Rapunzel ♔ n.h.

Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight 

I'm falling. Falling for what seems like forever before I hit the ground. 

I land in a clump of daisies which save me from any physical injuries, not so much the emotional ones. Mother or whoever she is, broke my heart. She reached into my chest, ripped it out and stomped on it right before my eyes.

I'm not your mother. 

Her words echo through my mind. They consume my every thought and are threatening to open the floodgates behind my eyes. She shouldn't be worth my tears. Clearly I didn't matter to her or she wouldn't have said or done what she did. But then why did she take care of me all these years? Why  didn't she just leave me wherever I was before? If it's not her, who is my mother? Do I have a father?

Rather than sit here crying, I should go start making my way towards the village. Maybe once I arrive, my parents will be standing there waiting for me. 

I get up from my place on the ground and take in my surroundings. I've always seen this land from one hundred feet above and now that I'm done here it's even more beautiful. The grass is softer than I imagined and the flowers smell better than anything I've ever smelt before.

I notice that Mother- I mean, She, threw my bag down after me. That's almost nice I suppose. If you ignore the fact that she chopped of my hair and pushed me out of a tower. My hair. I reach up and nearly start to cry again. It ends just beneath my ears it seems, it doesn't even hit my shoulders. 

"Don't cry Rapunzel, don't cry."

I gather my things that flew out of my bag; my books, dresses, paints, Her book, and set off for the village.

I'm not entirely sure where exactly the village is so getting there will probably be very difficult. I could follow Her dirt path that she uses to travel back and forth everyday but it probably doesn't even go all the way there seeing as nobody else has ever gone down it.

It's starting to get light by the time I'm too far from the tower yet still too far from the village. My eyes burn from all the water that's escaped them and my heart is breaking more and more with each step I take.

No matter how many times I try to understand what exactly happened this morning, I can't. This is the woman who raised me and took care of me. The one who taught me to read and how to cook. The one who would always buy me new things to entertain myself with and for what purpose? Was it all just a cruel joke? She always told me not to trust men but maybe it's the women you shouldn't trust.

I'm feeling an emotion that I've never felt before. One that I hope never to feel again. It's a mixture of anger as well as sadness. I want to hate her too but it's impossible to hate someone I love so much.

These thoughts consume my head to the point where I can no longer walk. I sit on the ground and begin to weep once again. I've cried more today than in my entire lifetime. I wipe my eyes on my sleeve and look around. There's trees in all directions and grass stretches as far as the eyes can see. The dirt road ended not very long ago so I'm not even sure if I'm going in the right direction. Then my eyes settle on my bag.

The bag which holds all the books I grew up reading. The books about the princesses trapped away in towers who get rescued by their true loves. I thought Niall might have been my true love but I was wrong. There is no such thing as true love. True love only exists in stories. These stories I've read hold no true meaning, they don't have any proof. They're simply made up. Right out of the brain of whoever thought it would be alright to give young ladies false hope.

False hope.

It was something I'd thought was real. Something I'd looked up to when I felt like nothing was going right. These stories gave me hope that I thought was real when all along it was a lie. One big lie that I kept telling myself and forcing myself to believe because it was all I had to believe in.