Sebastian POV
Location: Europe – Rome, Amsterdam, Paris
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She said we'd end the trip classy.
No more chaos. No more strip clubs. No more street food that tasted like burning regret.
"We'll go European," she declared. "Museums. Wine. Art. Culture."
She lied.
Rome was her dragging me to some underground techno dungeon at 2 a.m., screaming over the bass, "THIS IS WHAT A CLUB IS, SEBASTIAN!" while I clutched my overpriced mocktail like a lost child.
We danced until our legs gave out.
She pulled me to the Colosseum at sunrise afterward. We ate cold pizza on the steps.
And she said, "You're my favorite gladiator."
I didn't say it back. But I rested my head on her shoulder, and she didn't move for hours.
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Amsterdam was next.
She got us kicked out of a café for calling the brownies "underwhelming." Then dared me to race a guy on a bicycle at midnight while she threw flowers from a canal bridge like a Disney witch.
I lost.
She cackled.
Then she fed me something unholy from a street cart—raw herring with onions.
It took one bite.
Then I froze.
Then I gagged.
She was already ready.
"Spit it, baby," she said, holding out her palm like she was Saint Mary reborn.
"Sky, we're in Europe, not war—"
"Spit it, Sebastian Maddox."
I did.
Right into her palm.
Again.
Like I was a two-year-old with no dignity.
She wiped her hand. Didn't blink.
"You're lucky I like you."
"Remind me why again?"
"Because I'm the only one who'll let you ruin my manicure like this."
---
Paris was slower.
She took me to art galleries and read poetry in cafes and cried at the Eiffel Tower.
Not because of the view.
But because I smiled without faking it.
She saw it.
And said, "That's the one. That's the real you."
That night, we didn't go clubbing.
We just laid on the hotel roof.
She had wine.
I had juice.
She told me I was becoming someone beautiful.
I didn't believe her.
But I wanted to.
And maybe, for the first time, that was enough.
---
Three days later, she tried to feed me escargot.
Snails.
Literal snails.
I tried to be brave.
I wasn't.
I chewed once.
I gagged.
And with the reflexes of a superhero—
She held out her palm.
"C'mon, baby."
"Again?!"
"It's tradition now."
I spat it. I hated myself. She looked proud.
---
The world tour ended in Barcelona, on a rooftop, with her curled up beside me under a hotel blanket.
She whispered, "You're home now."
I asked her what she meant.
She didn't answer.
But she didn't need to.
Because for the first time in forever—
I felt it too.
---
She broke me out of hell, not with therapy or lectures, but with dance floors, bad food, and a palm that never flinched—even when I was disgusting, broken, or lost.
She never told me to spit it out.
She let me.
And she caught it every time.