Disclaimer: All characters, events, and material related to The Guardians of Childhood and Rise of the Guardians are owned by William Joyce and DreamWorks Animation. Currently looking for Cover Art commissions.
Warning: This section contains emotional and verbal abuse, mild violence and language, bullying, mentions of divorce, and representation of both heterosexual and homosexual pairings. Please reconsider reading this section if you are sensitive to these types of content.
What I Don't Believe In
Part One - Jamie Bennett knew it could happen, he just didn't want to believe it; when the first of his friends stop believing in the Guardians. At fourteen, Cupcake's childhood was shattered on Christmas Day. Three years later, Jamie tries to restore her faith with a little bit of fun.
Cupcake always had trouble trying to express herself with words, and that in itself would get her into trouble. Her cognitive development seemed delayed as a toddler, when she wouldn't communicate to her parents verbally. Her mother was concerned until the pediatrician assured her that she was developing normally and would begin to talk in her own time. Her father, on the other hand, was constantly frustrated by her lack of her ability to articulate, no matter what the pediatrician had to say about it.
"She's stupid!" her father outraged.
"She is not stupid!" her mother snapped. "Don't ever talk about our daughter that way again!"
Cupcake crawled out of her bedroom once she knew her father had left for work. "Mama?" the young girl quietly called. "Can I be a princess today?"
Her mother laughed, wiping something off her cheeks and eyes. She turned around, giving her daughter the biggest smile. "Of course you can, my sweet cupcake!" Though the girl ignored the smile, and thought her mother looked strange today. Her face was redder than it usually looked. For reasons unknown to the little girl, she disliked seeing her mother's face like that.
Cupcake began school a year later, when she was to turn six years old later that autumn. According to the school district, Cupcake's birthdate was past the school registration date deadline, and had to start kindergarten the following year. There had been speculation, however, that she had been held back for her "social immaturity". Her mother didn't let herself worry too much about it, seeing how Cupcake was more well-adjusted in school than she would have been if she had started earlier. Her father was less enthusiastic about the proposition.
Cupcake was in her bedroom, quietly playing with her unicorn plush doll. Her parents' muffled shouts from beyond her closed door became louder. Her eyes shamefully landed on the rose-colored leotard abandoned on the floor. She should have known better to have not asked her father to help her put it on.
Suddenly, her mother bursted in the room, taking Cupcake's tiny hand into hers. The woman led her out of the apartment, and walked her down the main street. Cupcake couldn't read her expression. She wasn't exactly angry, but she wasn't crying, either. Cupcake thought she might have saw tears in her mother's eyes, but nothing rolled down her cheeks. Maybe Cupcake saw wrong.
"You can be anything you want to be, Cupcake," her mother told her, the sound of her voice quivering ever so slightly."Don't let anyone tell you any different." At the age of five, Cupcake wasn't sure what that had meant, but one day, when she was all grown up, it would be one of the best kept advice the little girl had ever received.
At school, the teachers yelled at her for her misbehavior, saying that she would grow up to be a bully if she kept acting out. Though she was never really a bully. The only difference between Cupcake and a bully was that Cupcake never picked on any of the other students for her own amusement. She would just get angry, and unable to express herself in a spoken language, she would react physically.
It was much like the first time when she she was approacched by another student on the playground. He was also in kindergarten, half her size, and twice the engery. Flailing limbs were flying every which way before the boy was able to control himself, something about the older Kindergartner that caught his attention. He stopped moving around in order to go talk to her.
"What's your name?" the boy asked.
"Cupcake," she answered with a shy, yet sweet smile. The boy's face, however, turned into something ugly.
"That's not your name!" he yelled.
Her smile quickly disappeared, replaced with a frown and furrowed eyebrows. "Yes, it is!"
"No, it's not!" he snapped back.
"That's what my mama calls me!" Cupcake enforced.
"Well, your mommy is stupid!"
Cupcake began to growl, and her fists clenched tightly. Before he could see what was coming, she socked him in the eye.
The incident had landed her in the principal's office, and a call to her parents. Cupcake fidgeted as she waited for her mother to pick her up. The office door opened, and Cupcake eagerly looked at the figure coming inside. When the silhouette became clear, Cupcake's heart sank. Her mother wasn't here for her. It was her father instead.
The secretary sent her into the principal's room, who briefed him on the situation. Minutes later, he exited the room. With barely a word or glance, he had Cupcake follow him out of the office. Cupcake's eyes stayed fixated on the back of the man's head, gulping down as much fresh air as she could. Once they were outside of the school, her father furiously turned around to face her.
"What is wrong with you?" her father yelled.
"But he made fun of me!" Cupcake defended. "And he called Mama stupid!"
"You're so embarrassing!" he snapped before turning around and continued walking, with Cupcake reluctantly following him.
Kindergarten led to first grade. Her classmates learned to stand clear of her way if anything came to upset the older girl. They would interact with her in the classroom all right, but rarely invited her out to the playground with them. The lack of socialization Cupcake's peers provided for her led the girl to fill the void with daydreaming.
First grade led to second grade, and Cupcake still hadn't made any friends. She gave up trying to make friends. The rages were far and few in between, but when it happened, everyone would know about it. Just like the time when a soccer ball came crashing down right on her head. She growled again, scaring away the surrounding students.
