened his eyes again, they were nearly bloodshot. “And so would my children.”

The idea hung between them in the air, neither of them able to look away from the other. Children. It was something she hadn’t thought about much before she had met him, but now, sometimes, when she thought about Caleb, her hypothetical children would come to mind too. They were always little and innocent, a perfect mix of the two of them. 

She wondered how much he had thought about it. In his family, children were a necessity because they were heirs, but she hoped he saw them as more than that. They were still young, but there was no one else she could imagine as the father of her children. She hoped he wanted her to be the mother of his.

But she knew what he was implying. If her children were also his, they would face the same life he did. He was warning her.

“I can try and run, but I’ll never be able to change who I am or where I come from,” Caleb said, locking his eyes with hers. “I’ll always be a Martinez.”

She thought of the night he had taken her to the Hall of Kings. Even in death, the long line of men could stare down anyone who dared to approach them, and each and every one of them was in some way related to Caleb. 

“What if it ends with me?” Sometimes, his words echoed in her head, a summary of all of his fears. Some days, he wanted to be a king who used his power to change the world, and others, he didn’t want to be a king at all, either because he believed he wasn’t capable, because he was busy drowning in his own self-pity, or, most likely, both.

She didn’t blame him. The figures that loomed over him cast long shadows.

“You don’t want this,” he said, shaking his head. “You don’t want to live this life, and you don’t want us to build a family together.”

Marie set her mouth in a firm line, drawing her hand away from him. “Don’t tell me what I want.”

Caleb scoffed. The switch in his tone, from worried to accusatory, was abrupt. “Why are you like this?”

She glared at him, her chest hot. “Like what?”

“So against your own self-interest.”

“I’m not.”

“But you are. I warn you. I tell you what this kind of life is like, and you’re still here.” She didn’t think he’d meant to raise his voice at her, but he had. It was the first time it had ever happened, and in his desperation, he didn’t appear to notice. “Are you some kind of crazy?”

Marie felt her jaw clench involuntarily as she resisted the urge to slap him clean across the face. He had hinted at the idea that she would be better off without him and his inheritance, but never had he spoken to her this way. Not once.

Maybe there was a hint of his father in him after all. Rumors had long circulated throughout the capital about the King’s temper—content one second, tearing someone apart the next. She’d always dismissed them, but now she had to wonder if maybe there was truth to them.

Regardless, he wouldn’t speak to her that way. Nobody spoke to her that way. 

“I’m not crazy,” she said bluntly. “I’m just the first person not to take orders from you.”

Caleb straightened. He had been conditioned not to react emotionally, to mask his true feelings. But she knew him, and she knew that she had pierced him with a needle. “I have other people like that.”

“Like who?” Marie demanded, her voice sharp. “Even Vance is technically in your service, even if you’re also friends.”

Caleb didn’t say anything, averting his gaze. He knew he had crossed a line with her, and he didn’t know how to respond when she crossed a line in return. He wasn’t used to anyone—with the exception of his parents—responding to him as she just had. With honesty. 

“I’m still here because I want to be. Why won’t you just let me?”

Still, he said nothing.

She took his face in her hands and forced him to look at her. His eyes were wide, but he didn’t try to shove her off. She hoped he could feel the intensity of her gaze as she whispered, “Why?”

“Because I love you.”

Body tingling, Marie let him go, bringing her hands back down to her lap. Painfully aware of his gaze, she stuttered as her tongue twisted, suddenly made of lead. “You love me?”

“Of course, I do.” Caleb’s dark eyebrows furrowed together. “You didn’t know that?”

They stared at each other like it was the last time they would ever meet. Like they were trying to memorize every detail of each other’s faces. Eyes, lips, nose, chin, jaw, eyebrows, eyelashes, freckles, scars, lines, and even blemishes. Each and every detail was sacred.

Her voice was barely a whisper. “You never said it.”

“Well, here, this is me saying it.” Caleb brought his hand up and trailed a finger along her lower lip. There was a huskiness to the edge of his voice as he kept it low and measured. “I love you.”

“Then stop doing that. Stop letting me in just to push me away. Just trust me.” Marie kissed him, his lips soft against hers as he kissed her back. “Because I love you too.”

They lingered there for a moment, their faces separated only by a small sliver of space, breathing in each other’s air and staring at each other’s faces. Water lapped at the side of the boat as it rocked gently. Swooping past them, a bird cawed, the sound piercing through their silence.

Caleb moved so quickly that Marie almost didn’t see him coming.

In the blink of an eye, his lips collided aggressively with hers. He kissed her so hard that he pushed her backward, and they both tumbled to the ground, but it didn’t stop them. On the floor of the sailboat, they tore at each other, almost forgetting that they needed to come up for air. The heat of it was intoxicating; they couldn’t get close enough.

But Caleb pulled back, his breathing ragged as he hovered over her, shaking his head. “We can’t,” he said, his eyes running up and down her body. She sensed that she wasn’t the only one who wanted this to go further. “Not yet.”

Marie wanted to ask why not, but she knew why. Being a prince meant Caleb needed to be careful. They needed to wait. The question was: How much longer?

He stumbled back to his feet, and she accepted his hand when he held it out to pull her up with him. His hand on the small of her back, he sat her back down on the bench, his hair disheveled and his eyes wild.

“Wait here,” he said, and turned his back before she could ask what he was doing. 

He disappeared into the lower cabin, and she was suddenly alone. Without him there, the boat felt much bigger, even if it was the exact same size as her parents’ boat, which she took out alone all the time. 

It was a strange thing, feeling this way. She suspected that the thoughts in his head switched as fast as hers did—the consequence of the things they wanted and the things they knew they could have contradicting each other. They wanted to be together, but she didn’t see how they could. It was unrealistic, but no matter how many times she tried to remind herself of that, she always forgot again. 

