What Comes Next: Rewrite the Ending

Summary: When it all becomes too much, Allie makes a difficult decision. Set in the beginning of Book 3.

Note: This is a bit of an experiment with an AU set in the TRR universe. I’ve been kind of disappointed with Book 3 so far, and I got this idea of having my Liam MC realize she couldn’t take things in Cordonia anymore, and where she would go from there.

Disclaimer: I still absolutely adore Liam, and him with my MC. This is just an alternate timeline exploration, in which my MC still gets a happily ever after.

Telling Liam she’s leaving is the worst conversation Allie thinks she’s ever had. She knows it won’t be easy, but she also knows it’s what’s right for her.

She’s afraid that she’ll cry. She’s afraid that she’ll take one look at him and won’t be able to get the words out. She’s afraid he’ll kiss her and she’ll convince herself she can live like this, afraid for her life and constantly being deemed as not measuring up to some impossible standard.

Allie plays every possible scenario out in her head, over and over, trying to prepare and partly trying to stall, before she actually makes her way to Liam’s room. They’re leaving Penelope’s duchy the next morning, and she can’t bring herself to not say anything any longer. The longer she waits, the worse she’s going to feel, and the more of a mess she’s going to leave.

She hates the idea of making things harder for Liam, hates the idea of leaving him. It’s not his fault, the mess Cordonia is in or what people are saying about her. But she pictures her life five, ten years down the road, and as much as she wants Liam, she doesn’t want…this. This fear and self-doubt and constant pressure to persuade people to support her and see her as good enough.

She thinks she has the words down, knows what she’s going to say, and then Liam opens his door, and everything leaves her. He smiles, leaning in to kiss her softly before he ushers her in and shuts the door behind them. His smile fades when she remains near the door, her posture stiff.

“Allie? What’s wrong?”

Allie glances up and sees that look on his face, the one that usually makes her think that all of this is worth it as long as she has him, and feels her heart sink. She’s going to crush him. She’s afraid she won’t be able to actually do this, and she almost starts crying before she even gets a single word out.

“Allie,” Liam says gently, a tinge of worry in his voice. “Talk to me. What is it?”

He comes over and takes her hands, his eyes searching hers earnestly, and she breaks.

“I’m sorry,” she sobs.

~~~~~~~~~~

Afterwards, as Allie slips back into her room and mindlessly packs her bag, she can’t even remember exactly what she said. She knows she told Liam she loved him, that that wasn’t why she was leaving. She knows she lost track of how many times she apologized. She knows she felt horribly guilty when she said it had all finally hit her and become too much.

She knows she meant it when she said, “No, Liam, I’ll never regret that” when he asked her if she regretted agreeing to marry him. She doesn’t. In another time, in another place, under different circumstances, she has no doubt they’d be together.

Liam had been stoic and composed as always in the end, but she could read the agony and heartache on his face. He told her he understood, that it was a lot to try and handle, that he just wanted her to be happy. She knows she hurt him and hates the feeling, but she doesn’t allow herself to linger after. She can’t comfort him, not without making this worse and confusing them both.

It doesn’t really feel real until Allie opens her phone to buy a plane ticket home. She imagines sitting in her apartment, alone, thinking about Liam, and feels a hollow ache. Her finger hovers over the button to book her flight. Before she can talk herself out of it, she goes back, changes her destination to LAX, and books it quickly.

She’s been meaning to go to L.A. to visit Mel anyway, she rationalizes. And sunshine and the beach sound much more appealing than a city full of too many memories right now. Mel answers right away when Allie calls from the airport the next morning, and a half-laugh, half-strangled sob bubbles out when Allie hears her yell, “Shut up! It’s the queen of Cordonia!” to whoever she’s with.

“Al! How’s royal life? Is everyone still as snobby? Have you fired Madeleine yet?”

It’s refreshing that her college roommate is still as exuberant and bold as ever, a welcome change from the people she’s been dealing with.

“I left,” Allie blurts out.

“What? You left? When? Where are you?” Mel fires off the questions in rapid succession.

“This morning. I’m at the airport,” Allie mumbles into the phone.

“Please don’t tell me you’re going to go sit alone in New York,” Mel says.

“No. I was actually planning-“

“To come here,” Mel interrupts her.

“I was hoping to,” Allie admits.

“When do you land? I’ll go buy more wine.”

~~~~~~~~~~

As exhausted as she is, once she’s sitting in Mel’s apartment, everything comes pouring out: having to grit her teeth against the snide comments from Madeleine and the other nobility, the sheer exhaustion of trying to convey stability, the constant worry about her safety and her future.

“It was just so much. Too much,” Allie says, swallowing the last of her second glass of wine.

“I feel terrible,” she admits quietly. “I love Liam, and I just…left him. I know this is kind of what I signed up for, but…”

“No way,” Mel says firmly. “I know you love him, Al, but worrying about repeated assassination attempts shouldn’t be in anyone’s wedding vows. Or getting treated like a dog. Hell, I know dogs who get treated better.”

Allie laughs. “You live in L.A. Nothing would surprise me.”

She yawns widely and glances at the clock. “Oh, wow. It’s three in the morning.”

Mel pops up from the couch and grabs their wine glasses.

“Okay,” she declares, “You, get some sleep. I’m giving you the most horrifically touristy L.A. experience ever while you’re here. People watching at Santa Monica Pier fixes everything.”

“Everything?” Allie asks with a raised eyebrow and a smirk.

