Fighting for the Fairytale

Nora

Once I pulled out of Scarlet and Reed's driveway, I turned left, driving down the curvy, paved road for a long time. 

Cole knows how private a person I am. I shouldn't have to tell him not to tell other people about what we talk about! I mean, he knows that we're struggling, that I want to talk to him about things and have him talk to me, and yet he talks to someone else completely! Why? Why did he do this? Why did you let this happen, God? Why couldn't You had just let us have the happily ever after like my parents?

Well, your parents didn't exactly have a happily every after, remember? 

"Shut up shut up shut up!" I screamed, gripping the wheel tightly. 

The trees on each side of the road began to recede as I drove into the nearest town. 

Dixie, Texas. Population 3,001, the sign read.

It looked like the quintessential southern small town. 

Perfect. Unlike my parents. 

Unlike Cole. 

Unlike me. 

Feeling sick to my stomach, I pulled off onto the first side street I could and parked. I pressed my forehead to the top of the steering wheel, squeezing my eyes shut. Tears bubbled.

God, why is this happening to me? What did I do? 

BONG! BONG! BONG! 

I lifted my head as that familiar bell rang and looked out the windshield. 

Sure enough, a tall steeple rose above all the other surrounding buildings a few blocks over.

COME, COME, COME! The bells chimed to me. 

Turning my key in the ignition, I pulled back onto the road and drove toward that steeple until I was idling beside it. 

The church sign out front read Church of Saint Thomas with their mass time listed below. The Saturday night mass was at 4 P.M. with confession and adoration available an hour prior. 

I glanced at the clock radio. 2:56pm. 

There were no cars in the parking lot to the right side of the church and only a few smattering of cars on the block. 

An older gentleman stepped out of the house on the church's left. His black shirt and pants with white collar labeled him as the parish priest, as well as the fact that he had a key to the church. 

I waited until he had disappeared through the doors before venturing up the sidewalk.

The church of Saint Thomas was picturesque: tall, white, and gothic in style. I grabbed a wrought iron handle, twisted into a swirly design, to open the thick, heavy, wooden doors.

Pleasantly surprised by the cool rush of air greeting me, I walked in. The church's interior was dark, the stained glass windows covered with a thin, black material, creating an intimate and quiet place to worship.

The priest was in the sacristy, slowly lighting an array of candles in front of the altar. He walked over to a wreath, stationed off to the side, and lit two purple candles and a pink candle. 

One purple candle was left unlit. 

I inched off to the left, finding similarities to my church back home. Both were smaller churches with long wooden pews. A middle aisle led to the altar while two narrower aisles lined the walls of the church. The sacristy itself was plain but decorated tastefully in swaths of pink and purple fabrics.