Disclaimer: I don't own Big Time Rush or its characters.
A/N: This is written for the 100-theme challenge. Theme 61 – Fairy Tale. Sorry if Katie's OOC, but I tried my hardest…
Katie Knight didn't like doing work. Well, that was only partly true – she didn't like doing work that didn't benefit her in some way. So being told to clean out her closet or she was grounded from TV for a week? Pfft. She had better things to do with her time.
She, her mom (the cruel one who had blackmailed her with her premium cable package), and the boys were off to LA next week. It's not like they were moving permanently, so Katie didn't see why exactly she needed to clean out her closet. Her mom said it was because, when they got back, she'd appreciate a clean closet. Katie was inclined to disagree, but grumbled her way to her bedroom's closet and started sorting through things with a trash bag.
What she found was that Mrs. Knight may have actually been right about needing to clean this place out, because it was a mess. Katie was pretty sure that as long as they'd lived in this house, she hadn't really cleaned this closet. She had never considered herself a packrat, but this place may have been a huge contradiction to that thought. She found clothes she hadn't worn since she was six, old school projects from third or fourth grade, and even dolls she didn't remember playing with at all. It was like going through memory lane, sorting through all this stuff.
She had gotten to the back of the closet, and was now at a pile of books. Katie didn't take a second glance at them, throwing them out of the closet without another thought, until she came upon a certain thin hardback.
Katie had stopped all movement and stared at this book. She remembered it so vividly, the story. It had a picture of a princess in a pretty red dress on the cover – but that girl hadn't been born a princess. She had gotten swept off her feet by a handsome boy, who she later found out was a prince. They proceeded got married and had a happily-ever-after. It was short, and full of pictures and simple words that Katie could understand perfectly when she was younger. She knew the story, and she knew it well – when she was little, for many and many a night, she had Kendall read her this story. She would smile every time he read it to her and would fall asleep peacefully.
But now she was staring at it and couldn't tell if she wanted to smile or throw it at something. It was all a bunch of hogwash – "prince charming." Yeah, right. Prince Charming doesn't exist. Love was a bunch of crap. And it would never happen to her.
She flipped through the worn pages and scoffed as the words and illustrations reached her eyes once more. She remembered why she stopped having Kendall read it nightly to her, and it wasn't because she had simply gotten too old. It was the night her mom announced that she and her father were getting a divorce. Katie was confused. Mommy and daddy didn't love each other anymore? How was that possible? Because in the book, the prince and the princess loved each other, and would love each other forever. The idea that two people could fall out of love was so foreign to her young mind.
And so, that night, she had locked herself in her room, and by the time it had reached her bedtime, Kendall knocked on her door, as he usually did. But instead of reading the book to her, as they would on normal circumstances, they cried together and kept each other company that night. The book lay unread on Katie's nightstand. In the morning, Kendall left her room, and Katie threw her book as hard as she could into the same closet she was presently in.
The night was vivid in her mind as was the plot of the story in the book. Yeah. Love was a bunch of silliness teenagers made up to make themselves feel better about their sad lives. She knew it now, and would never let herself become like her parents – fall in "love" just to fall out of it a few years later.
She leaned against the inner wall of her closet, looking up at the ceiling. She knew she was lying to herself. While, right now, she was giving herself a reverse-pep-talk on how love didn't exist and never would, Kendall and James were somewhere in the town living it up and were busy with each other – loving each other.
A sudden jealousy fueled her. How could Kendall find his prince charming, get his happily ever after, and she couldn't? She was sure it would never happen. She was too mean, too self-absorbed. Kendall was selfless and caring and kind and that's how he fell in love, albeit with his best friend. Katie was none of that and was she going to end up alone?
She turned her eyes downward again, towards the book in her hands. She knew what Kendall would say to her – that her Prince Charming was out there for her somewhere, that she was only ten, that she had time to find him. Which is why she wouldn't talk to Kendall about it.
But maybe she would ask him to read the book before she went to sleep tonight.
A/N: Reviews are love. Thank you for reading.
