You know when they say that something isn't all it's cracked up to be? Well in this case, it's totally all it's cracked up to be. Aurora is completely enjoying the start of her senior year at Storybrooke High. After struggling through SATs and teenage awkwardness, she feels like things are starting to look up. The teachers are more laid back and the courses are easier. It seems like the only real stress in her life is college. Aurora isn't sure what she wants to do and applications are very confusing. So she decides to flounder around in community college and then transfer over to a university. Storybrooke Community College is located relatively close to her home anyways. She could just walk there every day. Her parents seem to love that and the extra money they would save helps with their approval in Aurora's decision. Aurora doesn't do much in school and she doesn't have many friends but she doesn't mind at all. This feels like a good year either way. It will all be smooth sailing.
It's November already and the leaves have all fallen. Aurora heads towards the library for a special presentation from the community college. She doesn't really understand why they are doing this but whatever takes her out of math, she's happy with. When she enters she's given a packet of pamphlets and random assortments of papers. She also finds a pen in the plastic zip-lock folder. On the side of it is written the name of the school. She ends up playing with it until the presentation starts. The presenter is an older woman with a big dopey smile on her face. She seems very kind-hearted. A long with her is a helper. He's a short guy with a goatee. Aurora doesn't remember what the woman calls him, it sounded kind of foreign. It takes a long while for the presentation to start because apparently the projector is busted and they need to get another one from the principal's office. Aurora becomes so bored she seems to almost fall asleep when they come in. They roll the projector in an old clunky cart that makes a lot of noise. So, Aurora, along with everyone else looks up when they show. It's the janitor and another helper from the college. This one is a girl. She looks Asian just like the other guy but had a darker complexion. Her name is also foreign but Aurora remembers that it's Mulan. When the presentation starts the woman introduces herself as Judy and that she is the head of the Outreach department. She calls her helpers student ambassadors and apparently they still go to the community college. The guy says that he's planning on transferring next year. Mulan is interested in biotechnology but is also the captain of their woman's soccer team. She gloats about how they're number one and cheers, "Go, Royals!" Royals are the school's mascots. Aurora thinks that it's a really weird mascot to have.
"Now, usually we come during the spring to help you guys but we've decided to get you all a head start now," says Judy. "Today, we're going to talk to you about our school to help you decide if you really want to come here and then we'll come back December to help students apply."
Judy starts the presentation. She talks about the special programs offered at the school and her ambassadors chime in every once in a while about their personal experiences. Aurora doesn't care much and if it wasn't for her parents she probably wouldn't go to school all together. There are a few corny jokes thrown here and when they finish, they stick around for a bit for questions. A few really serious students grill them for all they know. Aurora feels almost bad for not caring but that's senioritis for you. She's almost out the door when Mulan stops her.
"I think you forgot your jacket," she tells Aurora, while holding up a purple hoodie. Aurora takes the hoodie and thanks Mulan. Mulan smiles in return and says how she hopes to see Aurora at Storybrooke Community. Aurora almost forgets about the whole thing until they return the week before winter break.
Aurora is sitting in the computer lab and follows Judy's instructions to apply online. She ends up being the first one to finish and just sits there for a bit. She's in the back again and the two ambassadors are behind her. They occasionally go over to a student who gets stuck but they always end up back there. Aurora can hear the jokes they crack at each other. They're whispering but Aurora can hear the conversations. Mulan and the guy start to talk about video games when the guy goes to help a student and Mulan notices that Aurora is done. Mulan goes up to her and lets her know that if she's done she could go. Aurora thanks her and gets up to leave. Aurora isn't usually the type to just say whatever is on her mind but she sarcastically mumbles, "Can't wait to see if I get accepted."
"Well, we only accept the top 100%" Mulan responds and gives Aurora a big smile. The joke was really stupid but Aurora couldn't help but give a little laugh.
Oh no, Aurora thinks, she's adorable.
When Aurora gets home she realizes that she's replayed her time spent with Mulan for the thirtieth time. Of course, Aurora isn't an idiot and she knows that she's gotten a crush on Mulan. Great.
