"Once upon a time,"
That's how most stories start, right? With a simple but beautiful girl in a complicated but perfect world. With an enemy fit perfectly for her to triumph over and a goal in her mind and a clear set of moral values that she follows.
But some stories start off with something else. Some stories start off with a drawer full of candy wrappers and loose change and library fines. Some stories start off with sticky lip gloss getting stuck on the teeth of a girl who strives to be untouchable. Some stories start off with bloody tissues and covered mirrors and water bottles with ladybug stickers on them.
Sometimes, "once upon a time" will start when she is cleaning and dreaming of true love.
Sometimes, "once upon a time" will start when she is fasting for days and dreaming of self love.
She wants to change the world, but the world is far too big and the people are far too mean for her to do so.
Small but steady drops of water are dripping from her ceiling as she stares unseeing at the darkness around her. The green glow of her alarm clock bears the time 2:27 and she knows that her stylist is going to have a cow in a few hours when she has to cover up the bags beneath her eyes.
Giving up for the millionth time in her life, she pulls the light on and moves the bucket she had been vomiting into the night before beneath the water so it doesn't ruin her carpet.
A bath with pink bath salts and rose petals and red wine in a crystal wine glass has never looked less glamorous. She sits and lets the steam ruin the eye make-up that she neglected to remove in favor of searching for anonymous validation. Her bathroom smells of flowers and alcohol and nail polish, but the underlying scent of peach perfume manages to permeate through the haze that seems all too close to her mind.
A blaring noise sounds from the living room, and she wraps herself in a lush bathrobe and walks to open the door, being greeted by someone who is everything she is not; happy and beautiful and thin. The girl who used to be her best friend has now become her worst enemy and the person she loves the most.
Words are spoken in soft tones and a lilting accent and punctuated with crisp consonants and musical vowels. The clicking of her heels is in perfect rhythm with the sway of her dress. Every glance off to the side and drawstring pout is met with encouragement and love.
Then, words are spoken in harsh tones and a loud accent and punctuated with stutters and cutoffs whenever a new thought makes its way through. The clacking of her heels makes an unnatural clash with the way the folds of her dress fall. Every pose and expression is met with stony silence that does nothing but discourage her.
Sure, a long time ago (in a land far far away, but not far enough), she had had a beautiful smile and a dazzling laugh and had made the people around her feel weightless and proud. Now she was weightless and dazzling and the people around her only told her she needed less.
So, yes, maybe every story gets a "once upon a time," but an "and they all lived happily ever after" is a luxury provided to very few.
And she simply is not one of those.
