A/N: All right, since y'all seem to need the cut and paste reply...check at the end.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

I remember walking with my father down a cold, grey street one winter when I was five. I looked up at the icicles hanging from the eaves of a small restaurant. I felt him tug my hand as he pointed up at them, a grin on his face.

"Look Honey, Jack Frost was by here last night. Looks like he was painting up a storm."

I shook my head and tossed my hair over my shoulder and looked him squarely in the eye before replying.

"Daddy, those are icicles, they're made when water drips from the roof and freezes as it falls. There's no such thing as Jack Frost."

My father regarded me with what was probably the saddest look I think I'd ever seen from him before. He picked me up in his arms and hugged me gently to him, his voice ragged and hoarse as he whispered to me,

"Oh my Paigey, my little Paigey. When did you get to be so cynical? It's ok to make believe sometimes. It's ok to believe in the impossible because sometimes, sometimes it really can come true."

I just sighed in my usual way and let my father carry me as long as he liked.

"But Daddy, make believe is like lying. You say things that aren't true, just because you want it to be true doesn't make it any better to tell the story."

After that I often saw my father regarding me with a level of sadness that I could never place or understand. That wasn't the last time I encountered such a dilemma either.

Standing outside at recess in second grade Ashley Kerwin and I were talking about our Christmas lists and what we hoped to receive that year. Monica Franklin overheard Ashley talking about a doll that she wanted very badly but didn't think her parents would spend the money on. She came over to us and offered up her innocent solution.

"Just ask Santa Claus. If you've been good, he'll bring you the doll."

Monica looked at Ashley with such pride that she had solved the problem that I almost felt guilty for doing what I was about to do.

"There's no such thing as Santa Claus."

Monica looked at me like I had slapped her and Ashley elbowed me hard in the side. I turned and glowered at my friend.

"What? There is no such thing as Santa Claus. He doesn't exist. I mean come on, do you really think some guy in a big red suit is going to slide down the chimney? With a sack full of toys?"

Monica's lip started to quiver just before she burst into tears and ran off towards the playground monitor. Ashley watched her go and then whirled around to face me.

"Paige, that was mean!"

I shrugged, genuinely confused by all the fuss.

"What's the big deal? She'd have found out eventually and until then she was just going to sound like a baby believing in magic and make believe."

Ashley growled a bit and stomped her foot in the snow.

"Just because you're a bossy little mini adult who has no imagination doesn't mean the rest of us have to think the same way! Jeez Paige, can't you just let someone have something they enjoy just once without messing around with it? Without breaking it apart? Can't you?"

Her eyes were filling up rapidly with tears and I was so utterly lost about this I couldn't even manage to get mad about what she had said.

"But- but it's not true. It's not real."

I had to make her understand but she backed away from me shaking her head.

"Not everything has to be real to be true Paige."

Without another word she left me standing there. Her parting words stuck with me, even more puzzling than how people could get by in life by pretending. Of course something had to be real to be true. That's the way life worked. Why was I the only one who could see it?

Fast forward about nine years. Sitting in Ms. Sauve's office, I was barely listening as she went on and on about the tragedy that had happened in the halls of our school. One thing she said though caught my attention immediately.

"I know how frightened you all must have been and must still be now. You might have nightmares about it, but that's all they are now. Just dreams, you're safe."

A memory flashed in my head. A dark room, fifteen and insecure, pretending for the first time that I was a confident, beautiful girl who knew what she was doing. Handsome soccer star telling me I was adorable. Sweetness turned sour and softness turned hard and unyielding. Screams that even now echoed through my head and in the depths of my soul.

I looked to my left and saw Marco. Traces of discontent and helplessness creased his features. I remembered his tears as he came to me with his swollen face and his self-loathing for who and what he was. I remembered his voice cracking as he told me he wished he could just be normal. All this because he'd been walking in the wrong place at the wrong time and there are stupid people who hate for no reason.

I looked all around at the faces of my fellow students. People I had gone to school with for the last several years. People I knew well and others I knew only by sight. Some I didn't know at all. And here we sat, united in our grief and our pain. All because of one boy, one cowardly, lonely, friendless boy who thought a gun would make him strong. And for a few fleeting moments that seemed to last an eternity, it did. He was so strong he took down Jimmy. So strong he broke through layers of social structure so that we could all gather in this room. Alive, but not safe.

"There is no such word, no such thing as safety. No one is safe, it's just a lie."

I didn't even know I had spoken out loud until I realized everyone was staring at me, wide eyed and shocked. Ms. Sauve was motioning for me to sit down and lower my voice but I couldn't. I couldn't play this game of pretend.

"Safety is just more make believe. It's something our parents tell us so they feel better about sending us out in the world. Something our teachers tell us so that we'll feel better about not knowing what the hell is going on."

I turned to walk out the door, to leave the staring eyes behind me and as I did, one pair regarded me carefully and with understanding. Alex Nunez's dark eyes locked with mine and she smiled a mirthless smile as I spat out,

"Safe. Fuck safe, fuck pretend. Delude yourselves if you have to, I can't do it."

I turned the knob to the office and walked out into the hallway. I didn't turn back around even when I heard footsteps behind me. I didn't blink when a gentle hand rested on my shoulder and led me into the Resource Center. I paid no attention when Mr. Simpsons's face became nothing but a watery blur.

Skip another two years and I find myself standing in front of my Marketing Professor and trying to explain why I ran out on the midterm. Anxiety, attacks so violent I couldn't see or breathe or think. I came to Banting with my hopes high and my head full of new ideas and plans. I had dreams, I let myself believe in something that hadn't happened yet and here I was paying the penalty for my childish fantasies.

Another week goes by and I have left the playacting behind and I am facing reality once more. My mother now knows that fairytale Princess Paige, Perfect Paige, Banting Paige doesn't really exist no matter how much she wanted it to be so.

Another year later and it is winter. I am walking a familiar street with a different hand clutched in my own. I look up and see that same restaurant from so long ago with what, if I didn't know any better, looked like the same icicles hanging from the eaves. I remembered my father's words so sad and melancholy.

"It's ok to believe in the impossible because sometimes, sometimes it really can come true."

I look at my companion and I smile as I think back. I never in a million years thought I could love someone this much. I thought it was impossible.

"Not everything has to be real to be true Paige."

I didn't understand that back when I was younger. I didn't understand how something that wasn't real could still be true. And I guess that it still doesn't make sense if you think of it like that, but if you think of it in terms of not everything that's true has to be tangible then it makes all the sense in the world.

I turn and see dark eyes looking at me, a smile playing at the corners of her lips.

"What are you thinking about Paigey?"

She asks, her eyes sparkling almost as if she already knows.

I stop in the middle of the sidewalk and pull her to me; brushing my fingertips along her cheek. I can feel my eyebrows knitting together as I try to gather my thoughts.

"You can't be real."

I whisper. The words barely a breath gently expelled from my lungs. She looks at me in confusion.

"Paige, are you ok?"

She asks concern written all over her features.

I don't know how to express myself the right way. My heart is in my throat and I am completely lost about what to say. So I don't say anything, I just smile at her and kiss her gently. And in that moment everything I ever doubted becomes real with such clarity and strength.

I am safe, I am loved. She makes me feel perfect in every way. And if you asked me at this very moment I think I might even tell you that yes, yes there really is a Santa Claus.

And I know that never again will I carelessly say,

"There's no such thing."

THE END

Cut and paste reply: Awww... Poor Paige, so cynical. Glad Alex helps her believe in the unbelievable. Great job!