"Oh, crud..." another second grader named Pippa cringed. She was very thin, yet very tall for her age, and quite a lovely girl. Her short, straight auburn locks were usually hidden underneath a knit cap. "Cupcake!"
"What? Where?" Claude asked, glancing around nervously. He was also in second grade, and in Pippa's class. The boy was unmistakable with his dark hair that stood straight up, and was usually seen wearing a sports jersey.
One of Cupcake's classmates, Caleb, who happened to be Claude's twin, came running up to him. "What happened?"
"A fourth grader hurtled a soccer ball at Cupcake's head!" Pippa filled in.
"Oh man, he's in for it!" Claude predicted, wanting to bite his nails.
"Ooh, I can't watch!" cried Monty, the shrimpy blonde in Cupcake's class, who shielded his eyes with his hands.
Her teacher came running, pulling her away from all the other children in the play yard and into the classroom. Cupcake ignored the horrified looks her classmates made as she was hauled away from them, except for a glimse of one small, brown-haired boy who didn't stare at her with fear, but pure curiosity. She never noticed him before, not sure if he was in the same grade as her, or a grade under. But it was only a fleeting glance and thought, and Cupcake was made to sit at her desk.
"You can't just go around growling at everyone!" her teacher warned.
Cupcake didn't respond to that. She only glared at the pencil shaving that littered her desk surface. No one could understand how she felt, nor could she change herself to what everyone else wanted. It wasn't her fault she couldn't find the words to tell others how she felt, but Cupcake remained in the classroom during recess for the remainder of second grade.
The combination of her age and genetics made her typically bigger than the other students in her classroom. She was always placed in the back row on class picture days, and paired with the taller boys during P.E. games. The other students came up with a new nickname for her, and it lasted for a portion of second grade all the way through most of fourth grade: "Chubby Cupcake!"
By the time fifth grade rolled around, everyone forgot about the crude name. Or perhaps no one really cared to bother with the name-calling anymore. It really didn't matter either way; even though they stopped picking on her, they still held their distance from her. She never quite learned how to control her temper, continuing to growl at others when she was upset.
It was a Friday afternoon, three days before Easter. Cupcake was eleven years old at the time, building a snowman out of the freezing spring's white layer of ice. She noticed her classmates, Pippa and Monty were sculpting something nearby, but she ignored them. They never invited her to play with them, anyway. Besides, she was busy with her own project and could not be bothered.
Not too long after, she heard more neighborhood children walk by. One of them was hit by a snowball. Yet, a moment later, he laughed. Cupcake could even imagine his impish smile as he did.
"Okay, who threw that?" the voice of Jamie Bennett forewarned the culprit, but all he saw were Pippa and Monty making snow barricades. Thinking it was one of the two, the younger boy threw a snowball at his poor, unsuspecting classmates.
"Ow!" grunted Monty, falling face-first into the snow after a snowball pelted him right on the back.
Another snowball struck Pippa on the side of her head, causing her to stumble backwards. "Jamie Bennett, no fair!"
A sparkle of wonder lit up his round, wide eyes. "You struck first!" he laughed.
"Oh!" Claude grunted, taking a snowball to the face.
They started throwing snowballs at each other, left and right. Cupcake tuned them all out.
Cupcake was just about to place the head on top of the body when suddenly something cold and wet hit her on the back of the head, hard and fast. She hated it. Hated it! Why couldn't they just leave her alone? A rage instantly overtook her.
If her rage hadn't clouded her other senses, she would've heard her classmates' nervous whispers. They all knew better than to get on Cupcake's bad side. Fortunately, none of them had fallen victim to that bad side... yet.
"Crud... I hit Cupcake!" Pippa mumbled.
"She hit Cupcake," Monty, completely stone faced, repeated the phrase as he held up an accusing finger at Pippa.
"You hit Cupcake?" Claude asked fearfully.
Jamie Bennett laid flat on his back, staring straight up at her with alarm. His head was only inches away from her feet. Truth be told, he was terrified. The girl could easily crush him underneath her snow boots, and leave him to explain to his mother why he had a broken, bloodied nose at the end of the day. Cringing, Jamie shielded himself with his sled. No injuries today, please! the boy prayed in his mind.
Then another snowball hit her square in the face. By the sound of the anxious chatter, none of her classmates seemed to know who threw the second snowball (or at least, didn't want to admit who did it).
"Oh!" Claude gasped.
"Did you throw that?" Caleb asked.
"No," Monty answered.
"Wasn't me," Pippa responded.
Cupcake tried to hold in a wave of jubilance that bubbled inside when, unexpectedly, a fit of giggles emerged from her. Suddenly, Cupcake found herself chasing all of her classmates into town with her disembodied snowman head held high above herself; every single one of the seven children screaming out in pure glee. They were all having the time of their life! For once in all of her eleven years of living, Cupcake was having fun with other kids.
Something very special happened that weekend. And for Cupcake, it wasn't being woken in the middle of the night by Jamie Bennett, knocking at her bedroom window while floating mid-air. It wasn't sledding through the town at full speed with Jack Frost. It wasn't battling against the dark forces of the boogeyman with the likes of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny. It wasn't even bringing the Sandman back to life...
