A long time ago, I knew a girl who had a dream. A wonderful and beautiful dream. Her dream was to be a ballerina.

Yes, you read right.

A ballerina.

Now, in this small town called Clover, she supposed it might give her a little luck with that. She hoped - no, she believed that she would be able to reach for that dream and grab it. She told herself that she would, no matter what.

But this girl also had a problem.

Despite her air of confidence with her friends and teachers at school, deep down she knew. She knew that they would laugh. They would tease and mock her for her stupid and petty dream. After all, nobody ever left that small town called Clover.

And yet, on that fateful day when asked what she wanted to be, she said it. Even though she knew, she thought, "Maybe they won't laugh. Maybe, just maybe, they'll applaud. They'll cheer her on, shouting, "You can do it!" and "Yeah! You're so cool!"

But she knew. She knew.

And how it hurt to know that she was right.

As soon as she had said one sentence, that one sentence-

They laughed.

They laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

They mocked, they teased, even worse, they insulted, yelling at her that she could never do that. That no, she wouldn't be able to. How could she do it? There was no way.

"What a loser."

"Ha! Laaame."

"So uncool."

From that day on, she dropped it. She never said a word about ballerinas or those wonderfully fluffy and colorful tutus. She kept quiet, stuffing that dream of grace and beauty into the deepest depths of her heart, where no one would ever find it again. Not even her.

When she came home, she went straight to her bedroom, ignoring the sight of concerned (was it for or against her wish?) parents. She grabbed all of the reminders of a dream now crushed and useless. A dream that had become a pain. She gathered it all up into one pile, and dumped everything into the trash bin.

"That's the end of it," she thought. And that girl never thought about it again.

Ever since that day, I haven't seen that girl anywhere. She had faded, somehow. Replaced by someone new, someone everyone would like. No, love.

Ever since that girl went missing, nobody bothered to ask for her. Nobody cared that she was gone. The only thing left of her was her memory, and even that most people had forgotten.

After all these years, that person who replaced that hopeful, happy, and believing little girl began to wonder- where did she go? Is she really gone? Did she really just... disappear...?

She didn't know.

But recently, she's begun to think: Maybe she'll come back. Yeah. Maybe, someday, she'll come back. Then she'll be the best ballerina there is.

Do you think it could happen? Probably not, huh? Oh, well. It doesn't matter to either of us, I guess.

Or at least, it shouldn't matter to me.

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So... this is a really old story I wrote about Claire Matthew shortly after finishing the book. Honestly, I'm surprised it isn't as bad as I originally thought it was, and so I decided to post it here because why not? Although I know the book isn't all too great, the idea was nice and I liked it somewhat. I mean, I even wrote this fanfic for it, didn't I? So yeah. For those of you still into the fandom or have stumbled across this, hope you liked it. Thanks for reading!

- animellow