Evergreen │Once Upon A Time Fanfic

I mess up again. (And I am not even surprised)

Almost three weeks had passed after the Great Piper Screw Up. And there were just three more days to my most dreaded holiday of the year, Valentine's day. Seriously, humans are weird. Love is something that should last forever, not only one day. And the whole red-pink-white deal makes my eyes go blind.

I was sitting in class, watching people exchange valentine's cards. It was my first valentine's day and I already hated it. I got 9 cards full of stupid and cheesy lines like, "are your eyes a maze? cuz I am getting lost in them". I had no idea how to react to the people giving me these cards so I just smiled and said thank you, when I really wanted to scream, "GET AWAY FROM ME YOU WEIRDOS!"

I looked (looked, not stared) at Dean as he got cards from every girl in our grade. Mary Margaret kept pestering me to give him a card, but I ignored it as much as possible. I wanted me and Dean to be strictly platonic. I was thankful Dean hadn't given me a card or else I would have had no idea what to do. The other stupid problem was the annoying Valentine's day dance. People started pairing up days ago and I tried my best to avoid any guy in my general vicinity. I did not sign up for awkward high school dances when I came to this world.

As soon as the bell rang after the last period, I didn't waste a second to escape from the boy-infected classroom. All I wanted to do was reach home, grab a tub of ice cream and watch Harry Potter. But of course, the universe will mess up even such a simple wish of mine.

 As I walked through the hallways, I heard someone call my name. I mentally groaned when I realized it was Dean's voice.

 Hoping against hope that he wouldn't give me a card, I turned around.I put on a fake smile and said, "Hello, Dean"

"Hey", he replied, panting. "I just wanted to ask if we were okay after that..you know, incident?"

I was too focused on praying to all the gods above that Dean wouldn't say anything valentine-related that I didn't even understand what incident he was talking about. I thought and realized that he was talking about when he had called me princess. "Oh", I said, sheepishly. "I am so sorry about that. I was not in a good mood that day", I lied. I didn't want to explain to him that the real reason I blew up was that I had what you would call a dark past.

"oh, well, good", he said, smiling, And then followed the dreaded awkward silence. Great."Oo-kay", I said, starting to walk away. "See you later then!"

"No wait!", Dean said, grabbing my wrist. I could feel my cheeks heating up, but tried to cover it up.

Dean cleared his throat and let go of my hand. "I wanted to ask...", he trailed off.

"Go on", I egged him on, not knowing what he wanted.

"Do you want to go to the dance with me?", he said. I could see his ears reddening. He was staring at me with hope in his eyes. Now see here, guys. I didn't expect to go him that far. Giving a card is a casual gesture, sort of. But I would never even dream of someone cute as Dean asking me out. So, I was so shocked. And look here, I had some "bad experiences" with guys in the past and I wasn't generally open to even interacting with guys at the moment.

"I...", It was my turn to trail off. "Look, I was planning on spending the night of the dance in front of the TV and it's not that you aren't great or anything... but", I said, not able to look into his eyes.

Dean seemed to get what I was saying and I could see the sadness building up in his eyes. And that look he gave me made my heartbreak."Yeah...ok", he said, with much difficulty, it seemed. He then started walking away from me, leaving me feeling horrible.

***

I walked back home, not looking where I was even going. The guilt and sadness I was feeling cannot be expressed in words.

I ended up walking headfirst into someone. I mumbled an apology and tried to get past them but the person held me by my shoulders."Whoa there, kiddo", said Emma's voice.

 "Oh hey there, Emma", I mumbled, not looking into her eyes.

 "Are you okay?", she asked me, instantly seeing my bad mood.

I didn't even bother trying to deny that I was feeling like shit. I shook my head no and wrapped my hands around her torso and sobbed. Emma was taken aback, but she put her hands on my head and hugged me back. She led me to the curb and made me sit down. I wiped my eyes, trying to get a hold of myself. But I couldn't. Everything was crashing down on me. I slowly started building up everything and yet I keep messing up.

"What's wrong, Pipes?", Emma asked softly, still holding me.

I told her about what had happened with Dean. "Do you think I am selfish?", I asked her, still sobbing. 

"What? no", Emma said. "No, Piper. You are the wisest and most selfless kid I have seen. You know what I understood from what you just told me?"

"What?", I asked, breathing heavily.

"You're like me", Emma said, looking into my eyes, holding me at shoulder length. "You try protecting yourself, avoiding disasters. And let me tell you, there's nothing wrong with that. And trust me, rejecting a boy does not make you selfish."

But she didn't know the whole story. She didn't know about what August told me. She didn't know that I had been thinking about that. About how I didn't try much to break the curse. About how I felt like I was indeed being selfish.

"It's going to be okay, kiddo. Everything's going to be okay. I'm here for you.", she said, hugging me.

"Thank you", I mumbled, hugging her back. That was the day I found out the joys of my mother's warmth. We stayed like that for a couple of minutes until Emma had to leave for work.

***