When there came times that they were on the edge of moving into something more, one of them would always step back. One of them would always come to their senses and remember that each of their actions had consequences. If they took anything too far, there was no telling where it could lead.

These were the moments that were the most painful, when they both knew exactly what they could lose. What, at any second, could be taken away from them.

She ran her fingers through her tousled hair, fixing it as best she could, and just as she adjusted her shirt, pulling her sleeve back up where it had fallen off her shoulder, Caleb emerged again. His eyes were so wide that it almost looked as if he weren’t capable of blinking, and he grasped a tiny piece of paper in his hand, which he seemed to have twisted into a tiny loop.

When he sat back down beside her and took her left hand in his, he let out a shaky breath. She could see that his hands were shaking too, if only slightly. For once, he wasn’t masking his fear.

Marie laughed half-heartedly, trying to relieve the tension that had suddenly taken hold of the space between them. But he didn’t relax. Instead, he tightened his grip on his fragile loop of paper.

Then, quietly, his voice hoarse, he said, “It’s really not too much? All of this? Me? My future?”

“I—” Of course, it was too much, but somehow, it all felt small. Against the feelings that swirled between them, her doubts about what they could or couldn’t be together were nothing. “No. It’s not.”

Caleb nodded and inhaled through his nose, closing his eyes as he began to rock slightly in his seat. His visible discomfort triggered the butterflies in her stomach, and she had to fight to keep herself from squirming too.

Finally, he cleared his throat. “Do you know why I love you?” he asked, his grip on her tightening.

Marie shook her head. She hadn’t known there was a specific reason. She had thought he either loved her or he didn’t. “Why?”

“I love you because you make me feel like I belong somewhere. You make me feel… You make me feel like I have a home. A real home.” He hesitated, chuckling nervously. A thin layer of sweat gleamed on his forehead, reflected in the clamminess of his hand. “You are my home.” His voice broke. “I thought that was just a thing people said to exaggerate the love they felt, but I know now that it’s not. Because I feel it too.”

She reached out to touch his face. Tears had started to well up in his eyes, on the verge of falling down his cheeks. Even as her heart thought it was competing in a race, she managed to keep her voice gentle and calm. “Caleb…”

“Marie.” He cleared his throat again. “I’m a different person when I’m with you. A better person. And I don’t want that to be a temporary thing. I don’t want it to be a snippet in my memory…” His hand shook as he held up the loop of paper he had crafted. “I want it to be forever.”

Now, Marie couldn’t stop it. Her throat tightened as she stared at the paper loop—the paper ring. When she looked back up at him, she found it in herself to meet his eyes, filled with an even mix of hope and terror. The first of many tears rolled down his cheek when he blinked.

Realizing her mouth was hanging open, she forced it shut. “You’re asking…”

Her voice trailed off as he nodded. 

“I’m asking you to build a life with me,” he said, his voice a nervous whisper. “I’m, I’m asking you to… Well—”

“Marry you.”

Marie couldn’t believe the words coming from her own mouth, but as she stared back down at his hastily-made ring, she knew that he was asking her exactly what she thought he was. It was something she had never truly thought would happen, even as she daydreamed about their life together. Each time she brought him home, she was torn between hope that what they had would last and her resignation to the fact that it would eventually die. When she looked at herself in the mirror at night, she tried to remind herself that he was the Heir to the Throne and she had little role to play in the life that would bring.

But mind, body, and soul, there was nothing she wanted more than him. She wanted him every day for the rest of their lives. His presence, his heart, his body, all of him. Always.

With a sense of finality, she plucked the paper ring from the palm of his hand and slid it onto her ring finger, where it fit surprisingly well. “Yes,” she said, and looked back up at him. “I’ll marry you.”

A smile brighter than any she had ever seen him wear before exploded across his face. He nearly knocked her to the floor again, as he wrapped his arms around her, kissing her face and hair feverishly. Tears filling her own eyes, she returned his embrace as fiercely as she physically could and held him as his body shook with joyous sobs. 

She felt as if her head and her body were separate entities. Nothing was real; it couldn’t be. Nothing about her and Caleb should work, and yet, it did. 

But even through her joy, she thought again of what it would really mean for her to bind her life to his. The pit in her stomach reminded her that Caleb would be king, and if Caleb was king, she would be queen, and their children would be the immediate heirs to the same throne that cast such a heavy shadow over their father’s life.

They didn’t exist yet, but she knew she didn’t want that for them. She wanted them to have more freedom and to know the world as she did. She wanted them to feel love and warmth, even within the walls of Martinez Palace. 

—   —   —

Later that day, they sat on the floor of the boat, a blanket beneath them, watching the sky turn from the blue of day to the pink and purple mixture that came just before the darkness of night. They needed to return to land soon, but that would mean breaking the bubble they had created for themselves on the water. It would mean seeing their families and announcing their engagement to them. Neither one of them was quite ready for that.

Caleb was sitting up against the side of the boat, Marie lying with her head against his chest. It was warm outside, but the warmth of his body and the security of his arm around her were still welcome comforts, enough so that she almost wanted to suggest to him that they sleep in the boat and return in the morning. But she knew they couldn’t do that. Her family would worry, and his would send at least half an army after them. It wasn’t worth the panic it would create.

He had promised to get her a real ring, but, while it would be a welcome gift, as far as she was concerned, the only one she needed was already on her finger. The more she stared at it, with its crinkled edges and unstable, flimsy design, the warmer the feeling in her chest became. She loved Caleb regardless of whether he gave her a ring made of a blade of grass, a string, a flower, or even a piece of paper. They had their entire lives for fancy jewels. For now, for this, a paper ring was enough.

TO BE CONTINUED