Sleeping Beauty: A Malec Fairytale #2

Wise Words (13)

Magnus spent the next two days after Isabelle's phone call in complete worry. Caterina Loss, his best friend, was the only person he could talk to about it.

"Has his sister called you again?" Caterina asked, sitting on the edge of his hotel bed. They weren't supposed to be in the same room with each other because of the whole "boy/girl" thing but Magnus wasn't someone who followed rules. He too busy was pacing the floor to worry about breaking 'hotel rooming rules'. 

"Will you stop that. All you've accomplished by pacing is wearing out a line shape in the carpet," Caterina pointed out. 

"What else am I supposed to do, Caterina. He's literally going to die if he doesn't wake up."

"Magnus, you pacing the carpet to death doesn't help anyone, especially the housekeeping," she said, throwing a pillow at his face. He caught it before it hit his face.

"Seriously, Cat!"

"Calm down, Magnus! Has his sister called you?"

"She said he's the same." He rubbed his temples.

"Then there's nothing you can do." Magnus looked up at the ceiling. He couldn't just sit here, stuck in a French hotel while, dare he say it, the love of his life was dying in a hospital an entire ocean and continent away.

"Don't do it," Cat warned.

"Don't do what?"

"Don't play dumb with me. I know you're thinking up some stupid way to get your ass on a flight home. Don't do it."

"What makes you think I'm going to sneak out of the hotel at night, catching a flight back to New York and push my way into his hospital room?" Caterina raised an eyebrow. "You're right, Cat. I should do it."

"I literally just told you not to! What part of 'don't do it' made you think huh maybe I should do it?"

"All of it?" Magnus said with a shrug. He picked up the room's phone. "Bonjour, J'ai besoin de contacter l'aéroport? Oui, merci." The lady at the front desk put him on hold as she patched him through to the airport.

"Magnus I swear to God, you will get expelled!"

"Sorry, je ne parle pas English," he replied to her with a wink.

"Are you really doing this?" Magnus nodded. "Fine but don't get me mixed up in this whole mess."

"Qui! Bonjour! Avez-vous des vols pour New York? À minuit? Qui..." he was put on hold again. He reached into his back pocket for his credit card. "They have a flight at midnight," he explained to Cat.

"La la la la la-- I can't hear you! I know nothing about where you are going and what you are doing! I am not an accomplice."

"They can have a ticket waiting for me by 9:00pm," he whispered to Cat, who had stopped blocking her ears.

"Aren't we going to a show or something at seven-thirty?" Cat reminded him.

"I'd need your help sneaking--"

"Nope. I'm not getting expelled for you. Magnus what are you going to do when you get to New York? Huh? Have you thought about that? What? You're going to show up at his side and he's going to wake up? Magnus this isn't a fairytale! This is real life! You are doing just as much good staying here than you are there! Do you really think Alec would want you to get expelled on his behalf? To jeopardize your future for him? Come on Magnus be reasonable!" Cat shouted. Magnus didn't know what to say. Maybe she was right. Maybe he should just wait out the rest of the trip. Magnus hung up the phone on the ticket guy.

"Magnus we have four more days of this trip left. Don't waste your money and don't throw away you future. He wouldn't want you to." He sat down next to Cat.

"I--I might never see him again." Magnus began to tear up. He had never cried before in front of anyone, not even Cat.

"You can't think like that, Magnus. You just have to have hope."

"Hope and fairy godmothers. What if he never wakes up?"

"You'll make it through," Cat soothed him. "Remember, you won't be alone. He has his sister and his brother and his friends who will all be going through the exact same thing. It's easy for people in pain to forget that there are so many others who are suffer along with them and they all feel the same: alone. I'll be with you and you'll have Isabelle. It won't just be your burden but it'll be a shared sadness."

"I don't think I can lose another person."

"Sometimes you just have to let fate take its course. Pain doesn't make you invincible, it makes you resilient. People don't realize that pain isn't their to stop you from live but it's an obstacle to make you better at it."

"Since when did you get so wise?" Magnus said through his tears.

"Since you became so damn emotional." Magnus laughed. "Usually I'm the emotional one and you're the philosophical one. As soon as that boy wakes up, you can take your place as the wise old man again. I will gladly give up the title! There's too much pressure." 

"Thank you, Cat."

Author's Note: I hope everyone who is suffering from any pain, be it mental health or an emotional time in their life, can take something away from Cat's wise words. As I like to say to my friends who are hurting, "Pain doesn't make you invincible, it makes you resilient. People don't realize that pain isn't their to stop you from live but it's an obstacle to make you better at it." Always reach out to others if you're sad or in pain. There are so many people who care about you and so many hotlines you can call. If you take anything away from this book, it's that getting better isn't easy but when you do, you'll be a better person for it. Erick Erickson says that life gives us obstacles or 'dilemmas' and only when you complete your obstacle do you move on to the next stage in your life. All your hardships? They're just tests assigned by the world to make you stronger. So show the world how strong you can be.