It was what happened afterwards. It was after having the late night snowball fight with her classmates. It was after she had woken up in her bed, doubting herself whether if the previous night's events were all a dream or not. The following Monday after Easter was a school day, and six fifth-grade students were struggling to stay awake in class. Their teacher got exasperated with all of them, and sent them to the office for falling asleep during their morning writing exercises.
They were sitting in the office's lobby, all slumped in chairs in a single row while trying to fight off the sleep. The six children were waiting anxiously for the principal to call them into the office, and they needed to be alert. Someone had to say something to keep their minds active. Finally, someone broke the silence.
"Man, I had the craziest dream last night..." Claude chuckled.
"Bet it wasn't as insane as mine," Caleb wagered.
"Was it as insane as having dreamt about Santa Claus having a snowball fight with the Easter Bunny?" Cupcake attempted to humor.
Pippa's face grew concerned. "... I dreamt about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny..."
"Nuh, uh! That was my dream!" Monty argued.
"It wasn't a dream, it was real!" Jamie cried, concerned that his friends might've forgotten already.
"Well, we couldn't have all dreamed the same thing!" Pippa suggested.
"Then it had to be real!" Claude verified.
"Yeah!" Monty agreed.
"That's what I've been telling you!" Jamie exclaimed.
It was in that moment, Cupcake realized what is was that was far better than meeting any of the Guardians. She made friends, and that is what she found remarkable about Easter Sunday that year. A few years later, it registered in her mind that being included made middle school a bit more tolerable than she would have if she had remained a loner. She hardly cared if her father would get mad at her that morning.
The six believers stuck with each other during the early years of their adolescence, with many snow days and Easter egg hunts ahead to celebrate with each other. In the summer, they would swim in the lake, and in the winter, they would engage snowball fights with the Spirit of Winter. All of which were documented with the snapshot of Pippa's family camera.
The people in their neighborhood sometimes disagreed on their childlike behavior. They were growing up fast, and yet they still liked the idea of Santa Claus leaving presents underneath the Christmas tree and the Sandman visiting their dreams. Half of the townsfolk thought they should have moved on by now, the other half saw no harm in their little games. They were happy with themselves, and that all that seemed to matter to them.
Cupcake was happy with herself, and that all that seemed to matter to her mother.
From the time sixth grade started, and all the way through the first half of eighth grade, Cupcake's parents argued more, worse than it was when she was a child. Her father always brought her up in the fights somehow. During times like these, Cupcake made herself scarce. If she didn't go out with her friends, then she would hide in her bedroom. Seeing her friends was always better than hiding. At least she wasn't able to hear the hurtful remarks her parents lashed out at each other.
Even though it was Christmas Eve, and her friends were busy spending time with their families, today was probably one of the days she should have been out of the house.
"Why is she so immature? She's fourteen now. Why doesn't she act her age and just grow up?"
Cupcake closed her eyes, twisting her face up to suppress the tears and screams that wanted to come out of her. Couldn't they stop fighting, the yelling? It was almost Christmas! Winter Solstice was three days ago, and they celebrated Yule together. Why couldn't they get along, and be happy? Or at least pretend to be happy? She tried thinking of the good times, like when her father agreed to paint her bedroom walls pink. Or when her parents taken her on a family trip to South Korea. Didn't moments like those matter anymore?
"Fine. If you won't get her to change, then I'm gone."
A door slam sounded, rattling the entire apartment. The loud bang was followed by intense silence, save for the sobbing resonating from the kitchen. He left. On Christmas Eve. He left them. Cupcake breathed shallowly. She thought about the message she sent to the North Pole a while ago, and hoped it arrived there okay. She needed an answer more than ever.
She wrote a letter to Santa Claus a few weeks ago, uncaring how childish it might've been for a fourteen-year-old to be writing letters to what most adults believed to be a fictitious character. She was desperate. She'd do anything to patch up her broken family, even if that meant asking for help from a faithful guardian. After dozens and dozens of drafts littering the floor of her bedroom, all she came up with was a single line:
Nicholas St. North, all I want this Yule is for my family to be happy. Love, Cupcake
She remembered to address it to Santa's proper name, the name that Jack Frost had mentioned many times over when he came to visit the children of Burgess. After knowing it, Cupcake really couldn't see or hear his name any other way than Nicholas St. North. It sounded so much more majestic than Santa Claus.
Cupcake thought of her family as it was, the happy, laughing family. That was the family she wanted for Yule. It wasn't too late. Christmas wasn't over yet. There were a few hours left. Maybe she would still get her wish. She waited. By the door, by the phone... by any means of communication where she could see or speak to her father. And he could even return home to her and her mother.
She waited...
And waited...
And waited...
The clock struck midnight. That meant it was tomorrow, the day after Christmas. Her father never returned. Maybe North didn't grant wishes to naughty adolescent girls who celebrated Yule. Cupcake flung herself onto her pillow, screaming into the soft fabric... pounding her fists against the mattress. North never granted her wish!
