Glass Sneakers

16th ♕

16th ♕

At far sight, they said that there was always a light at the end of the tunnel. All my life, I kept on searching for it—the hope that life would get better. I didn't dream of the impossible before. I just wanted to have a life that wasn't mine. Complications that weren't mine, either. Sometimes, I wondered what if I had the life that other girl in the room had. Would I have felt differently?

Or, like me, maybe there were also scars that she was trying to conceal. Things she never wanted to talk about. A night she wished didn't happen. Bruises that she'd do anything to escape from. Things she'd prevent herself from hearing outside a closed door. That red truck she saw leaving when she was a child. The days she spent eating alone in a restroom cubicle. The hurtful words she wished people would just keep to themselves.

I didn't know. But maybe, like me, she also felt hideous.

"Princess, shall we go?" Jack asked me. "It's not safe for you to be out here."

We were standing outside an empty lot, going through the calm before another surge of the storm. I should have been back to Winterlace Palace last night, the walls that kept me safe from everything else but myself. But I didn't. I had stayed with Pete and his mom.

"What will everyone say?" I held my head against the chain link fence that surrounded an empty block, a little way from the palace. This was where I'd asked Jack for a stopover, because I felt the awful need to breathe.

"The news isn't positive, Princess. I'm sorry," Jack replied.

Sooner or later, I knew things would get really bad. But Robin telling the whole world things like that, it was plain absurd. I'd rather be hurt by the things I knew were true. To be hurt by things that I didn't even do myself, what kind of injustice was that?

"You tried your best to stop the broadcast of that interview, Princess. We all did," Jack consoled me. "We all tried."

"I know. And I'm sorry." The broadcast was short enough that the moment we all tried calling in, it was already over. Robin said what he had wanted to say. The rest of the kingdom was left dumbfounded. My phone rung until the battery ran out. Who knew what else had happened?

"It's not your fault, Princess. People would say what they wanted to say, regardless of the truth or the people they would hurt." Jack put a comforting hand on my shoulder.

"I'm so angry at everything, Jack." I started to flippantly kick the fence out of frustration. Jack received a call, so I poured all my anger on the green fence. It was sturdy enough, so I didn't hesitate. And the street was deserted; Jack and I were the only ones around.

"Princess, that was Ms. Kingsburry. She wanted us to carry on with your schedule. We must head over to the orphanage, your first schedule for today," Jack was telling me.

"We would go on like nothing happened?" I asked him, confused.

"Yes, Ms. Lenora is also on her way here. She'll handle the preparations. Ms. Kingsburry will be meeting us at the orphanage," Jack told me.

"What about Art?" I asked, realizing that we had a whole day scheduled together.

Jack was silent for a minute.

"There was no mention of him. He probably didn't want to see me," I presumed, trying not to show the gallon of regret that washed over me. "That was expected."

"I'm sorry, Princess." Jack lowered his head, sounding contrite

"It's okay." I let out a small laugh, trying to hold it in. "I know where he's coming from. I would have done the same thing. I mean, I'm the one who keeps on making him look bad to the public. All those years of building up his image and I'm needlessly picking on it."