“Shut it,” Mel scolds her teasingly.

~~~~~~~~~~

Someone knocking on Mel’s door wakes her far too soon later that morning. Mel grumbles as she comes out of her room, looking through the peephole and then pulling the door open.

“Do you know what time it is?” she grouses to whoever is at the door.

“It’s nine,” a man’s voice says. “I thought we were going for a run.”

“Oh, shit. Sorry. Come in.”

Allie runs her hands through her hair and sits up from the couch, wondering briefly if she looks as exhausted as she feels.

“This is Allie,” Mel says, gesturing at her. “Allie, this is Owen. I promise he doesn’t come knocking this early every day.”

“Nine o’clock isn’t early,” Owen calls as Mel disappears back into her room.

He glances at her, saying “Hey” and smiling in greeting. He’s tall, Allie notices right away. And she’d be blind not to notice that he’s good looking, but the main thing she notices is that he has a nice, easy-going smile. It’s been a while since she’s seen a genuine smile.

“Please don’t tell me you think nine o’clock is early. I’d really feel like a dick then,” Owen says to her.

Allie smiles. “Not normally, no. It was a late night.”

“Mel said you flew in from Cordonia?”

“I did,” she confirms. “It’s kind of a long story.”

Mel bustles back out, yanking her hair up into a ponytail.

“You want to come?” she asks Allie.

“Running? You’re kidding, right?” Allie replies, standing from the couch.

“Hey! If you’re going to sit here and wallow, then you’re coming with, whether you like it or not,” Mel declares.

“I won’t wallow,” Allie promises. “I’m going to make a massive pot of coffee. Maybe watch some awful daytime TV.”

Mel narrows her eyes, then says, “Fine. But we’re all doing lunch afterwards.”

“I forgot how bossy you are,” Allie says.

“And you missed it,” Mel retorts. “We’ll be back in an hour.”

Owen smiles at her again when he and Mel leave, a friendly smile as he says, “See you later.”

~~~~~~~~~~

There’s something about Owen that draws Allie in almost immediately. He’s so laid-back and easy to talk to that when he asks her a few days after she’s left Cordonia what brought her to L.A., it all comes spilling out. She doesn’t mean for it to, at least not yet, but he always seems to put her at ease when he’s around.

“I am so sorry,” Allie laughs when she finishes with spontaneously booking a flight to L.A. “I didn’t mean to dump all of that on you.”

“I don’t mind,” Owen reassures her.

He refills their coffee cups and settles back on Mel’s couch next to her while they wait for her to get home.

“Damn, though. That sounds like a romance movie gone really, really wrong,” he comments.

“It does,” Allie realizes.

“Would you have demanded a rewrite if it was?” Owen asks her.

Allie smiles, a little sorrowfully. “You know…no. I wouldn’t. The ending and parts of the middle weren’t great, but it wasn’t all bad.”

“And the sequel?”

“The sequel is turning out to be surprisingly good so far,” she tells Owen, and she likes the little half-smile that crosses his face.

When Mel is working and Owen isn’t, Allie starts spending more time with him. It’s not intentional, but Mel insists Allie can’t sit alone in her apartment rotting (“I’m not rotting,” Allie protests, to which Mel argues that she will, with all the coffee she’s been drinking). She offers to get a hotel to get out of Mel’s space, but she waves Allie’s offer off.

“You cook, and I usually live off of frozen dinners. You can’t ditch me,” Mel insists.

Allie feels bad and tells Owen he doesn’t have to babysit or entertain her, but he just laughs good-naturedly.

“You make it sound like a chore, Allie. It’s not. I like spending time with you,” he tells her one day when they’re heading out to go hiking.

She likes spending time with him too. It’s comfortable and easy and she likes that the conversation flows so effortlessly between them. He’s from Chicago, she learns, and has an older sister. He’s an engineer and moved to L.A. because he got sick of cold Chicago winters.

They have a playfully heated debate about that, and Allie catches herself just before she says, “But in winter you can cuddle with someone to keep warm”.

She likes the friendship they’re developing, and she thinks she’ll miss him when she heads home, but she’s not ready for anything beyond that. One night they’re watching a movie while Mel is working, and Allie is so relaxed that she accidentally falls asleep against Owen’s shoulder. She wakes up when the ending credits start playing, warm and sleepy and comfortable, and turns into him instinctively when he goes to move.

“Oh. Sorry,” she says, feeling her face warm.

“No worries,” Owen says easily. “Though I’m a little offended you fell asleep during such a great movie.”

Allie laughs through a yawn. “I’ve seen it so many times, I think it just relaxes me to sleep.”

When Mel gets home, she’s as observant as ever, and asks Allie what happened after Owen leaves.

“We watched a movie,” Allie answers in confusion.

“You guys are acting weird,” Mel says. “Al. Seriously.”

“Seriously, nothing happened. I fell asleep on him and woke up when the movie ended.”

Mel pats the couch cushion next to her, and Allie groans as she sits.

“Allison,” Mel says sweetly.

“Melanie,” she answers evenly.

“Do you like him?”

“Oh my god,” Allie laughs. “I feel like I’m back in middle school.”

“I mean it. You’re my best friend. He’s a good friend.”

Allie huffs out a sigh. “He’s a nice guy. I like hanging out with him. But I just got out of an engagement. To a king. I was shot at. I’m not looking for anything other than being friends.”

And she’s not. But as the days pass, and the ache she feels gradually goes away, she’s a little surprised to find herself thinking about Owen more and more.