Someone Else's Fairytale

Chapter One: That Day

I stepped out our front door into the frigid, Albuquerque night. The crisp air, tinged with the scent of woodsmoke, flushed through my lungs, and the stars winked distantly in the deep cobalt sky. It was three thirty a.m., way too early to be awake.

A truck turned the corner and rumbled its way over to our house. I watched it parallel park, then go silent as the lights switched off. The driver's side door opened, and my best friend, Matthew, stepped down. His cowboy boots thudded against the asphalt, then crunched across the gravel that covered our front yard. “Howdy,” he said.

I stifled a laugh. He was the walking stereotype of a Texan, with his muscular build, tight jeans, and flannel shirt. His hazel eyes were smiling, though. Like me, he was a senior at UNM, and he was a source of sanity, something I needed to counterbalance my housemate, Lori, who just then skipped out the front door, jumped down onto the gravel, and struck an action pose, both hands up, ready to karate chop whatever imaginary adversary might be lurking under the giant cottonwood that dominated our front yard. She wasn't wearing any nylons with her skirt.

“Aren't you cold?” Matthew asked.

“Yep, but I don't think this is a cold weather scene we're in.”

“We're extras,” I said, for what felt like the millionth time. “Nobody's going to notice what we're wearing.”

“How did she talk you into this?” Matthew asked me. The three of us started towards campus, on foot. We'd been told not to drive because there was limited parking.

“I don't know,” I said.

“Come on, just picture it.” Lori waved a hand, setting the scene “-we're on the set, and Jason Vanderholt walks by.”

I rolled my eyes.

“I tell him how hot he was in the New Light movies-”

“Because I'm sure he never hears that,” I said. The New Light franchise was a trilogy of gladiator movies that I'd managed to avoid seeing, despite the fact that Jason Vanderholt's long haired, shirtless figure had been plastered on every vertical surface for three years straight while they came out.

“Sarcasm,” chided Matthew.

“You should ask him why his character was named 'sword',” I said.

“Gladius,” Lori corrected me.

“Right. That's Latin for, 'sword'.”

“It was his nickname. But you're ruining my narrative here."

We stepped off the curb to cross the street. Given the hour, there was no traffic, though in the still night air, we could hear voices of other groups who, like us, were headed towards campus on foot.

"He stops to talk to us,” said Lori.

“Then what?” said Matthew.

“That's it. He stops to talk to us.”

“That's it?”

“A girl can dream.”

“Apparently not. That the best you can do?”

“Shut up okay?” Lori stuck her tongue out at him. “I'm a math major.”

“At least come up with something to talk to him about.”

“Ooooh! You know what? I should totally ask him if he remembers Vicki Baca! Remember, she said she had a locker next to him in high school?”

Aside from being the star of the multi-bazillion dollar New Light franchise, Vanderholt was also a local, or he had been before he'd hit it big with a show on the Disney Channel back in his teens. I cleared my throat. “I know about thirty people who claim to have had the locker next to him in high school, which makes me wonder how they do the lockers at La Cueva.”