Chapter 1: Disenchanted Fairy Tale

You would never believe it now, but as a child I loved fairy tales. There's no excuse, really. They weren't even the dark and twisty ones where the poor orphan children freeze to death on the street, comforted by the light of a solitary matchstick. Instead, I was fully enthralled by the sanitized, de-humanized, someday-my-prince-will-come-for-me storylines that Disney regularly churns out once a year. I wore my hair in a long braid for four months after reading Rapunzel. I spent an afternoon collecting dead branches and vines, placed them outside my bedroom door, and then fell asleep just waiting for someone to brave the forest fortress and wake me. I started talking to a mouse I found in the attic, trying to teach it how to carry thimbles and thread across the floor. You can imagine the horrified look I got from my mother when she discovered my little experimental foray.

This shouldn't be terribly surprising. What is it that all children crave most when they're young? Home comforts, security, wealth, fame … a guarantee of happily ever after. Come to think of it, not much changes after you grow up. The only difference is that, as an adult, you stop believing that fairy tales can actually happen. Well, maybe the original Hans Christian Anderson ones still have a shot, but Cinderella? Forget about it.

I was nine years old when reality came barging in, not so much a knight in shining armor as Alexander's army conquering Greece. It was an overcast day, which was rare for Los Angeles; yesterday's rain had dispelled the smog and the sky was an unpolluted shade of gray. I was in the backseat of the car, pointing out the atrocious grammatical errors that peppered the billboards on the sides of the freeway. Maybe I was too caustic in my grumblings, or maybe the errors were particularly egregious that day, but my dad took his eyes off the road to gaze where my finger pointed; that gaze has haunted me ever since.

A car had stalled in the middle freeway, and reflex made my dad hit the brakes and change lanes. It would have been a routine occurrence, save for the 18-wheeler just two feet in front of us. Growing up in southern California you learn to tune out the constant barrage of angry drivers and blaring horns. Call it a sanity check. So it was the smell of tires skidding against the asphalt that reached me first, before any sound of crunched metal and dashed windshields could register in my ears. It was an explosive symphony that was immediately followed by a deafening silence.

The human brain is an incredible machine – it teaches your body to avoid the things that cause it physical pain – and it tells your mind to forget the gruesome details that cause the emotional ones. I don't remember much of what happened between the time of the crash and reaching the hospital, but this I do know: I recall vividly the way his blood started soaking through the material of his shirt, the color floating through the fibers of the cotton. I recall my too-small hands pressing down on his chest, crimson-stained and pathetic. And I also remember feeling the light flutter of his heart beneath my hands beat one final goodbye before seeing the sirens of the ambulance finally making its way toward us.

That was the day when I stopped believing in fairy tales. You see, Disney got it all wrong. You want to know what really happened to the Little Mermaid? Her prince falls in love with another princess, and Ariel, refusing to kill him, dies heartbroken and alone. Sleeping Beauty wakes up, but not because of true love's kiss. Turns out the noble knight already had a queen. He rapes her and then leaves, returning home to his beloved wife. And as for Little Red Riding Hood? No hunter ever came to save her. The wolf feasted, grew fat, and lived a life of gluttony.

So what, then, is the moral of this story? There never will be a prince with sword in hand and valor to spare waiting to storm the dungeon and rescue you. The only means of escape are what your own hands can do. I watched my father die while waiting for Prince Charming to arrive. Guess what? He never did. So I made damn sure that the next time something happened, and the next time, and the time after that … I wouldn't be caught high in a tower with no means of escape. I'd cut off my hair and rappel down the walls if necessary, because this is what I learned as a little girl who once upon a time held her father's heart in her hands: No one can really live happily ever after. Sometimes, it's simply enough just to live.