Fairytales and the Real World

Chapter 4

Five minutes seemed like five hours. No, I'm not just saying that to be annoyingly dramatic. I'm dead serious. I sat and stared anxiously at the clock. Counting the seconds while my foot tapped along to my fast-paced heartbeat. At exactly five minutes time, the doorbell rang. Sighing, I collected my nerves the best I could and forced myself up. I didn't want to keep him waiting after all.

"Hey Taylor." He greeted me with a small, almost tired smile while I invited him inside.

As I began to offer him food and drinks, but he cut me off by nodding to the seat next to him saying-

"Thanks Taylor, but we really just need to talk."

I looked down at the floor and began to slowly make my way to the seat next to him. Once I sat down I figured it would be weird not to look at him, so I lifted my eyes to meet his. Almost as this was approved by him, he began to address the reason why he came.

"Taylor, I know this whole situation has been a huge shock I get that, I mean...I really don't blame you. When I first got involved in all this I thought it was all madness. But the thing is, is that this is real and we have to face whatever this reality is, as crazy as it seems. " He paused for a moment, giving me time to take in this opening statement of his. His blue eyes constantly watching me, cautiously looking for some sign of recognition.

"You just aren't being very specific with me." I began to reply, finding strength in my words. "I basically have no knowledge of what's going on here, and you are asking me to accept reality? What reality? All I see is my life here and now some crazy story that you are making up out of the blue. It's not that I don't trust you...its just.."

He caught me off guard by putting my trembling hand in his. "I know, I know it's weird, and pretty scary, but you just have to trust me on this one. Everything will be explained, it just requires more showing then talking. I'm really sorry about this Taylor, I really am." He muttered something to himself which sounded something like "I knew I wasn't good enough for this."

For a while, I don't know quite how long it was but, we just sat there, each looking at our entwined hands, not feeling the need to say another word. Finally, I heard him take a deep breath which caused me to look up at him. This time he gave me a small smile, but his eyes were filled with worry and angst.

"How...how many people did you tell Taylor?"

"Just Jackie, Sky, and Cia." I replied quickly but added "I'm sorry." to the end of that list. "I didn't know it would be such a problem, I mean I trust them all, they're my best friends. Not that you said it was a problem, but I can see it already from your eyes and all and I just feel really guilty like I did something terribly wrong and-"

He cut me off with reassurance. "Taylor, just stop, it's alright. Does it complicate things a bit? Maybe. But as long as they don't tell anyone and don't ask anymore questions it shouldn't be a problem. I guess I'm the one to blame anyways, I'm just having trouble explaining and being upfront with all this. I was never really cut out for this role, but yet here I am." He laughed a bit bitterly. "I just hope I don't screw this whole thing up." He looked at me intensely, while squeezing my hand just slightly firmer then he had been before. "As long as you don't tell them anything else, all should be fine."

This statement caused me to look down again, just to look anywhere but his eyes. Just remembering Cia's demand made me nervous. I tried to think this problem out for a couple seconds, but to no avail. Of course none of this passed Aaron's notice because sure enough..

"What are you trying to avoid telling me Taylor?" He said this not demanding as I'd thought he would, but more curiously.

"It's just that Cia said she had to come along if we really do go wherever this fairytale place is. You know how determined she is. I can't say no to her."

"More like you don't want to say no to her." He replied evenly. "I'm not happy about it, but maybe she could come along. It might complicate things, but I fear it would become even more complicated if she didn't come. Don't you agree?"

This comment made me laugh a little, which eased the building tension in the air.

"Well, at least we can agree on one thing so far." Aaron smiled, genuinely this time. The fear filled look faded away, replaced by that teasing sparkle I knew all too well. We both laughed a bit. It felt like old times. Something I knew I had missed, but maybe he missed as well.

Suddenly, our nice moment was ruined by the ring of his phone. I saw him cringe when he read the caller ID. Quickly, he got up from his seat and walked towards the door.

"Sorry Taylor, I better get going." He said sadly.

"It's alright." I sighed.

"I'll call you later so we can get everything ready for tomorrow."

"Okay, sounds like a plan." I smiled as he started walking out the door towards his car, looking back once when I started to close the door behind him. As soon as I shut the door completely I leaned back and sighed, I can't really pinpoint why, well there was a lot of reasons. That was probably the most intense conversation I'd ever had, which was scary, but then again at least I got to talk to him. On top of all that though I was frustrated. I had assumed that everything would be more clear after our talk, but here I was left maybe even more confused then before. All that was left was to wait for the surprises time would bring. I knew I couldn't prepare for it, which completely stressed me out, but as usual my curiosity started to muffle my fears and I was able to contemplate everything that had happened so far.

After the word fairytale running through my head at least a billion times I decided to give it a rest. Just for the sake of irony I decided to break out the old Disney movies and surround myself with fantasy novels for the rest of the day. Who knows? Maybe it'll help me better understand this apparent fairytale mess.