He bobs his head up and down to the music as he looks around the store contemplatively. ‘That actually makes perfect sense for you.’ He takes my hand. ‘Come with me, beautiful; I think I have an idea for the perfect thing for you. One that will make you’ – he grins at me – ‘dazzle the whole entire world.’
I smile as I follow him out of the store, hoping that today’s efforts will be worth it, that maybe somehow I can make the night magical, or at least get Kayden to smile. That alone would make all efforts worth it.
Later that day, I return to my dorm room with a bag that’s holding what I think will be the perfect costume. I know I’m being silly, that I’m almost twenty and should not be getting excited over a silly party, but I am.
Last Halloween, Kayden and I weren’t technically boyfriend and girlfriend. Yeah, we were hanging out, but that was about it. And about a month later, around Thanksgiving, everything fell apart when Kayden beat up Caleb for what he did to me and then his father beat up him and stabbed him for getting in trouble with the police over it. It was a terrible, horrible time. I know Kayden still thinks about it a lot, even though he doesn’t talk to me about it too much. So I want the end of this year and future ones to be fun. Plain and simple fun.
After I put my bags away, I turn on my iPod, hitting random before popping my headphones on. ‘Winter Song’ by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson clicks on, totally fitting for the storm outside. Then I get my laptop from the nightstand and plop down onto the bed.
I do a little writing for my internship, but after getting bored with it I change documents and work on one of my Advance Fiction projects for my end of the year portfolio. The theme is fiction, but Professor Gladsyman pressed that we should write about something that feels real, something that’s resting on the line between fiction and nonfiction.
Sometimes, I feel …
Yeah, that’s all I have so far. It’s not like I’m having writer’s block. Okay, well maybe I do, but it’s not only that. Writing the vague truth, that’s the hard part. But I’m not even supposed to be writing the truth, am I? Honestly, I’m kind of confused which route I’m supposed to go, especially since the professor kept making air quotes whenever he said fiction. I swear he wanted us to read his mind or something to figure out what he wanted.
Sighing, I delete my whole three words and then take up the hobby of staring at the blank, white screen and that damn blinking cursor, the one that I swear is whispering, you better find an idea, over and over again, not to encourage me – to torture me. Every time I try to get it to stop, the voice only grows louder and I swear to God I’m going crazy – writer crazy.
After a while, I get up and get a snack from my dresser drawer then I take out my dress – aka my costume – and admire it again, totally procrastinating.
When I’d tried the dress on in the store, I’d felt like a gothic princess. Yeah, it was of a cliché thought – well, minus the gothic part – but I welcomed it, remembering how I used to dream of being a princess and going to prom before it got squashed. After I was raped, I shut down completely, living only within myself. I chopped off my hair and only spoke to my journal for the most part, everything I was feeling pouring out through that pen. That’s what I did until I left for college, which means I convinced myself all that high school stuff was silly when really I wanted to go. Never happened.
‘It could be like prom for you,’ Seth had said when he was trying to convince me that this was indeed what I needed to wear. ‘And you could be like Cinderella and lose your glass slipper so Kayden has to find you and give it back.’
I’d been holding the dress up to myself and gazing at my reflection in the store’s mirror. ‘Seth, this is just a party. And this is definitely not a dress Cinderella would wear.’
‘Then be Callierella,’ he said with a wink. ‘Or Calliepunzel and you can lock yourself in your bedroom until Kayden begs for you to let him in.’
I had snorted a laugh. ‘Are you drunk? I mean, I know you had a margarita at lunch, but it usually takes a lot more for you to get tipsy.’
‘I’m not drunk,’ he said, snatching the dress from my hand. ‘I’m just trying to give you the fairytale you deserve.’
‘Life isn’t a fairytale,’ I replied. But in the end, I bought the dress, kind of wishing it was.
If life were a fairytale, I think to myself as I hang the dress up in the closet, it would be dark and twisted a lot. Then again, some of those fairytales do have a dark side, an evil villain, a wicked dilemma to get over like a curse. But I would never want to be a princess, at least the kind that waits around for a prince to save them.
I’d want to save myself. And maybe the prince as well. Maybe we could save each other together.
An idea sparkles inside my mind and I let out an excited clap and cheer. ‘Holy crap, I’ve got it!’
Right then, Harper enters the room with a bag slung over her shoulder. She gives me this weird look as she sets her things down on the dresser and her bag on the bed. You okay? she mouths because I have my headphones in.
I nod eagerly as I skip back to my bed. ‘Yeah, just got a really cool idea.’ Then I turn to the computer and place my fingers on the keyboard, listening to the voice inside my head that doesn’t belong to a cursor, but a character, as I type the first three words.
The Truthful Fairytale.
Chapter 4
#101 Don’t Let Your Family Get to You.
Kayden
Working at the gym isn’t what I want to do for the rest of my life, but it gives me a cash flow. It’s loud and always has this weird smell I never notice when I’m working out but can barely breathe through when I’m working. It usually takes me at least an hour before my nostrils get used to it. Today, though, it’s giving me a headache, or maybe that’s just because I didn’t sleep very well last night. I want to lie down on the floor and go to sleep, but instead I have to stand at the front counter for four hours straight and talk to people when they need help.
My phone’s been buzzing in my pocket all day, but I can’t answer it until my break. I think it might be Callie, and it’s driving me insane because I want to talk to her, yet I don’t. After our conversation the other day about moving in, I’ve been worried about what she’ll say, afraid she’s going to ask me what my decision is and I’m going to have to tell her I have no clue. My only hope left is to maybe sort out my jumbled thoughts at my therapy appointment tomorrow.