Once upon a time,
There were three friends.
Who were as close as they can be.
One girl with no hope.
One girl with a step mother.
One boy with a unstable father.
The girls were like sisters to him.
One had fire in her personality.
And the other was as delicate and pretty
as roses.
They met by the pond each day and played until evening crickets sang sharp tittering alarms.
One witch.
One princess.
One prince.
They'd paint fantasies that would fade tomorrow.
Dreams, desires and delusions.
All to cover the terrible truth.
Journeys stretch far and long,
kingdoms to conquer,
villains to capture,
swords to polish,
servants to rule over,
old lives to abandon.
And those pretend games started to
grow less and less real.
More pretend and fake.
A gem that's lost it's luster after too much neglect.
Time was a terrible thing,
It made him grow up,
It made her forget herself,
It made her invisible.
Agatha
She never saw both of them often.
He was now a storm brewing, dark and chaotic.
And the other was too busy with all her new friends.
She would sit on the porch alone.
In a thin black sweater, arms wrapped tightly around herself.
Afraid the wind would blow her away, like the leaves that scuttled on the ground.
Night came on swift silent cat feet.
Submerging her in smoggy blackness.
Something was different.
Someone was approaching.
Tedros
"Hey"
His voice is different now.
It's the voice of a boy who was forced to grow up.
To watch a mother leave, and a father fall.
"Hey"
She responded.
Making space for him.
He sits down next to her.
Rubs eyes.
She says nothing for awhile.
Musing about the thought
that she used to hate his guts during age five.
Now both seventeen and closer to each other then anyone else.
He had a dark past and she has a dark personality.
She had let the stereotypes get the best of her.
Good looking. Rich. Arrogant. Stupid. Mirror looking.
And finally learned the backstory he hides behind his handsome face.
Troubled marriage. Mother. Yelling. Drinking. Slamming. Driving.
He broke the silence like a rock being tossed into the pond.
"She's leaving tomorrow"
"I know. She didn't even bother to say good bye"
"She said goodbye to me"
"Well, happy for you. She forgot about me. It's ok. We never really talked anymore"
A small sigh.
"Anyways, I came here to ask you a question"
"Go on"
"Do you..want to go to the prom with me?"
Shock is like a hard slap on her face.
"What? With me? Why don't you ask the other prettier girls?"
He laughs, and shakes his head.
She finally looked back at him.
"I don't want to go with them. I'm asking you, dummy"
"That sounds weird, are we going as friends or…"
"—Friends."
"Right. Sure."
The night no longer seemed peaceful and smooth like water.
It turned hot and stuffy, awkward and suffocating.
"Uh..I'm going back in..now"
"Great, meet you at your house on Friday, 5:00"
In the darkness, she finally smiled.
Sophie
The plane landed roughly, shaking the ground.
The magazine that she held crumpled slightly,
the model's smile looked less pretty now.
The scene outside the windows were no longer familiar to her,
the sky watercolor blue and pink. Buildings stacked unevenly against the ground.
She quickly sent a text.
"I'm finally here! Going to audition tomorrow"
Regret and nervousness firmly sprouted inside her.
She forgot to say goodbye.
But she always understood her.
Hopefully.
Once upon a time,
There were three friends.
Who all grew up.
One girl walked down runways and had her name in magazines.
One boy went on and pursued his father's business.
One girl finally escaped her old life and followed him.
This fairytale is different.
This fairytale is about how
The princess didn't need a prince to achieve greatness.
It's about the witch who learned how to escape a
crumbling world, with the prince who saved her in
the first place.
The End.