Aurora spends the night starting at her ceiling. She's really mad at herself. She doesn't understand why she likes Mulan so much. She was indifferent to Mulan when she first met her but now it's like…Aurora doesn't even know and the more she thinks about it, the angrier she gets. It's like her freshman year crush all over again. A girl she met that she initially didn't care all that much for but then all of the sudden, one day she's just head over heels. Except, that girl was completely different from Mulan. She was blonde and sheepish. Not outspoken like Mulan. The girl Aurora had a crush on wasn't at all athletic and even a bit on the chubby side. Their personalities are completely different. Aurora doesn't understand why she likes Mulan so when she's completely different from the person she had feeling for before. It doesn't make sense to her and she is pissed.
She's not in love with Mulan. Of course not, how could she be in love with someone she doesn't even know? But she thinks about what it would be like. She thinks about the stupid jokes she'll tell Mulan and how their life as a couple would be like. She thinks about Mulan's laugh and her smile. She thinks about her voice and how much of a dork she is. It's all stupid, though. She'd probably only ever run into Mulan a few times but nothing would ever happen between them. She could be in love with someone like Mulan. Aurora feels like an idiot thinking about this kind of stuff, but it gets her through the day. Not much else is going on in her life and she's always been kind of like this. Aurora always has to think about somebody. Don't get her wrong. She loves being single. She doesn't feel bad about it. However, for some reason or another she's always caught up in fantasies about being with whomever she's crushing on and it doesn't go away until she starts crushing on someone else. It is an endless cycle but at least she knows that all she has to do is wait for someone else to come along and she'll be free of this stupidity with Mulan.
Until then, Aurora learns that Mulan is sort of famous in town. With her being the captain of the number one soccer team, she would pop up in local magazines and papers. Aurora tends to pick these pieces up and read the articles. She is still frustrated with her feelings whenever she sees pictures of Mulan. Every once in a while she would get angry at Mulan's face and curse all her perfect features. She later learns that Mulan used to go to her school. In fact, Aurora had seen her before. Mulan used to be on their soccer team too and Aurora was there when she landed her game winning goal. Aurora only remembers the game because it was the one she confused to be the game of her football friend, Dante. She doesn't know how she got confused but all she knows is that she went to the soccer game by accident and Mulan was there. She had seen Mulan's face but only now does that face mean anything. When it's New Year's Eve, all she does is wish for things to be different next year and that something will take her out of this torture.
New Year's Day, Aurora sits on the grassy hill near her house. She sighs as she catches herself thinking about Mulan again. Maybe she's been single for too long and is finally going crazy. She was completely comfortable not dating but now feels like her only escape is to find a girlfriend. Then she remembers her bad luck and the pains of maintaining a relationship so she knows nothing will come of her desire. Aurora watches the cars that pass by and does her best not to think of Mulan. It's almost dark when a motorcycle swerves and falls over at the base of the hill. Aurora, naturally, runs over to the cyclist to check to see if they're okay. The cyclist manages to pull themselves out from under the motorcycle. They take off their helmet and start to laugh. Aurora almost pops a blood vessel when she sees that it's Mulan. Between her laughter she says, "I'm sorry, did I scare you? I was only trying to do a trick but you really shouldn't do that on the road because then you eat it like that. I'm fine though." She looks up at Aurora and then asks, "You look familiar, have we met before?"
Aurora had thought about this moment countless of times and she knew exactly what she was going to say. She saw a movie once where this line was uttered and thought it was cheesy enough to at least make her memorable, "Yeah, we have actually."
"Really? Where?"
"In our dreams."
Mulan looks confused and then Aurora quickly adds, "Sorry, that was a terrible joke."
Mulan smiles and says, "I know you. You're one of the kids from Storybrooke High, aren't you?"