When she had exhausted herself, Cupcake had fallen asleep. It was just past seven o'clock when she woken again. She rolled onto her backside. Through red, puffy eyes, she stared at the ceiling. She saw all of the pastel posters of unicorns and flowers hanging up on her wall. Anger suddenly roused in her. To hell with all these unicorns! She started tearing off any bit of pink she could find and shoved it into a brown packing box.
It was noon when she was finally done. Taking the box of childhood mementos, Cupcake hurried out of the house. It was decided that she was taking it to the town's dumpster. She only had about ten more feet before she reached the trash receptacle, when a familiar, younger face jumped out in front of her, curiously asking her what she was doing.
Meanwhile, her five friends were across the street at the park, engaged in a snowball fight with an immortal teenager. It only took Cupcake a few minutes to finish her business, and briskly walk down the pathway leading her back to her home. She ignored her friends, thinking she could pass through without any of them noticing her, but she thought wrong.
"Hey..." Monty said softly as he saw the older girl stomping through the snow across the street.
"Cupcake!" Jamie shouted to the girl in the distance. "Merry Christmas, Cupcake!"
"Cupca-a-a-ke!" Claude and Caleb hollered happily. Though they seemed distracted with the girl's arrival, neither of them were haulted from their task of stuffing snow down their fronts.
"C'mon, snowball fight!" Pippa cheered, tossing a ball of packed snow in the other girl's direction. Unfortunately, the snowball hit Cupcake right upside her head. "Oh, sorry!" But Pippa's apology came too late.
Cupcake growled as she went to make headway on the group. Smiles were fading rapidly when they felt the irascibility radiating from the fast-approaching teen. Tense glimpses were passed between the remaining five middle schoolers. They braced themselves for what could be coming next. None of them expected to see this reaction coming from Cupcake anymore.
"Hey, kid," Jack consoled in his softest voice, floating down towards her. "It's okay!"
Cupcake continued to stomp ferociously on the snow beneath her feet, walking right through the winter spirit. Jack gasped loudly, his eyes huge with panic. Claude and Caleb's jaws hung open in disbelief, while Pippa exchanged worried glances with Monty.
Jamie locked his stare on Cupcake, who marched directly towards him. Cupcake's hands connected with Jamie's chest, and forcibly pushed him backwards. Jamie broke his fall with his elbows, stunned by the unexpected assault. He stayed on the ground as he stared up at Cupcake, too confounded with the startling events that just occurred. It had been several years since Cupcake had one of her rages, and none of her violent acts had ever been directed at Jamie before.
"We can't all be like you, Jamie!" Cupcake shouted angrily at him. "Why don't you act your age and just grow... UP!"
Cupcake turned away, catching a glimpse of Pippa rushing over and kneeling down next to the fallen boy. "Jamie, are you okay?" Pippa asked, her voice dripping with concern. By now, all of her former friend's frantic voices were muffled from the amount of distance Cupcake had put in between them. Snowfall started coming down fast and heavy, but Cupcake carried on.
It took a great deal of effort, but Jamie and the rest of his friends managed to console Jack from his grieving. Jamie walked into his house, discouraged with the outcome of the day. He knew it could happen, he just didn't want to believe it; when the first of his friends stop believing in the Guardians. Pulling off his winter coat as he shut the door with the nudge of his foot, Jamie dropped his coat on the floor and rubbed his elbow. He must have hit the ground harder than he thought.
As he trudged up the stairs, Jamie heard his sister humming to herself in her bedroom. There was nothing out of the ordinary about that, but something compelled the thirteen-year-old to check on his younger sibling. Once she and her room was in view, he saw the box filled with pink stuffed unicorn toys. That was different. It didn't look like any of Sophie's belongings.
"Sophie, where did you get all that stuff?" he asked, unable to help himself from feeling at least a little suspicious. Sophie's back was turned slightly away from the door, not noticing her brother until he spoke out. Startled, she stopped humming and playing with the unicorn toys, and turned her head towards him.
"Um..." she hummed for a moment, thinking she might be in some sort of trouble if she told. "It's Cupcake's," she finally answered, peering at her brother with the one eye left uncovered by messy blonde hair.
Jamie stared, confused, though he said nothing in return. Sophie continued.
"She was going to throw it all out, but I convinced her if I could have it..." the six-year-old explained. "What if she changed her mind?"
A framed picture was left in between two stuffed animals. Jamie reached over and pulled it out. Behind the glass plate was a photograph, the face of twelve-year-old Jamie Bennett and thirteen-year-old Cupcake were grinning wildly with their arms slung across each other's shoulders and heads pressed together. It was the picture that Pippa took sometime last year with her family's digital camera. Later, she had printed copies of the snapshots and distributed to each of her friends.
Cupcake had cherished the photo so much that she framed it. Now it was in a box that she meant to throw away. It all meant nothing to her now. A weird feeling rose in Jamie's chest. That surprisingly hurt. What happened to Cupcake for her to throw their friendship away so easily? What did he do?
"Here," Sophie said, lifting the picture frame over her head. "You can keep this one until you and Cupcake make up again."
Jamie took the frame from her. He was sure hoping that his sister was right. It wasn't often that Sophie's innocence and optimism served her wrong, and she had quite a bit of wisdom for a six-year-old.
