The Book at the Top of the Closet

Chapter Thirty-Seven

I'm so preoccupied with the endless possibilities in Aria's life that I almost don't notice when Veronica wakes up. She rolls over, pushes the hair out of her face, and takes my breath away before she's ever said a word. I'm going to have to talk to her about how I feel, at some point. It isn't going away, and even if I'm afraid of what she'll say, I need to know if there is any part of her that feels the same way.

She catches me staring at her and throws a pillow at my face. "Don't judge my bed hair," she says.

"Never," I cross my heart emphatically and grin at her.

"Want some help packing the rest of your stuff?" she asks.

"You're a saint," I say.

"God, I hope not."

I laugh and get out of bed, stretching and feeling my back pop as I straighten out. We snack on dry cereal straight from the box while we pack, and Veronica tells me about the classes she's taking next semester. She's been going on about how excited she is to be finally taking more classes in her major, and I could listen to her talk forever. I'm planning on doing exactly that until she turns her full attention on me, with that piercing stare like she knows the shape of my soul.

"I'm worried about you, Piper. I know you don't like to talk about the panic attacks, and I know you don't like for anyone to know what you're going through, but I think you need to talk to someone about it."

I blink at her, startled by the sudden turn this conversation is taking. I open my mouth to say something, but all the excuses I can think of sound disingenuous in my head. Finally, I just say the truest thing I can come up with. "I don't know what to do."

"Well, would you be willing to talk to a doctor?"

"Do I really need to? I mean, I already know I have some kind of anxiety disorder. It's not going to fix me just to get a diagnosis."

"No, but maybe they could give you medicine that would help. I know people have a lot of... opinions... about taking medicine, especially around here-" she laughs nervously, and I realize she's had this conversation with me in her head a hundred times already.

"Maybe you're right. I've always thought I could fix myself or that I would outgrow this somehow, but I'm in college now, and I can do magic and I still can't make it go away. So maybe you're right. I probably should get some help." My voice sounds almost mad, the way it does when I'm trying really hard not to cry.

"Not being able to fix everything just means you're a person, babe," she says softly. I realize suddenly that all this time while Veronica was along for my adventures, I never wondered what she wanted magic for.

"Is there anything you can't fix?" I ask.

"Sometimes. I wish I could fix the whole world, you know? I wish I could make things kinder, I wish people were more accepting of... just everyone, everyone who's different."

An impossible thing happens. Veronica blushes. I start to say something, but my phone rings before I work up the nerve. My parents are calling to tell me they're out in the parking lot with the truck, ready to help me load all my stuff up to go home. I tell them I'm still packing and need a little longer, and they seem to understand that I don't need help because they offer to go grab lunch and bring back some for me. I thank them and ask if they can grab an extra burger for Veronica, and she licks her lips in an exaggerated motion that damn near kills me.

We get the rest of the boxes packed up with time to spare, and as we sit in the bare dorm room, I can't think of one single thing to say. This is the moment when I should tell her how I feel, but the entire English language has abandoned me. She scrolls through her twitter feed on her phone, apparently unaware of my anguish. In a last ditch effort to find something to do besides stare at her, I pull the journal out of my backpack and read some more.

#

Dear Diary,

I asked Wyatt for advice about maybe leaving school after this semester. At first he kind of freaked- after all, dropping out isn't something that's really in character for me. He didn't text me back for a little while and when I heard a loud knock at the door I realized why. He drove all the way up here to talk to me about this. Guess he figured it wasn't a conversation you have over text.

Anyway he did talk me out of dropping out completely, but I don't hold that against him. We ordered a pizza and I introduced him to Sunshine and caught her up on everything and we all sat in my room and talked. Wyatt convinced me to finish my last year, and Sunshine told me she'd help me find online classes if I didn't want to go to school somewhere.

By the time we were done with the pizza, I had sort of a plan. Sunshine already has a job offer lined up in Dallas after graduation, and when the fall semester starts, I'll sign up for online classes. I'll look for ways to make money off of my art over the summer, and Wyatt even offered to help me talk to Mom and Dad about my plan. (Well, it's more of a half-plan, I guess.)

They'll probably completely freak out about it. They've been going on about college since I was in kindergarten. When I got offered enough scholarships to cover most of the cost of my undergraduate degree, they practically went bioluminescent. Hopefully they'll figure out a way to be supportive, or at the very least, to not drag me kicking and screaming all the way back from Dallas.

Anyway Wyatt and Sunshine seemed to get along pretty well, even if he was a tiny bit uncomfortable at first. I think maybe he could tell that she's good for me, that we prop each other up. It was such a relief to ask someone older for advice, I think I untensed my shoulders for the first time all semester. Sometimes it's nice to just breathe, eat some junk food, and trust the person who's telling you everything will be okay.

-Aria

#

Dear Diary

I finished a painting earlier this afternoon of my favorite pair of black high heels. It's pretty simple, but I wanted to paint something that had like this huge symbolic meaning for me. The painting didn't quite feel done, though. So I wrote this story to go with the painting, and I think I might carefully stencil the words on one corner of the painting once it's dry.

Once upon a time there was a girl, and a special pair of shoes. The girl was not Cinderella, but she might have been. She had a tall black pair of boots that made her feel like a queen, ruling over all she surveyed. There had been a boy once who noticed her style, who made her feel appreciated, and when he was gone, it felt as if she turned into a pumpkin.

There is something very special that happens when a boy makes a girl feel beautiful for the first time. There is an odd sort of magic wrapped up in whispered words and kisses, a magic that turns flaws into beauty. When the queen lost her king, she thought she lost her magic, too. She didn't feel flawless anymore, she felt all too aware of her imperfections.

Even when she fell in love again, she had forgotten how to love her body, how to love herself. She felt ugly, she felt powerless, she did not feel like a queen anymore. It was in this state that she began to learn something that all queens must learn eventually, something that distinguishes them from mere princesses. A princess needs a fairy godmother, even if it's a boy with blue eyes and perfect lips. A princess has to be told she's beautiful, her beauty is something that only exists if there is someone around to appreciate it.

Queens, though, learn to believe they are beautiful regardless of anyone else. And so, it came to be that after much time had passed, and the boy king was gone, the queen learned that the only person who could decide that she was beautiful was her. There would always be voices, those who thought she needed to wear her hair differently or lose weight, and those who thought she was perfect and lovely, and she decided that from that day on, the only voice she would listen to about such things was her own. The queen lived happily ever after, and she was beautiful.

-Aria