Chapter 1: The Wistful Honey-Belle (Prologue)

When I was fifteen, it was easy to look presentable in class and be noticed by the boys—not that I tried to get their attention, at least not yet.

I had the hair of a fairytale princess, making the girls around me green with envy.

My body bounced back when I forgot to eat in a studying frenzy: an occurrence that happened more often than not.

People told me how stunning I looked in my new SeeD uniform. To think that I had finally achieved the status that I had so longed for!

They called me a child prodigy.

Fifteen excited me with its infinite possibilities.

When I was eighteen, my body was resilient as ever, though my thoughts were tinted with self-consciousness.

I craved more than just the company of people.

What I really wanted was to be loved, but I was young and inexperienced and my words seemed to come out wrong no matter how much I practiced them in the solitude of my dorm room.

I wasn't quite sure what that whole attraction to Squall was all about, even as I tried to rationalize it away to the others.

Notwithstanding the embarrassment of my one-sided attraction, I accomplished so much that year.

I was poetry in motion.

I bent magic to my will.

My friends and I were the paradigm of heroism that the world wanted to see.

Eighteen made me wonder if I could continue to be this successful for the rest of my life.

When I was twenty-one, I entered a real relationship for the first time.

I told myself that I would be the perfect girlfriend: smiling, selfless, and sultry. I thought I was doing a bang-up job of it, too, until I realized that…

I pretended to like football for his sake.

I allowed him to throw subtle insults at me.

He didn't treat me as his equal; to him I was merely a trophy.

I was mortified by the length of time it took to get over that Lothario, but when I finally did, I was gloriously unafraid to love again.

I survived that experience and I learned from it.

Twenty-one left a bold impression upon me.

When I was twenty-five, Xu remarked that I was a quarter century old.

My friend certainly didn't mean anything negative by the comment. Nevertheless, something inside of me panicked, so I admittedly went a little overboard with my bucket list.

I made training and athleticism my gods.

I pursued bookish knowledge with renewed fervor.

I cut my hair short to try a different style. People couldn't recognize me anymore, and maybe that was the point, but I ended up hating my new look.

I went on a number of dates, the last of which turned into something more.

This time, I dated a nice guy.

And this time, I was the one to leave the relationship.

Twenty-five made me feel like I was in control of my destiny.

When I was thirty, I accepted the fact that youth was no longer my advocate.

Leaving my home was simply exhausting.

Socializing turned into a chore.

I was repeatedly ill.

I even broke my arm in a clumsy accident.

One day, I met a new man, a man I believed was my long-awaited soulmate.

I wore my heart on my sleeve. I confessed to him that one of my greatest life goals was to get married. I told him all about my dreams and what they meant to me.

My bond with him was strong. I had great confidence in it.

It turned out that whatever bond I thought I had was not strong enough to withstand the trials of life.

Thirty left me in pieces.

When I was thirty-two and thirty-three, my friends—one by one—decided to tie the knot.

I attended engagement soirées and bachelorette parties and themed weddings non-stop.

A traditional wedding for Squall and Rinoa.

A destination wedding for Irvine and Selphie.

A beach wedding for Zell and Clover (Library Girl).

A rustic wedding for Nida and Xu.

The fashion police, whoever they were, deemed that I couldn't wear the same outfit twice so I was constantly going shopping.

I was busy and occupied in the crossfire of people hastening to live out their aspirations.

There was barely any time for myself, though I preferred it that way.

Thirty-two and thirty-three passed in an instant.

When I was thirty-five, I vacillated between falling in love and swearing it off forever.

My stance would shift at the slightest gratification or provocation. I could never remember which side I had actually settled on.

I wallowed in the regrets of my misspent youth.

I turned to books again. I looked to them for emotional cleansing. I counted on them to express my innermost sorrows and joys, to express the things that I myself could not express.

I tried to look my finest and behave my best wherever I went, even if it was a mundane trip to the grocery store. If I hadn't been successful at finding love yet, perhaps it was waiting to dazzle me in the ordinary moments of life.

Sometimes I would put away my hairbrush and close my tube of lipstick, quivering at my sad and obvious motives, for who would want to be around such a desperate woman?

I never did meet my love at the grocery store—or anywhere at all.

At the end of the year, Cid suddenly passed away.

Matron, my mother, a widow…

Thirty-five reminded me of the ephemeral nature of life.

I am thirty-eight years old.

I have stopped believing in true love because I do not want to be disappointed anymore. It is easier to tell myself that my prince does not exist.

This morning, I am staring at myself in the mirror with a growing sense of dread.

I have just noticed my first major wrinkle: a frail and jagged mark beneath my right eye.

The discovery wrecks me in a way that I did not anticipate.

I objectively know that a wrinkle is the physical manifestation of decreased elasticity and other biological factors, that everyone eventually gets these folds and creases and ridges in their skin, that there is not a single human being who can escape the aging process…

But my heart is overpowered with unhappiness.

It is not the wrinkle itself. It is what the wrinkle represents.

The wrinkle clicks my mind into another gear of urgency.

I am thirty-eight years old.

I am alone and I am lonely—that much has not changed.

Lately my friends have noticed my growing beauty. Yes, I am perhaps more beautiful now than I have ever been in my entire life.

But there is a cruel twist of irony in this gift! My beauty is fueled by my loneliness, and one day this fuel may burn me alive.

My loneliness radiates from my body like perfume. My loneliness gives me the air of festive tragedy. My loneliness has shaped me into the wistful honey-belle that I am today.

I am beautiful and I am wrinkled.

I am thirty-eight years old.