Six months later, Cupcake graduated middle school alongside the shadows of her friends. By the time autumn rolled around, Cupcake entered in high school. She started to grow out the pixie cut she wore throughout middle school, thinking she would look more beautiful with longer hair. She would carefully style her hair every morning as her hair began to reach chin length, trying to avoid the unattractive hair flip she fashioned during the upper grades of elementary school. The clothing she wore resembled more of the popular trends at school.
Her old group of friends were dubbed as "the misfits" by the popular clique at school, for their childish interests and offbeat personalities. They all seemed to take it all in stride. After all, they still had each other for support. They were doing just fine without her.
"Didn't you use to hang out with those losers?" one of the popular girls asked her.
Cupcake was in her sixth period, the freshman history class right after lunch. Jamie and Monty were both in there with her, which made it hard to ignore them. Cupcake sat front and center, while the girl sat in the desk to her right. Jamie was directly behind the girl, and Monty was two desks behind Cupcake.
"Well?" the girl encouraged.
Cupcake caught a glimpse of Jamie, his expression was a mixture of hope and disappointment. Hope that she would say yes, disappointment if she said no. Cupcake looked away, eyes forward on the white board at the front of the room. She said nothing.
At school, she put on an act, surrounding herself with people she secretly thought were despicable. She joined the dance team, despite how awful the other members were to students they thought were beneath them. Her purpose was to dance, nothing more. After school, she took lessons upon lessons in the ballet program at University of Burgess. If she was going to distance herself from her past life, then she was going to distance herself in a world where she wanted to be.
The dance troupe at the college became impressed with her training, and helped her set up with applications and scholarships for when she graduated high school. Cupcake became physically fit, toning her muscular body. Her womanly figure became the envy of all the stick-thin wannabes, and the object of lust for every asshole jock at Burgess High. Not that it really mattered to Cupcake; she was indifferent to it all.
Two more lonely years passed by, and Cupcake was almost halfway through her junior year of high school. It was almost Christmas, time for her high school's winter formal. Recently turned seventeen, Cupcake asked out a senior she had been admiring for the past couple of months. His on-again, off-again girlfriend finally broke up with him for good, just a few weeks prior, so Cupcake seized the opportunity of taking the cheerleader's place as his date. To her excitement, he agreed.
Cupcake readied herself for Winter Formal, putting the last finishing touch on her makeup- a dab of watermelon pink with a hint peach lipgloss that suited her skin tone. She looked amazing in her pink, sequined dress. The stretch of the fabric hugged her curves, giving her a more mature look. With one more glance in the mirror, Cupcake smiled. She was all put together and ready to go.
Cupcake sat herself on her couch. He said he would pick her up at her place beforehand. So she waited...
And waited...
And waited...
He never showed.
Cupcake breathed deeply, trying to tide the waves of anger that wanted to roll inside her. No, she refused to let this upset her. She still had her ticket, so she grabbed her coat and her clutch, and hurried to the banquet hall where Winter Formal was being held. She would at least get to enjoy the remaining half of the dance, with or without her date.
With her coat checked in at the cloakroom, Cupcake scanned the large, crowded room for her date. She saw him, arms around the slim waist of his supposed ex-girlfriend. Her giggles were disgustingly cute. Cupcake marched right up to the pair.
"Matt..." she called faintly.
"Oh! Cupcake..." he said nervously, his arms still around the fake-looking girl's waist. "What are you doing here?"
"It's Winter Formal?" she said quizzically. "I thought we were going to meet at my place beforehand."
"Yeah... about that..." Matt feebly explained, sheepily rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. "You see, Sabrina got back together with me, and..."
"But we were supposed to go together..." Cupcake reminded.
"Listen, Princess..." the skinny blonde sneered, turning herself around in her boyfriend's arms so she was facing the other girl.
"It's Cupcake..." she corrected.
"Whatever," the cheerleader said, uncaring.
"Cupcake, l-look... I-I'm sorry, b-but..." the male teen stuttered.
"But what?" Cupcake asked, a hint of sarcasm was evident in her tone.
"Face it!" the cheerleader yelled viciously. "No one wants to go out with a cow like you!"
There was a stunned silence, and Cupcake briefly looked around the room. Everyone surrounding the area was staring at her. Cupcake turned her heel and hurried out of the building, masking her humiliation from the rest of the student body. If only she were aware of the group of attendees witnessing the ugly affair on the sidelines... then she would have seen that one of them had run after her.
"Cupcake, wait!"
Unfortunately, she was already out of earshot, and out of the room before the young man's words reached her. He ran out into the dark, abandoned hall, but saw no one out there. He saw someone sitting on the stone steps right through the glass of the double doors. Walking forward at a slow, but average pace until he reached the doors. Pushing through as quietly as he could, he slipped through the entrance.
"Hey..." he said easily with a wary smile. "You all right?"
Cupcake didn't respond, deliberately averting her attention from his. It had been a long while since she heard that voice, but she knew exactly who it belonged to. Her muscles tensed, but not entirely from the cold. She did not want Jamie Bennett's pity; she already felt horrible about herself tonight. She didn't need the guilt of abandoning their friendship to add to her list of shame.
