Chapter 51

I didn't move, I was petrified.

"Josh" I said reaching over and touching his back

"I can't take it anymore Olivia"

He said without turning to me, and in one swift movement he turned around and pulled me around the waist, and what separated us was my perfectly round belly, when I noticed him smiling I knew it was "Josh's thing" and I got ready. - Go ahead and ask Aaryn, what can't I take anymore? - I said, still smiling.

"What can't you take anymore Josh?"

I smiled even more.

"To go another day without calling you my wife.

I felt a chill run down my spine, Josh knelt in front of me and held my hand, he looked at me with those sweet eyes full of love, passion and lust.

"Olivia, the confused Olivia, too stubborn, you never take orders, actually you do.... You just don't follow. Beautiful in a way that confuses me, made me literally make a threat of war just to never let you out of my sight again... I love you in a way I can't even say. I'm sorry! Will you marry me, Aaryn?"

I stammered to answer, but there was no other answer. There was no other possibility of life for me.

There was no other place to go but that, Josh was my beginning, middle and end.

"Yes! Of course I did!"

He stood up, and kissed me sweetly, ran his wedding ring down my finger.

"I love you so much Olivia, so much!"

"I love you More Josh.... So much more!"

And that was my perfect day with the perfect proposal.

And I would change absolutely nothing about what was, that moment was unique!

There was no pomp, there was no fluffy dress. There was just three days later me and Josh on the edge of a cliff, where we stood together body and soul for the first time, in the dead of night when we met, the wind whipping hard through my hair and all the people we loved around us.

We swore eternal love, complicity, and respect. We swore a marriage far removed from the molds of my parents' marriage, thank goodness!

He looked at me with such devotion that he made me look like a romantic fool every time he touched me. I had a deja vu moment at one time or another, watching as if it were that very day our initial dialogue, full of passion and prejudice. I thought about how many times I thought about him sitting on that rock, and that I never imagined living as intensely as I did until then.

That day, we were embraced by everyone. My mother was there, and that moment would never come again, so I tried to enjoy every second as if they were my last.

I never smiled as much as I did that day.

The long awaited day arrived, I felt the labor pains and the pain of giving birth to something new. Josh sat next to me and held my hand, I just allowed him to stay inside that room, I wanted that moment to be shared only with him. And as I watched the midwives rush around the room, I tried to calm myself, and breathe looking into Josh's emotional eyes.

"It's going to be okay, just breathe okay? I'm here with you!"

"I know you are"

I pushed and screamed and cried, and nothing could prepare me for that feeling, when my strength ran out Josh pushed me up, and in the midst of that exhaustion I remembered everything I had lived for that child to come into the world. I pushed harder and felt my head spin, and as I closed my eyes in total exhaustion I heard a cry. And I smiled!

"Congratulations! It's a beautiful little girl!"

Said the midwife, and I finally opened my eyes and saw her handing the little child to Josh, who had tears in his eyes and a silly smile on his lips.

"Olivia, our daughter is absolutely perfect!"

He said handing her to me, and the moment I looked into her green eyes I saw him, and in the haughty way he looked at me I saw myself. And that was the perfect blend of me and him, and never in the world could anything beat that feeling.

"We haven't thought of any girl's name, I always thought it would be a boy."

I smiled, and said nothing. Go figure the gods heard my heart's desire after all! I decided without thinking,

"Her name will be Aurora!"

And Josh readily understood why.

Aurora is a brightness visible in the sky before sunrise that indicates the beginning of the day. In the figurative sense aurora means childhood, youth, the beginning of life, and that's what it meant to me. My Aurora!

I watched her grow stronger and stronger, smarter and smarter every day. When I saw them running out of the castle, I loved the feeling it brought me. The comfort of knowing that that strong, perfect little girl would never have come into the world if I didn't have the strength, and changed my mind between one dinner or another, one kiss, or one argument with Aurora now a teenager.

She was a symbol.

But she was not a symbol of a revolution, or of a war. She was not a symbol for anyone of anything at all.

But she was for me.

The mark between apathy and having something relevant to place, she and Josh marked my transition from problem girl, to pushy woman. And even today when I look into Josh's eyes, I feel like I did the first time. Time for us never passed and I would still stare at him all night without ever getting tired of it. But now, I would also wake up to watch my daughter as she sleeps. Her expression, her breathing and the way she moved. She couldn't be more like her father.

People spend their lives in a perpetual search for extreme happiness, I did that myself. But when I live my days in the quiet of my palace, I know I am happy. Because for me, happiness is hidden in the details of my days. It hides when Josh runs his warm hand across my face, when I feel his body brush against mine. When I see him hug Aurora, when I see the look of admiration and respect she gives him. It was the way I would like to see my father.

I wonder if he would love her, if he knew how strong and sweet she is, or if he would find her a thorn, as he thought of me.

Vivian says that this is nonsense, and that I should focus on my present.

The present was there, I was not ignoring it. But I will always wonder if something could have been different.

The kingdoms were prosperous, merged they went well. The days were joyful and full of love. Even when in her worst phase Aurora schismed that she wanted to know the world beyond the castle, and even though Josh was completely against it... She needed to find her way.

I looked into her curious eyes as I read the books in her little library, I didn't know what her destiny was. And I just did what a wise mother would do.

I went up to her room, packed her bags, the way a mother would, and carried a veritable multitude of trinkets. But all right! I carried the heavy suitcase through the castle, until I found it again in the same place.