The Saltwater Room by Owl City is a great accompaniment for this story.

climbing out of the hole she fell down, down, down into after her mom died, after her dad's forgetfulness got out of control, after the words flung at her on a daily basis wore her down, after everything that happened with him - it was all too much to deal with. no one was there to catch her at the bottom.

she was weary, broken down, couldn't fathom the idea of things getting better, but her mom had taught her to take the world on with a smile and enough kindness to kill. she loved her mom, thought the entire world of her, would have done anything to bring her back.

so she did. she went about her day with her head in the clouds and her thoughts miles away from the dingy halls from which she actually walked.

—

once upon a time, she had been living in a fairytale. the king and queen had their riches stored away safely, their two children raised properly, and their life lived perfectly. she hadn't known anything other than comfort, and she craved nothing more than what money could buy her.

then tiny cracks started appearing in the stained glass window she had so carefully crafted. she did her best to patch them over before they became too much of a problem. for a while, it worked. the problems went away - or, at least, she ignored them until she thought they went away.

he broke it all down, sent her comforts scurrying away, and left her staring down the barrel of what might as well have been a loaded gun.

—

then she met her: the one who would change everything.

she hadn't been looking for her at all, hadn't known that she was right under her nose until she took a closer look one day. it took a while to come down out of the clouds and reside in real time long enough to grasp onto real feelings again, and they were like a physical blow to the gut.

she was terrified. was this how love was supposed to feel? was this how her mom felt about her dad? did people fall in and out of this every single day of their lives?

could she even handle it?

—

untangling the mess he had left her had taken a long, long time, and had broken every ounce of trust she had in her. nothing seemed to work after that, and she knew it was because of her, because of her need to push people away. more than once she thought about relapsing again and running for safety, back into something that she knew would always be there for her, but there was a defiant voice in the back of her head that simply wouldn't let her.

she never understood why until the blinders were ripped away one day and the sunlight came streaming in through the cracks in the blinds and everything seemed to make so much sense.

falling with eyes wide open and arms outstretched was a foreign concept, but she knew that she would do it in a heartbeat for her.

—

down, down, down she fell again.

this time it wasn't into a hole, and this time someone caught her at the bottom.

—

the little shards of glass began to reassemble themselves again.

the picture wasn't perfect, but it didn't need to be.

—

so tell me darling, do you wish we'd fall in love?

—

all the time, all the time.