"It's pretty cold out," he pointed out, sitting down beside her on the steps.
"I'm fine," Cupcake muttered, despite that she had her arms wrapped around herself in an attempt to sustain the warmth of her body heat. Though she knew the effort was futile. Coming out into the December air with nothing on but her strapless dress, what on earth was she thinking?
She felt something warm and heavy draped over her shoulders. Startled, she glanced sideways to see Jamie had taken off his dress coat to keep her warm. Inwardly, she sighed, getting accustomed to the newfound warmth. Though once she settled underneath the coat, her focus was redirected at the boy next to her. Her bad mood surfaced again.
"Isn't your date waiting for you inside?" she asked bitterly.
Jamie scrunched up his eyebrows in confusion. "Who?" he asked.
"Pippa," she answered. "Aren't you here with her?"
"Well, yeah, I mean-" Jamie explained weakly,"We all are... We came as a group."
Cupcake gave a non-informative groan for a response. She fell silent, eyes fixated on the ground.
Jamie understood why Cupcake mistaken Pippa to be his date. While he and his friends came to Winter Formal together, the five believers broke off to do something of their own amusement. Claude and Caleb went to raid the food table, right before they went to make complete hams of themselves in the karaoke room. Bashful Monty sat at their dinner table, chatting with a friend he brought along with them.
That left Jamie and Pippa to converse with each other, standing to the side of the dance floor with their sparkling cider in hand. Anyone outside their circle of friends thought they were together, but Jamie and Pippa declined every speculation. They doubted anyone believed them, but their attention was on another serious matter. Across the dance floor, they heard that nasty cheerleader screaming at Cupcake. Pippa only gave Jamie a side glance before he unexpectantly ran after the fleeting teenager.
"You know, Matt... Well, he's a jerk," Jamie concluded. "You're worth more than his attention."
Cupcake let out a shaky breath. Her anger and bitterness faded, replaced with pure sadness.
"I thought I'd get my first kiss tonight..." Cupcake confessed, her voice no louder than a whisper. There was a moment of tense silence, before she continued. "Go ahead, say it," she choked out miserably. "It's stupid."
"I don't think it's stupid," he told her, smiling sympathetically. "I think it's perfectly okay to have not been kissed yet. I mean, what's the rush?"
Cupcake turned to him, looking at him curiously. "You haven't gotten your first kiss yet?" she asked.
Jamie looked apologetic, and answered sheepishly, "Sorry, no..."
"With who?" Cupcake was genuinely curious, but she was secretly dreading the answer.
"It was with Pippa..." he explained. It figures, Cupcake thought. "We were twelve at the time. It was fourth of July. We both hadn't had our first kiss yet, so we felt left out. So we decided to be each other's first kiss."
Cupcake tried to hide her scowl. Of course Pippa was his first kiss. They were meant to be together.
"But honestly, it wasn't that great," Jamie admitted. This was news to Cupcake. Surprised, she took a side glance at him. "The kiss was really... forced. Pippa is a great friend, but I think we should've waited. Kissing her was like..." He paused only for a moment, trying to find the right analogy. "Kissing a sister..." He paused again with a funny, wide-eyed look stretched on his face, like a surprised cat. "We would've had a more interesting, less awkward..." He let out a light chuckle at that, "first-kiss story if he had. I think we could've found someone who was right for us."
"So, what you're saying is that you shouldn't get hung up on your first kiss your because it might not be so magical after all?" Cupcake summarized.
"I guess," he said, shrugging. "I mean, sure, there's a first time for everything. But what about the second or third time? Just because the first didn't meet expectations doesn't mean you can't look forward to the next time."
"Does this mean my first kiss is going to suck?" she wondered unenthusiastically.
"It doesn't have to," Jamie reasoned, smirking a little.
"How many times do you think it'll take before you find that... magical kiss?" Cupcake thought out loud.
"Well... I'm kind of hoping that kiss number seven will be special," he revealed.
"Your seventh kiss?" Cupcake exclaimed. "Who else did you kiss?" And who the heck keeps score? she added in her mind.
A sheepish smile spread across his face. "Monty..." he answered.
"Wait..." Cupcake muttered in shock. "You...?" She stared. "I didn't know you... That you liked... That you were..."
"It's okay! You don't have to walk on eggshells about it," Jamie insisted.
"So, you're... bisexual?" she asked.
"Pansexual," he corrected. "I'm pansexual."
She made a face, not really sure of the difference between the two terms. "How did you know?"
"I just... never saw myself attracted to either one gender," Jamie elucidated. "Shouldn't you be with someone because you care about them? Not because of how they look?"
"I guess..." Cupcake never really given much thought to her femininity. It just something that just was. Liking pink, unicorns, ballet, and anything dubbed "girly" throughout her childhood always felt natural to her. For a while, she felt ashamed to like these things, as if it was wrong for her to fall into a stereotype. She wouldn't go as far as consciously classifying herself as "straight", but history had shown that she was attracted to males.
"If you just think about it, the three people I've kissed were all my best friends," Jamie pointed out. "That's how I knew."
"So, what were those other five kisses like?" Cupcake asked.
