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I want to live in a fairytale.
Not one with an evil stepmother or glass slippers.
Just one with a happy ending.
I dream, dream constantly about fairytales and the happy endings that come with them.
And that’s normally fine.
Until I try to turn them into reality.
In this fairytale turned real I stuck to the storyline;
she sat next to me in English, we talked a lot
I got close to her friends, she hated all of mine.
She asked me to look at her essays constantly, like facetime me at 3 am constantly.
I got her coffee consistently, like iced coffee with soy milk on her desk at 10 am every
Friday morning consistently.
We went to the beach.
From the waves crashing onto the shore, to the cute baby crabs, to the smell of the salty sea, to the feeling of the sand on our feet, every second felt perfect.
For four hours I looked into her eyes, her hazel eyes; the same color as her coffee, and thought she was the love of my life,
for four hours the harshness of reality was washed away by the waves - replaced with feelings I had only dreamed of;
for four hours it felt like my fairytale and the happy ending that comes with it may become true.
Fairytales are simple and predictable.
The evil stepmother never wins.
The prince always finds the girl with the other glass slipper.
Prom was where my fairytale was supposed to come true.
I was energetic just like she always is when she has her coffee.
She wore her blue dress a darker blue than the ocean.
Our conversations were dynamic and deep just like every word of her writing is.
We went out to dinner,
we danced,
we deliberated doing the one thing that would make my fairytale come true: dating.
When I told her I liked her I knew that she would say no to a relationship, no to my happy ending.
She was too busy trying to get into UC Santa Barbara, I was too busy trying to get into Columbia.
She was too good for me.
I wasn’t enough for her.
No amount of considerate coffee runs, or evening essay editing, or beautiful beach bonding could change that because:
Reality is not predictable.
It is not simple.
Love isn’t either.
Instead of happy endings, the reality is full of tragic heartbreaks.
Full of failed attempts at fairytales.
Every Cinderella story, just like this one did, comes to an end.
Or at least everyone so far.
What makes love worth chasing is not the fairytale-like happy ending everyone imagines.
It is the ending we can’t predict. The ending, never really ends.
The story we create in reality is almost always full of heartbreak and tragedy, but that’s what makes the one fairytale that does come true feel so magical.
We don’t forget our broken fairytales, we reshape them into cute stories.
We use our experiences from past ones to make future ones better.
We can’t predict love, we can’t make it simple,
but we can get better at adapting to it,
better at keeping it alive,
better at making it thrive.
Living in fairytales is a cute fantasy,
reality is tragic and scary, but love, at least in the way we experience it is only something we can find in reality,
so instead of dreaming of a world without it, live in our world with it.
About The Author:
Michael Brand is a rising senior at Lowell High School, in beautiful San Francisco, California. In addition to writing and taking 5 AP classes, Michael is a captain of Lowell's speech and debate team, a captain of the mock trial team, and captain of the golf team. In his free time, Michael enjoys trying out new coffee shops and getting girls coffee.
Cover page by Yifei Wang
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