Snow White In Distress | ᴛᴀᴇʜʏᴜɴɢ

17 | winter & solace

1 7

WINTER & SOLACE

❝I wonder of the potential you could reach, sweetheart, if you were free as that bird.❞

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WHEN I WAS six, Ben and I had a quarrel. When I think of it now, it was petty and made absolutely no sense, but then? Then, it made a huge issue.

Our mother left us after dropping us at the neighborhood park to play, with a gentle reminder that we were allowed an hour and only an hour before she came to pick us up. Ben and I were absolutely adamant and wouldn't do our homework till our mother took us to the park.

I had climbed up the slide after waiting long for my turn. With an ecstacy unimaginable, I slid down with my hands up in the air. Ben was waiting for me at the end of the slide with his hands folded.

At ten years of age - four years older to me - Ben had stood a good four inches taller than I. I wasn't ever quite blessed with the genes to grow that tall. Standing confidently and might at the end of the slide, he smiled.

"What do you want?" I asked quite rudely as I got up from the slide and patted the dust on my skirt away, ensuring that the pleats were proper and crisp.

"Hear my theory out, Liv," Ben whined and I sighed. At times, I had always felt as if I was the older sibling and not him. I stood in the queue once again to play on the slide again. Ben stood next to me and begged for me to listen.

The park was filled with kids. It always was. There was always a long queue waiting to use the slide, or a fight near the see-saw. The parents merely watched till they realised the brawl was serious. And then, they came rushing in, pulling their child apart, only to protect them from the said child that possessed demons to hurt their angelic child.

To Ben and I, the park was the one place that we could relax and where mother wouldn't pressure us into completing our ever so incomplete homeworks.

"Go ahead," I told Ben. I moved a step forward as the girl in the supreme front got a chance to use the slide.

"I think that only few people are lucky enough to get a happily ever after," Ben proclaimed and I turned to look at him quickly. My eyes widened and my heart ached. Ben generally did have crazy ideas but his ideas sounded practical to the six year old me.

"Stop lying, Ben," I called out to him. I shook my head and continued, "Mother told me that we all get our happily ever afters."

Ben genuinely laughed. He stared at me, disappointed, till I got onto the slide for my turn. Back then, the park was one place where I let go of every thing. And as I slid down, my heart leapt. Ben ran to the end of the slide for me, as he waited.

"Mother's probably lying to us, Liv. My friends told me that they see at their homes and since they see that happy endings don't exist, it must be true. Also, they told me that they have proofs to show that it's true," Ben explained elaborately, as I stood up once again.

Ben shattered my hopes that day. I ended up running back home, crying to my mother over how Cinderella must have been sad in the end because Ben told me that happy endings were a lie.