Wishes Are Only Granted In Fairy Tales

Prologue

It was a Monday.

A dreary, rainy, cold Monday the day everything that was familiar to me slipped through my fingers. The emotionless kind of weather that makes you want to curl up with a blanket and a book.

That's a lie.

It was, in fact, a Monday, but the polar opposite of what I just described.

On the contrary, the weather was as warm as it could ever be, the sun beating down relentlessly against the only mildly damp earth. The red cardinal perched outside my window - who had been there ever since we had moved in - could be heard in deep song, most likely calling to it's fellow birds. The neighborhood kids were running down the street, yelling and laughing as they called each other odd names. Mrs. Charleston was getting in her car, her phone glued to her ear like everyday before that, yelling at her son to get a better job then that of a secretary - I've met her son, and he's quite good at his job. I don't see the problem with what he's done with his life; other than the fact that Mrs. Charleston herself used to be, and I quote, "a world famous model that everyone recognized and loved." The only person who could even ever identify her as something else besides the neighborhood gossip site was Billy, and he was an old man who's eyesight was dwindling quickly.

I saw all of this through the window in the living room of our house as my parents yelled at each other, arguing about something that I still can't remember. My chin rested comfortably on my hand, propped up on the back of the couch as I peered through the glass. I wish I could play with them, I thought, my eyes following the multiple children skipping and running and jumping down the recently redone sidewalk. At six, I didn't fully understand the reason behind the fact that my parents were fighting, and why that resulted in me not being able to go outside, but now I do. It was all because they didn't want to be heard - because I know that once I opened that door, their screaming matches would be announced to the world, and questions would be asked.

My parent's loud voices seemed to escalate at that point, and the palms of my hands found my ears, pressing against them in an attempt to block out the screams. I had gotten used to it, as much as a child could, anyway. To me, it was just something that parents did, like it was normal. If someone were to tell me that their parents didn't fight and yell and scream and tell each other they were worthless, I would have looked at them in astonishment, as it would've been a completely new subject to me. I sank into the couch, a piece of furniture that my grandmother gave my father before she moved down to Mexico, and it was the most familiar place to me at such a young age.

It was the place that I watched the other kids with an eagerness that could only be held by a young child restrained by family problems, the place that I ate ice cream and the place that I watched Scooby-Doo at. But that day, the day that everyone else's life was going just as planned, the day that the weather perceived a normal, happy day of summer, was the day that my safe haven turned into a nightmare. That day, as I sat on the couch with soft cushions, hoping that maybe my parents would notice that I had had enough and would stop just like they always would, I watched my father hit my mother.

The action was slow at first, only the twitching of a palm as the argument escalated, but all at once it was the kind of fast that seemed impossible. One moment, my father's hand was only rubbing against the side of his jeans in distress, and the next it was slicing the air between my parents before making contact with my mother's cheek. My hands dropped from my ears, collapsing into my lap as I felt the beginning of tears prick at my wide, innocent eyes. Even I knew that people shouldn't hit each other - especially ones that were supposed to be in love. I watched as the air, previously filled with my parents rants and screams, faded into silence, the kind that you never want to experience. My mother's head had been whipped to the side, my father's hand once again placed by his side as his own eyes widened with shock. It was then that I realized my mother was not crying, as I would've been if daddy had hit me. No, instead, her head rose to look him in the eye, her shoulders squared as she looked at him with an expression I have mastered over the years.

My mother stood directly in front of my father, looked at him, and said, "I always knew there was a part of you like him." Then, my mother, my own flesh and blood, the woman who raised me for ten whole years, turned and walked towards the front door. As her hand wrapped around the handle, I saw something in her relax. She no longer looked like the woman that had fought and fought with the man she thought she had loved, instead, she looked like a woman who had been lifted of the heaviest burden of her life. Somewhere inside me, I felt the spark of hope, maybe she would take me with her, and we could escape this place that we both had called home for so long, but had realized too late that this wasn't a house - it was a prison, built by the screams of two people who couldn't stand each other.

But I realized, that as she stepped out into the afternoon sunlight, slamming the door behind her, that I wouldn't be going with her. That she had left me in the house with a man who had just hit her, who had just struck the woman who he had vowed to take care of and love for the rest of his life.

To this day, I have never forgiven her for walking out and leaving me there with the man who's monsters were catching up with him. It's taken me eleven years, but I've begun to understand why she did what she did. Why she left a six year old child who still believed in fairy tales and happy endings and thought that her mother would come back, and that she was only going out for a drive.

She was giving me the opportunity to become someone she wasn't. My mother was giving me the opportunity to become someone who didn't need anyone to survive, who could function on her own without having to beg for help. She was shaping me into the person that I am today, and for that, I will be forever grateful to the woman I used to call my mother.