Aurora nods, feeling shame for her lame joke. Mulan gets up and parks her motorcycle. Mulan is still smiling and starts up some small talk. She bets on how the sunset is pretty here and asks Aurora if she lives near by. Aurora tells her that her house was on the other side of the hill and they sit on the top to watch the sun set. Mulan tells her about how she some times just goes out to drive where ever and today just had the sudden urge to pop a wheelie. She only had just gotten the cycle and was really glad it didn't get banged up. After an hour or so, Mulan tells Aurora that she has to go but they exchange numbers. They texts a whole lot after that. Aurora doesn't really process what happened. She's not even convinced that it's all real. She just goes with it and doesn't question her new found friendship. She does manage to put all her day dreams behind her.
Aurora spends almost every night on that hill and one night, on the weekend she invites Mulan to join her. Mulan shows up and they end up doing this every Saturday night. They talk about a lot of things, like how their weeks been at school and about TV shows. Mulan tells a lot of funny stories about work. She tells about how she was trying to lock the office door but it only locked the exact moment she cussed at it. They're all small instances like that but Mulan manage to tell them in such interesting ways. One time, they spend the whole night discussing The Hunger Games series and they watch the sun rise. Mulan ends up being too tired to drive home so she sleeps at Aurora's house. She comments on how pretty Aurora's bedroom is and that her room is filled with embarrassing trinkets and things she never bothered to clean out.
Mulan comes to the hill where Aurora waits for her and pulls out her 3DS.
"Look." She says, flipping it open. On the screen is a blue eyed animal that resembled some kind of cross between a cat and a dog. Except it was pink and white and had a bow on its ear and around its neck. "I named it after you!"
Aurora rolls her eyes, "This isn't like that one time when you said you named another one after me and you actually just named it, 'After You' is it?"
"No, no. See? Her name is Aurora. Her eyes reminded me of yours. It took me a really long time to catch it but it evolved right away! She's kind of my baby you know. She beat the champion all by herself!"
"I still can't believe you're in college and you still play Pokémon." Aurora rolls her eyes again. It is a really cute Pokémon, though. She watches Mulan play her game, gushing over it and it's oddly adorable.
Aurora sighs. She feels stupid. She rubs her face and tries to massage away her frustration. She had just bought the same Pokemon game Mulan has. It took her a bit to find the game console she got for Christmas. She wasn't that into games but for some reason her uncle seemed to think so. Up until now, it was sitting in the back of her closet, collecting dust. Aurora felt the need to play the game Mulan has been obsessing over. She doesn't really understand the hype and she barely gets the concept of the game. She's currently stuck on the third gym leader. Her Pokémon team seems to be useless against the gym leader's. The game still manages to serve Aurora's purpose, despite how difficult it is. Mulan helps her out and they bond more. Mulan even gives Aurora an orange dog looking Pokémon that's nicknamed, "Mulan".
"So, I'll always be around when you need me." She jokes.
Aurora feels like she has too many things that remind her of Mulan. She always has the pen that was given to her the first day she ever met Mulan. Aurora constantly fidgets with it during class and when she waits for Mulan on the hill. She wears her purple hoodie a lot more often than she used to. She mostly wears it when she's in her bed and surfing the web with her laptop. One time Mulan borrowed it because she got too cold on the hill and ended up keeping it for a few weeks because she kept forgetting to return it. It smells like her now. Of course, there are tons of pictures on Aurora's phone from all the adventures they would have. Aurora does love the friendship she has with Mulan and she enjoys being single but sometimes her feelings get to her. She often finds herself wondering what she means to Mulan. Mulan can be hard to read sometimes. Sometimes, it feels like she hides her feelings for the sake of not upsetting others. Like how Mulan was doing poorly in her biology class, it took a weekend absence to go study to figure out how much it was egging at Mulan. Another time, she got a bad grade on one of her projects. Despite all her cursing and ranting, she laughed the whole time. Aurora just does her best to push these thoughts away. She is afraid what will happen if Mulan didn't return her feelings or found them to be weird.
Aurora is so done with school. Mulan's distracting existence doesn't help either. Aurora, surprisingly, doesn't slip in her classes. Her teachers are probably just as done as she is. Their assignments are easy. Aurora finds herself day dreaming about Mulan again. She imagines Mulan confessing to her and kissing her. Aurora doesn't dream often but lately she has and they're all about Mulan. Some days are painful. Some aren't. She tries to distance herself without being obvious. She puts her pen in her drawer and resists the urge to stare at all their pictures. Aurora does end up looking at them once but takes pride in being able to go a night without wearing her purple hoodie that smells so strongly of Mulan.
