Make Believe (Book #2, PRETEND SERIES)

Chapter 9: Monday, October 7th at 6:28pm

Firstly can I just say a huge thank you to everyone who has carried on the PRETEND journey with Aiden and April! Thank you so much for all of your messages and comments, I'm loving reading them all and they inspire me so much to keep living this amazing dream! Your support is just priceless, I love you guys! I hope you enjoy this chapter...plus I will be uploading chapter 10 today as well so enjoy! :) God Bless my beauties xxx

APRIL’S POINT OF VIEW

 

“And there it is,” she scoffed as I looked up at her.

“What?”

“The pity, the sympathy.”

“Was it real? Was that about you?” I asked, sadly. She began laughing hysterically. She walked over to the wall and leaned against it.

“No, it’s about Cinderella just before she met her Prince Charming and lived happily ever after,” the sarcasm dripped from every single word.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t! Don’t pretend to care now, April, just don’t.”

“I’m not pretending, Leah. What I read...your diary...it was awful. No one should have gone through that,” I replied genuinely. “From the start, I only ever tried to be your friend, I really did.”

“Well, that’s where you messed up then because people like you can’t be friends with people like me. No one can.”

“That’s not true. Maybe you are angry, maybe you just need to get everything out, but you do deserve a friend. Everyone does, even you.” I watched as she slowly slid down the wall until she hit the floor. The tears had gathered at the corner of her eyes, but she didn’t dare let them fall. I found myself wondering what would have happened if her childhood had not been so messed up. Would things have turned out like this? We sat in silence for some long moments until she finally spoke.

“I was five. Most people don’t remember what happened when they were five. I do. She said we had to be nice to him because he paid the bills. Steve. Our new ‘Dad.’” A humorless laugh escaped her mouth. She didn’t dare make eye contact with me as she spoke. Instead, she chose to focus on a damp patch on the gray floor. “It was the first time anyone had ever bought me anything nice. I was so excited,” she took a deep breath before continuing her story. “It was a pink dress with big white flowers all over it. It was so pretty. I felt like a princess. All I wanted to do was try it on. I just wanted to look pretty. In all the books and movies, the pretty girls with the beautiful dresses, they were the ones who got their happily ever after. They lived in castles and married princes. I wanted to be a princess. I wanted to live in a castle and marry a prince.

No one was home, and he said that if I wanted to try on my dress we had to play a game first. I was so excited. No one had ever played a game with me before. It would be the first time. All the other kids said I was strange because I was the only one without a real daddy,” she paused before laughing to herself. “Maybe they would like me if I had a pretty dress, or if I was a real princess because people always like princesses. I didn’t like the game; it really hurt. He said I’d get used to it like other princesses. But it hurt, so I kept thinking about the pretty pink dress with all of the white flowers on it. It hurt so much, and I just kept looking at the pretty pink dress because once I had it, once it was mine, I would get to be a princess and everyone would like me. Everything would be OK, once I had on my dress. I was wrong,” she scoffed before taking another deep breath. “I wasn’t a princess, nobody liked me, and I hated pretty pink dresses.”