"I kissed Monty three times, and... and someone else twice," Jamie went on. She saw the flicker of lament settled behind his eyes as an uncomfortable blush crept on his cheeks. Cupcake decided that she shouldn't ask unless Jamie wanted to talk about it.
"And those weren't very memorable kisses?" Cupcake wondered.
"No, they were!" Jamie insisted. "It just that none of them manifested into a relationship. Monty's been my closest friend for forever, and he got a little mixed up when he started getting feelings for other guys... So we started secretly hooking up, but we were never really boyfriends."
"What about your other two kisses?" Cupcake asked. "What happened to that person?"
"I... I thought I loved him," Jamie confessed. There was a painful sadness that settled behind his eyes. "But he didn't love me that way..." He paused. "He loved me, but not like that... He saw me as his little brother. And for a while, I looked up to him like an older brother, until the time before I turned fourteen." Jamie fell silent again, thinking, before he continued, "I think that's how I figured out I was pan. When I saw him, I didn't think of him as a boy. I just thought of him as he was. I guess I mistaken our relationship as something romantic."
The conversation ended there. Jamie didn't explain anymore, and Cupcake had nothing else to ask about it. They sat there in silence, somewhere in between comfortable and uncomfortable. Cupcake couldn't make up her mind which one was which. An idea came to Jamie, a mischievous grin flickered on his face.
"Y'know when I was little, I used to believe that there was a witch living next door..."
"I resent that comment!" Cupcake erupted. "You know I'm Wiccan!"
"No, listen!" Jamie exclaimed, trying to hold in a laugh. "I thought that she put pretty objects in her window to lure children in her house so she could cook and eat them..."
"That's just stupid..." Cupcake muttered.
"Hansel and Gretel didn't think so," Jamie rationalized with an amused smile gracing his lips.
"Well, what else don't you believe in?" she nudged.
"I don't believe in Frankenstein's monster living in the basement anymore," he confessed.
"What?" Cupcake blurted out. "Frankenstein's monster? You can't be serious?"
"Cut me a break, I was four!" Jamie laughed.
"Okay," he said, drawing the vowel out a bit. "It's your turn."
"When I was little, I used to believe that sharks swam in pools when they weren't being used." Cupcake tried.
"That's good for starters..." he responded, nodding his head in agreement. "What else?"
"Well, I don't believe in my hair becoming curly if ate bread crusts..." He nodded his head again, urging her to go on. "I don't believe condoms are 'lollipops' for grown ups... nor that Dr. Pepper is really a doctor..."
"Lollipop condoms?" Jamie's smile grew. "Really?"
Cupcake rolled her eyes. "Don't ask..."
"Okay," he agreed. "What else?"
Cupcake thought long and hard before she spoke. "I don't believe in bad luck on Friday the thirteenth." Jamie looked intrigued. "You see, in Wicca, it's suppose to be a magical date. But when I was younger, I thought that the other kids at school would pick on me because of my religion. I was so sure they'd accuse me of bringing that 'bad luck' to them. And some of them always did... But one time when I was eleven, something broke the unlucky streak."
Then Jamie remembered, the Friday following Easter Sunday was the thirteenth, when Cupcake started hanging out with his group of friends that week. He knew that early morning after Easter changed all of them, but he never realized how much it impacted Cupcake specifically. Because of that Easter, she gotten over her fear of making friends. That thought made the sixteen-year-old smile.
"I don't believe in Satan," Jamie filled in.
"I never believed in Satan."
"I don't believe in Satan!" Jamie stood up shouted in jubilation, as if the heavens above could hear him.
The both of them chuckled at their childhood antics until their giggling began to die down.
"I don't believe in love..." she mumbled under her breath, but Jamie was too close to miss the resentful comment. He couldn't help but let out a small laugh.
"You can't not believe in love..." he told her, unable to hide the grin he formed from his disbelief in Cupcake's proclamation. "That's the root of all belief!"
"Well, I don't, all right?" Cupcake said sharply, pulling the coat around her more tightly in defense.
"Why?" Jamie asked curiously.
"I don't want to talk about it..." she mumbled, arms folded across her chest.
"Okay," he said understandingly. "But if you ever need someone to listen... I'm here."
Cupcake breathed in heavily, reconsidering her want to keep her problems to herself. But she was hurting, and it was time to let go.
"My dad left us, my mom and me, three years ago..." she confessed. "Almost three years ago. Christmas Eve, he left... "
The smile dissolved. Jamie's eyebrows knitted together in concern. "Is that why you stopped believing?"
Sullenly, she nodded.
"You know you could've talked to me about it," Jamie told her gently, "You know that my parents are divorced."
"Yeah, but your parents cared enough about you to stay friends," Cupcake cried.
Jamie thought about it for a moment, getting very quiet. He remembered his mother's tears, his father's distressed pleas. He knew what was coming when a few days later, when his parents sat him down on the couch and explained to him that they were getting a divorce. It didn't hurt as much knowing what was going to happen, but it still hurt a lot.
But then every other Thanksgiving or Christmas, his father would come over, and he would see his parents laughing and hugging and smiling. And it was real, not fake or strained like most parents do for the sake of their children. Jamie could tell that his parents still loved each other, even if it wasn't in the way that they used to. Like they were friends again, just like when they first met in college.
