Fairy tale for Girls Like me- 1

Today is going to be a fairy tale. For the first time in two years, I’m going to willingly wear a dress. Today is going to be a fairy tale.

That’s the mantra I’ve been reciting to myself all morning as I danced and hummed around my apartment, tidying things up and dusting invisible flecks of dust. There is nothing like too perfect, is there? I want everything ready for my baby.

When everything was in place, I set about getting my morning beauty routine done. Usually, that takes about thirty minutes, but today is no ordinary day, so by the time I was done, an hour and fifteen minutes had passed.

I quickly checked my time and found that I still had two hours before his flight lands at the airport. Slowly and methodologically, I took to getting dressed. I had gone shopping three days ago with money I had been saving for this very reason, so I was able to splurge, and splurge I did! I am now the proud owner of a pretty white dress, and another black dress, both of them less conservative than I usually wear my clothes, several slutty lingerie that the store assistant had guaranteed would make me look like a ‘fucking goddess’, and several makeup things that had me up all night on YouTube, watching tutorials on how to apply them.

It’s a lot of trouble, but it will be worth it. God, it will be worth it.

Another thirty minutes later and I was completely dressed. I kept my makeup at ‘bare minimum’, well, at least what the YouTube girl called bare minimum, which was still a lot of caking in my opinion, but, my opinion on makeup is rather limited so I’ve shoved it far down and allowed the voice of experts direct me.

I didn’t look at my full length mirror until I had strapped on my sandals delicately, feeling like a princess slipping on her glass slippers, or, well, sandals in this case. I might have held my breath as I approached the mirror, not sure of what I will be confronted with. Sure, I have seen my face with the makeup, and it looks good, but the combination of my face, outfit and body might not turn out so well, and I don’t want to show up at the airport for the love of my life looking like someone that should be on How do I look for an intervention.

Finally standing in front of the mirror, I examined every inch of my reflection, and I smiled, like, really smiled. My dress fit just right, cinching at my waist and falling in soft pleats that ended just above my knees. The top part of the dress showed off my shoulders with its low cut halter neck, and the combination of red lipstick on white is simply breathtaking. I was satisfied with what I saw, and with a huge smile on my face, I left my apartment to meet the beginning of the rest of my life.

Immediately I stepped out of my gate, I saw a yellow cab approach and I flagged it down.

“Airport.” I said to the driver.

“Oya, let’s go. The other madam is going to the airport too. Let me just carry both of you?”

That was when I noticed the girl in the back seat. A quick glance at her revealed that I wouldn’t mind sharing my space with her for a while. We discussed a reasonable fee with the cab driver, and after reaching an agreement, I got in gingerly, spreading my dress around me and crossing my legs at the ankle. When I was fully settled, the driver sped off immediately, and a certain kind of silence cloaked the cab.

“Hi.” I said to the other passenger, suddenly remembering my manners.

“Hi.” She replied, not kindly, but not unkindly either.

I took a hint and took to looking out the window, and somehow, I found myself in a web of memories, and it wasn’t uncomfortable.

Exactly one year, six months ago, I joined an online community of people that enjoy stories, comics and video games, and because I carry these things in my heart and on my head, I somehow put myself in the spotlight on my first day there, and that’s when he found me. He came to my dm, and we talked, and talked, and talked, so much so that I somehow didn’t do any of the work I was slated to do that day. At first, I penned it down to being bored- I work freelance, so I don’t really get to meet people, I have very few friends and as such, I hardly ever held conversations with people that lasted more than thirty minutes, except it was work related.

So, in those early days, it felt really good to have someone I could talk to for more than thirty minutes, but it soon went beyond that. I still can’t explain it, even now. One minute we were talking about strategies for StarCraft and making fantasy fiction recommendations, and the next moment, I was telling him everything there was to know about me, heart in mouth as I feared that he would shove my face in the mess that is my life. But he didn’t. His exact words were; “You’ve been stitching your life back together for so long, alone, and it’s so beautiful. That is so commendable but you must also be tired. Let me help you, please? You don’t have to do it alone again.”

In all my 25 years, that was the most beautiful thing I had heard, and I took it just as well. What I really mean is that I ran away. Yes, I logged off that night, turned off my phone for three days and stayed indoors. I was excited, I was scared, I was an entire mess of emotions and I couldn’t sort them out with him telling me such nice things, so I did the most natural thing to me. Hide.

I probably would have stayed that way for a few days more if a mail man didn’t come knocking, bearing a rather large package with him. I didn’t order anything, so I was a little sceptical, but when he confirmed my name and address, I knew the package was for me, no need to throw a fit in the presence of the poor mail man. I signed off for the package, and with a lot of wariness, I took it inside my apartment. I was tempted to call the mailman back to stay with me while I open it, but I held myself back.

