Page 55 of Bianca and the Monsters

I finally notice what my dad is wearing. “You look sharp in that outfit.” His tan apparel, made from soft fabric, looks like a cross between Mr. Darcy and a traveling bard. He’s wearing a freaking cape.

Dad glances down at himself and then back at me, displaying some seriously pinched lips. “I feel like a circus performer, and you know about the standing restraining order I have on clowns of all varieties—the happy, sad, and deeply conflicted ones.” Then he smiles warmly. “But, honey, you look amazing, perfect, absolutely right. It’s so obvious that you’ve found your home here. I’m incredibly grateful to your furry monster for making it possible for me to see you here, to know how right I was about your future.”

“I owe everything to Nico.” It’s impossible not to imagine resting against his fur as I think of him. “He was the first to risk everything to cross the border to meet me. He’s the one who invited me to come here and requested the honor of courting me.”

“You jumped at the chance, didn’t you?”

“Actually, I asked a bunch of questions first. You would have been very impressed, and surprised. I made sure I would be okay and free to come home if I wanted. You weren’t supposed to know I ever left.”

The now-familiar chill revisits my heart as we both face the permanent separation that toyed with our lives.

“So if I died, how did Nico save me?”

“I don’t know. I was busy grieving when he did it. But he somehow managed to go back through to the moment after we first left, and then he probably used another portal to reach you before it was too late.”

My dad’s blue eyes reveal a hint of humor; somber isn’t his jam. “I’m pretty sure the geezer squad are still wondering what was in the water, since they all shared the same hallucination of a giant blue/black monster shoving my golf cart into a tree and vanishing.”

My mind takes me on a ride, imagining that event in exceptional detail. But the memory of my dad’s last message interrupts my daydream. “Dad, you left me a message from the hospital. You said all the stuff you should have said, but you also said that you should have told me things that you never did. Things about my mother.”

Watching the healthy glow fade from his face makes me instantly regret saying anything. “You don’t have to.”

“I should have told you. Ishouldhave found a way, but it’s not a happy story. I never wanted you to be forced to carry that burden the way I was.” Pain—deep, raw,oldpain—surfaces in his eyes, something I’ve never witnessed. Something he’s managed to conceal all these years. “Can we just wait? I know that’s not fair. But I would rather you have your Nico back and be beyond this challenging part of your adventure before we go wallowing in the past.”

“Dad, you know I never felt like I was missing anything, right? You were always more than enough for me. And yes, let’s wait until my family is back together and we’re all sipping tea and taking a breather between adventures. Then I really want andneedto share your burdens. We aren’t in the real world anymore. We don’t have to be what anyone else thinks we should be. You were already a perfect father. Let me try to be a perfect daughter.”

“Baby, you are. You are everything I ever hoped you would be… at leastnow. That sad sack who called me crying over the embodiment of mediocrity namedJack—well,shehad room for improvement.” He gestures at our surroundings and then me. “ButthisBianca, perfection.”

I smile at that, grateful beyond words for this moment and thatJackisn’t even remotely visible in the rearview mirror of my life.

“We can’t go back—is that right?” Dad asks, leaning on a pillow, then moving it until it’s perfectly situated.

“I don’t know. I’m not sure whether the health effects from Pennie’s pool will last.” I want to declare that leaving is out of the question, but it is his life… I guess. “We could ask him. But, for me, it’s not an option. Bastien can’t cross the border and we can’t be separated. Honestly, I don’t want to go back.” I stew for a second and then blurt, “Would it bother you to stay here forever?”

Dad mulls my question while staring out the window as the carriage begins to move away from the castle. “It seems strange to just abandon all our stuff, but it is just stuff.” He shrugs, giving me an indulgent smile. “You really are all that mattered to me in my life and if you’re here, then here is where I belong. But I don’t want to overstep on your adventures, so I might have to find some of my own.”

“I think that can be arranged.”

The carriage is now moving at a faster pace and I finally abandon my stiff posture and find my most comfy spot on my couch.

With both of us happily settled, he asks, “Will you tell me about them, how all of this began?”

So I do. I tell him about my pronouncement to the universe, ditching my job like the bad habit it was, drunken packing, and Nico’s arrival. I gloss over the sexy parts, sharing the PG version of all the events between meeting Nico and this moment. My dad listens to all of it, so deep in thought I can’t read his expression.

I finally demand, “Well? What do you think?”

“Does it matter what I think?”

I weigh that for a moment. “Not so much that I would change anything, but enough that I’d like to know.”

“Okay, I think this feels like fate. How else could you have met Bastien, heard his song, known his name, iffateweren’t playing a role here? Those feathers now decorating your skin prove that. And they’re definitely better than the tattoo you wanted to commemorate the band that broke your heart by breaking up.”

Aw, I still miss them, greatest musical heartbreak of my life.

Dad pauses and I don’t interrupt his thinking time, for once. “I’ve never been afateguy, but the fact that I’m lounging in this spiffy carriage on my way to meet a queen so that you can get your monster back… well, I’m thinking this isn’t just a random event in any realm.”

“Wow, that’s a powerful take on our situation here. And none of thisfeelsrandom to me. It hasn’t since Nico first arrived. For me, that other life was the one that feltoff, where this one is a perfectly fitting glass slipper.”

His lips quirk. “You certainly went totaloverachieveron the syllables, didn’t you?”

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