Still, his parents' divorce was still difficult for all of them. Money was tight. His mother was now a single, working parent supporting two children. Jamie couldn't afford a lot of new things of his own. Many of his toys were crafted himself. He spent more time checking out books at the library than purchasing at the local bookstore.
His father lived so far away, and despite living alone in a single household, he struggled financially himself. Periodically, a letter addressed to Jamie would appear in the mail. For you and your mother, his father would write, along with a fifty-dollar bill tucked into the envelope. Sorry it's not much.
"If it makes you feel any better, I haven't kept in touch with my dad in a while," Jamie disclosed. "The long distance has put on a bit of a strain-"
"He left, Jamie!" she cried, her voice breaking. "He didn't even leave a phone call or a letter. He left and never came back..."
The space between them got quiet again, so Jamie decided to shift the conversation.
"You know, Matt would've been a bad choice for a first kiss, anyway," he admitted.
"You know someone who could do better?" the older of the two teens asked sarcastically.
Jamie smiled mischievously. "I've got a few in mind..."
"Not Monty," Cupcake protested, making a face.
"Of course not," he said wryly. "You're not his type."
She rolled her eyes.
"You used to be kind of rotten," he pointed out.
"Thanks," she said sarcastically.
"I liked you for that," he finished with a smile.
Cupcake raised her eyebrow at that comment. It really didn't make much sense to her, and Jamie was a kid who always made sense. So she waited for his explanation.
"Tonight... You look incredible," Jamie praised.
Cupcake stared, eyes twinkling with surprise. She was flattered.
"But you know who was even more incredible? The Cupcake who didn't care what everyone else was wearing," Jamie supplied.
Cupcake froze. She never expected to hear that. Who could have possibly loved her, the real her? The real Cupcake was no one to be loved. "I was a freak..."
"You were unique," Jamie stated, smiling softly. "And I know deep down, you still are."
Jamie inched closer to her, and Cupcake unconsciously mimicked his actions.
"Don't try to hide yourself for others," he advised.
He touched her chin gently, raising her lips to his. Their lips touched, softly brushing against each other. It was barely a kiss, but it somehow felt... magical.
He drew back. A soft smile graced his lips. "Lucky number seven..."
Cupcake held her eyes closed, afraid that she would lose the magic if she opened too soon. Slowly, her honey brown eyes opened to meet Jamie's. She saw him smiling at her, and in that moment, Cupcake realized something. She grew up, and she stopped believing. But Jamie didn't stop believing, he just simply grew up.
A cold wind nipped at her nose, a euphoric sensation took over her mood. It triggered something in her... a memory from when she was younger. As she remembered, ice began to swirl along the side of the steps in intricate patterns. It caught her attention, and suddenly her recollections of when she was younger came flooding back to her. "Jack Frost..." Cupcake whispered to herself before she stood up abruptly.
"Jack?" she called out, looking out into the open. She continued to search the area until the figure of an adolescent boy appeared in a blink of an eye. He was sitting in the treetops up ahead. With one hand clutching his staff and the other tucked in his blue hoodie, the white haired teenager had eased his back into the trunk. One foot rested on the thick tree branch that he sat upon, while his other leg dangled.
Lifting his one hand out of his pocket, the boy known as Jack Frost gave the two teenagers a wave. "Welcome back, kid..." he shouted down. "I missed you!"
She let out a laugh. Not the fake laugh she learned from her fake friends. It was her real laugh, the one she used to make when they were kids, playing with snowball fights and snapping pictures. Cupcake didn't realized how much she missed laughing. Jamie brought back her laugh. She believed again.
Jamie took her hand in his. He gave her an encouraging smile. "You ready?"
Standing up, he took a step forward to lead her back inside the building, but then Cupcake's hand suddenly ripped out of his. Jamie looked over his shoulder, seeing Cupcake taking a fearful step backwards. She gripped his coat around herself more tightly.
"Jamie, I can't go back in there..." she declared while staring somewhere on the ground, avoiding eye contact with him. She looked so terrified.
"Sure you can," he encouraged, reaching out to take her hand again. "You're with us now. No one's even going to even notice that you weren't."
"But they saw everything," Cupcake stressed. The whole school saw her being humiliated!
The familiar impish smile surfaced on Jamie's face. "How much you bet that they'll forget all about it the moment we step through the door?"
"You want a dollar amount?" she asked sarcastically, catching his eye.
Jamie laughed. "We're gonna have a little bit of fun."
Cupcake smirked. "I don't believe you."
Jamie only smiled at her, taking a glance at the immortal teen sitting in the tree from behind. He was willing to take that chance.
End of What I Don't Believe In
Author's Note: This took way too long to write... This is actually the first Rise of the Guardians fanfiction I planned on writing, getting the idea in mid-December 2012, a couple weeks after I first saw the film in the theatre. Though time has been kind to this story. Because this oneshot took so long to write, it inspired eight more chapters to Cupcake's tale. I actually find this a celebratory moment. Over a year later, and What I Don't Believe In is finally being posted! Happy New Year, everyone!
31 December 2013