The Masquerade

Victoria

Hugo looked me dead in the eye, ignoring everything around him and told me everything, from the beginning to where we are now—the garden, the talk, that started it all.

"You know the story of The Butterfly and the Blue Flower?" asked Hugo.

"Yes, of course I do. The tale is about a girl and a boy, who are exactly alike, equals some may say. They are pure, innocent, and most importantly, cruel. They were underestimated by everyone who knew them so, they proved that they were a force to be messed with." Hugo nodded at my understanding of the story, or so I thought.

"You have the basic history or origin of the story down. Mostly because that's what everyone's told, but you or anyone else knows the truth."

"Except for you."

"Yes, Victoria. Except for me." Hugo smirked at my response to his already dramatic telling of the story. I let him continue.

"I guess the best place to start is with each other," said Hugo. I tilted my head in confusion, wondering why we needed to start with each other. Hugo, acknowledging my confusion, continued on with his story.

"I am well aware of how confusing this sounds, but all will make sense in the end, I hope." I nodded at him to continue. To calm myself down, I took one last look at the environment around me. It was darkly gorgeous, and if I didn't know any better, this would be the perfect place to read a novel or two. The thought of reading calming me so, I turned back to Hugo, ready to get the answers that I deserved at last. "To make things comfortable, let's start with you. Please, my dear, pray tell me about yourself." Hugo stared at me, with something I couldn't quite detect in his eyes. He grabbed my hands and said, "To be more specific, anything that you and the Butterfly have in common."

"Well, my name is Victoria, but you know that because I told you before. I'm eighteen, and I have quite the fascination with reading." Hugo sweetly traced the bones under the skin of my hands and nodded at me to continue talking. So I did. " I love reading, I love it so much, that my friends find it quite unbearable. They would rather spend their weekends at a pub or some rich man's house and keep him company for the night, but not me. I find myself quite content with sitting down in my parlor with a nice cup of Earl Grey, reading something that takes me away from the insanity of reality. I sit there for hours, either rereading Frankenstein or finally getting my hands on something new. So, of course, I'm the odd one out in my friend group." As I said this, Hugo looked like he was grasping every word I spoke, which was nice for a change, I continued.

" That's one thing that separates me from all my other friends, but the main difference is experience. Experience with social matters, experience with people of the opposite gender, and most important to this tale: experience with romance. To me, romance is just something I read about and desired for myself. It's not something that will happen to me." I whisper the last part as I look down at my lap, almost too ashamed to continue on, confessing everything to someone I just met. As I take a couple of breaths to calm myself, Hugo did something that I didn't quite expect. He gracefully lifted up his hands that were holding mine and rested his lips on them, like a kiss. I heard him muttering something under his breath, and I strained to figure out what he said. I swore that I heard a faint "you will, my love."

"As you know, my lack of experience on such matters equals to that of the Butterfly," I stated, because, well, it was true. I've only ever heard the tale from my mother and father. Most nights when I was a child, crying over my lack of friends, my parents would calm me down with fairy tales, or what I thought were fairy tales. My favorite one was, of course, the one I was dressed as. I admired the Butterfly. I always saw bits and pieces of myself in her and I desired to be her. To be most specific, I wanted her cruelty; her power to show others that she wasn't someone's object that they could use whenever they wanted. She was someone to be messed with.

I told Hugo all of this and more. I told him how most of the time I felt hopeless and lost with my friends because we don't have anything in common with each other. I was the odd one out, and the brunt of the jokes that they told. But, it always surprised me that they were still "friends" with me. I told Hugo of the bursts of anger and hate that I would inflict on my room late at night; all the frustration in my head caused my people around me not understanding me and how my mind worked. They were all dirty insects and I was a pretty butterfly, flying around with no safe place to land. Everything looked like it was about to consume me until I met him, my Hugo.

After I finished telling him everything—the secrets that consumed my thoughts and the confessions that ate my heart. I looked at him and noticed his tense face. "Well, aren't you going to say something? Please, say something, anything."

He looked up from his lap where he was tracing the shape of my hands with his pale fingers. They were tears in his blue eyes that contrasted the happiness and concern from before. We both took deep breaths as he started to talk.

"I never want you to feel like that again. I wish that I was there for you. I could have done something to help you find your way out of the sea of mad thoughts the swim in your head." He paused, collecting himself from the emotion that burst out of him. It was my turn to comfort as he did me. I put my arm around his shoulder and moved him toward my chest, letting him gather himself in the warmth of my arms. At last, Hugo sat up and looked at me like he realized something. "I never knew how much alike we really are. If you think about it, we are the tale of The Butterfly and the Blue Flower."