It's late March now and Aurora asks Mulan what she thinks it means to be in love with someone.
"I think…it's not just about the feeling but like wanting to know the little stuff. Like, the sound they make when they sneeze, what they look like when they first wake up, where are all of their freckles and birthmarks are. What their favorite color is, if they prefer the toilet paper roll to be over or under. How they got all of their scars and what they're really afraid of. And after knowing all of that you still accept them completely whether or not you're the same as them."
Aurora takes a moment and thinks about her relationship with Mulan. She was planning on telling her how she felt that night but Mulan's answer for one reason or the other just makes Aurora decide against it. She plays the question off by explaining, "There's this boy, Philip, and he keeps asking me out. I tell him that I just like us to be friends but he still tries and I just don't have the heart to be harsh on him. It just got me thinking about love and stuff"
"I hope you don't ever say yes. I mean if you don't like him, you shouldn't be with him, even if he's a good guy. Trust me, it'll only end in tragedy if you date someone you don't have feelings for."
Aurora realizes that she doesn't know Mulan, at least the side that not everyone sees. She knew the other stuff, like her obsessions and her favorite color. She knows of Mulan's family and has met a bunch of her friends. She's able to guess Mulan's reactions and thoughts. They've even finish each other's sentences a couple of times. But Aurora doesn't know the bad stuff. Like why Mulan doesn't talk about her father and what kind of heart ache she's been through. Aurora doesn't know the pain that Mulan keeps locked inside of her and she wants to. Their conversation gets interrupted by a text. Mulan tells Aurora that she has to go meet up with her boyfriend, Shang. Shang is another thing Aurora doesn't know about.
Aurora stops Mulan from leaving to ask, "What about you, Mulan? Where did you get your scars? What kind of wounds do you have that keep you up at night? Tell me about your ugly side so I can stop being in love with you."
Mulan processes what Aurora says relatively quick and replies, "I don't drink, I don't smoke and I don't do drugs. You won't find much here."
When Mulan is gone, Aurora feels like a condescending bitch and no doubt she sounded pretentious as hell. She was hurt though, she couldn't help it. She lashed out and she shouldn't have. Now she's put Mulan in an uncomfortable position and doesn't know where things will go from here. They don't text each other for the next three days. Aurora would never make the first move after the kind of pressure she put on Mulan. She feels like she's on thin ice and didn't want to mess things up more. Mulan sends her a text asking if she'll be on the hill this Saturday and Aurora feels relieved that Mulan chooses to ignore what happened.
When it's Saturday night, Mulan is there before Aurora. Mulan looks a bit drained, like she hasn't slept well. Aurora starts to feel anxiety, like something bad is about to happen. They're silent for a bit then Mulan speaks.
"I broke up with Shang last week."
Aurora is confused but she gets hopeful and asks, "Because of what I said…?"
Mulan swallows hard, "No, not because of that. I never told you about him and I wondered why, then I realized I didn't really like him."
Not much is said after that, nothing important anyways. They talk about simple stuff. Mulan talks about her video games and Aurora talks about her school. Aurora asks Mulan how college is going for her but Mulan doesn't really answer her question. She goes into her student ambassador mode and tells her about the new construction projects. She reminds Aurora to take the assessment test and goes on about seeing a counselor. Aurora doesn't interrupt. It was nice to see Mulan talk like that. There was a small spark, a glint of passion in Mulan's eyes that is admirable. Aurora is just glad things are normal.
Aurora continues with school and her preparations for college. Aurora just deals with her day dreams. Those three days were more painful than her unrequited love. She would rather die a thousand times in a million different painful ways than stop being friends with Mulan. Aurora still tries to emotionally distance herself. She's put her 3DS away with her pen and doesn't initiate any text conversations. She's taken up photography. She's been looking up tutorials and reading books on the subject. She uses her mom's camera. She learns about the rule of thirds and nearly breaks her back trying to take pictures at obscure angles. She shows her photos to Mulan and Mulan believes she has an eye of an artist. Aurora forgets all about the pen in her desk. She hardly plays Pokemon despite her acquired taste for it. The purple hoodie doesn't smell like Mulan anymore. Aurora starts to feel at peace.