“You’re a big girl, Meg. It’s just a package, it can’t hurt you.”

So with baited breath, I ripped the tape off the package, removed all the packaging paper, and inside, I found a note and all the written works of Brandon Sanderson. I gasped- that type where you recoil from the object that caused you to gasp, and you cover your slack jaw with your hands. Yes, both of them piled together like a sandwich.

With shaky hands, I removed the note, and written in an almost childlike scribble was;

“If you are going to avoid me, you might as well use all that free time to Brandon and Chill. Whenever you are ready, I will be here. I don’t miss you that much anyway.

Ps. Can you picture me with a longer nose than the one I already have? Girl, if my nose grows any longer, it’s on you.

Andrew.”

I sat on my living room floor and cried, and laughed, and reread the note over and over again until it was imprinted in my memory. When I stood up, I turned on my phone and sent him a message.

“How did you find my address?”

Almost immediately, his response came in;

“I have my ways.”

And it was as if I never ran off like a little bitch when he actually offered me something I have been looking for without even knowing I was.

“Hey, Vera. OMG, girl, I’m so mad right now.” The girl sharing the ride with me said into her phone, bringing me back to my immediate reality.

“Dad seized my ATM cards, all three of them!”

“Yeah, because of that little weed thing. He’s so fucking dramatic.”

I rolled my eyes and tried to block her out, but it was nearly impossible in the small space. My eyes met the driver’s in the mirror, and I’m sure his expression was a perfect mirror of mine. I went through the content of my purse and produced my earpiece which I plugged into my phone, allowing Lana’s Young and Beautiful drown out the voice of the whiny girl beside me, and transport me to another place entirely.

“Wake up! Wake up!!” someone said directly into my ear, bathing my face with a warm, alcohol tinged breath, and shaking me roughly. I woke up with a start, slightly discombobulated and as such, I didn’t quickly take in the soft whimper coming from beside me, and the complete darkness around that was only interrupted by a single light from a torch light.

I mean, I could see and hear these things, my just waking brain just couldn’t process them. I rubbed my hands over my eyes, blinked slowly, then it hit me.

Somehow I slept off in the cab, lost track of time and ended up in a kidnapper’s den. I immediately reached for my phone, but it had been disconnected from my earpiece, the dangling edge sending bolts of panic through me. My purse was missing, and I did the first thing that came to my mind. I started screaming for help.

Nobody tried to stop, in fact, I heard three men laugh at me, but I could only see Stink breath that woke me up.

“Scream as much as you like, nobody is coming to safe you here.”

The way he said it, it wasn’t with malice or anything, it was like it’s a fact of life and I should just accept it. The girl near me started shaking violently, crying and I knew that the message of acceptance has been sufficiently passed across to her.

“Pay me, let me go, abeg.” It was the voice of the driver, and if I had any special powers, his brain would have exploded that very minute. But, I have nothing, and people that have nothing don’t do well out here.

Someone dragged me out of the car, and on the other side, I heard the girl being dragged out as well. They lead us past tunnel after tunnel, the first one darker than the last and the only thing we had for light was still the lone torchlight. Finally, our procession came to a stop and I was shoved on my ass, and my immediate concern was for my white dress. The poor girl was shoved down as well, and made to seat back to back with me. Another one of Stink breath’s clan came to tie a rough rope around my wrist, his laborious breath tickling my neck, reinforcing the gravity of the situation even more. His breath stopped tickling me when he moved on to tie the girl’s wrist as well, and my head cleared for a bit.

“What are you going to do with us?” I finally asked, pushing past the cloud that was settling in my brain. I have heard multiple stories of people that were kidnapped, I’ve sympathised with a neighbour once that had her daughter kidnapped- she was found, gratefully, but it never occurred to me that it would come this close to me. I guess that’s the flaw in the human thinking, we always think we are the exception to some rule, that certain things cannot possibly touch us. Which is a rather ironic way of thinking for me, considering the fact that it is these things that several people have been exempted from that darkens my front door.

Stink breath 2 chuckled, and said in an equally laborious way, “When the boss comes, he’ll come sample you, then he decides what happens to you.” He sneered, someone laughed nearby, and it brought a feeling of déjà vu.

The sound of retreating feet was the only by your leave they gave us, and as soon the sounds faded, the girl started crying. Those types of cry that begin from the depth of your soul and leaves you shaking violently because you know that’s really the only thing you can do.

When I’m in a bad situation, my first instinct is to detach from myself, using the things around me to distract me from my immediate situation, and I had been doing that since I felt that alcohol breath on my neck, but the girl’s heart wrenching sob pierced that armour, and something that had been trying to make itself known all this while finally swam to the surface.

Andrew.

Score: Hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have- but I have it.

Featured Image Via Dark Wallpapers