It's Saturday on the hill once more but Mulan looks nervous tonight. Aurora thought that her confession was behind them but it's probably been on Mulan's mind this whole time. Now it's finally getting to her. It's failing Biology all over again, where Mulan hides her feelings until she can't. Aurora wishes that Mulan didn't hold this kind of stuff in. Mulan avoids looking at Aurora and this frustrates her enough to say something about it.
"What's wrong with you today?" She demands.
Mulan runs her hand through her hair and looks at Aurora. She takes a deep breath and tells her, "I'm not really afraid of the dark or of spiders or things like that. I don't mind heights but like everyone else I'm afraid of dying. Sometimes I am, any ways. I've just accepted that it's apart of life so I don't stress about it. What I'm really afraid of is being like my father. I'm afraid that I'm not as good of a person that I want to be. That I'm all messed up. That if I'm given the chance I'll be abusive and I won't be able to stop myself. I'm afraid of losing control. I have a lot of anger inside. That's why I don't get drunk or high. I'm scared of what I'll do."
Aurora is taken aback. She didn't expect Mulan to say that. She realizes that Mulan is saying this because of Aurora's pained declaration of love. There's a moment then Aurora talks, "I don't do stuff like that either. It's funny, they warn you about peer pressure but all of my friend who do it tell me to just stay away. But I do know what it's like to be addicted to something. In middle school, I used to cut myself or whatever and I was a bit of a pyromaniac. I would go to the park and burn stuff. Nothing big, just like twigs and grass. It's weird. Even if you get over it, you still have the urge to do it. Like even if you don't really want to, you just have to urge to. Sometimes, I just pick up my dad's lighter and flick it on and watch the flame. I still don't know why I did stuff like that."
They sit in silence. Neither not sure what to say. Mulan asks how Aurora got over her addictions. "I don't know. I just stopped one day. I started to worry about the trouble I would get in. Then I started to worry about all kinds of stuff that could go wrong and now I can't go to sleep. Usually I just watch TV until it's morning. Sometimes I do get to sleep but only for a few hours. That's why I'm always here. I like to watch the sun rise."
Mulan nods. It's not every day that people decide to spill their darkest secrets to some one, especially like that. Both are unsure how to react to each other. The air becomes uncomfortable. Aurora has always figured that you find out about this kind of heavy stuff bit by bit, through implications and guesses. She feels a bit guilty too, like she forced Mulan to tell her this.
"Well, it's all out there." Mulan finally says, "…Do you still love me?"
"Yes…Do you still love me? As a friend, I mean." Aurora shifts uncomfortably.
Mulan thinks. "No. I don't love you as a friend." she responds. It feels like Aurora is impaled in the heart.
Mulan smiles and continues, "I love you more than that."
They spend the rest of the night on that hill. They watch the sun rise and Mulan has to crash at Aurora's place again. Aurora doesn't try to ignore that Mulan is sleeping in her bed like she did the first time. She doesn't try her best to glue her face to her laptop as she waits for Mulan to wake up and go. She lies down next to her and enjoys every moment. Mulan struggles to stay awake, talking about little things, trying her best not to waste her time with Aurora by being asleep but eventually drifts off. Aurora closes her eyes and even though she can't sleep herself, she feels like she's dreaming. She doesn't worry about her parents. They know Mulan and they've never bothered them before. Despite not falling asleep, Aurora feels well rested. Mulan seems to be very comfortable and even though she's awake now, they don't more for a few more hours. Eventually, they drag themselves downstairs to eat. Aurora's father comments that he was worried they'd never come down, that they were taken to Neverland. After they eat, they walk to Mulan's motorcycle and they kiss goodbye. Aurora's face starts to hurt from the biggest smile she has ever worn in a long time. "That wasn't as bad as I thought it would be."