Alone on Cloud 9

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xo.

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"Let's say God puts two people on Earth and they are lucky enough to find one another. But one of them gets hit by lightning. Well then what? Is that it? Or, perchance, you meet someone new and marry all over again. Is that the lady you're supposed to be with or was it the first? And if so, when the two of them were walking side by side were they both the one for you and you just happened to meet the first one first or, was the second one supposed to be first? And is everything just chance or are some things meant to be?"

- Ever After

Prologue

You know that feeling you get when for a moment everything seems right with the world? Where the stars just seem to line up, and things make sense, and it's like nothing can go wrong? And you feel just like you're walking on clouds, so perfectly content and happy and wishing you could just freeze time and live in the same moment forever?

Well, that's how I feel when I read a book.

Not just any book will do. It has to be the perfect book. The perfect love story that makes you breathless with anticipation, makes you clutch your pillow and stifle a sigh because your parents are asleep and it's two in the morning.

Sometimes it's just one line in a book… one verse in a song… one scene in a movie that makes you believe in love all over again.

When I closed my eyes, I wasn't just Arya Simons anymore, I was Elizabeth Bennet, dancing at the Netherfield ball with Darcy, Cinderella finally getting her Prince Charming, I was walking on cloud 9, a princess in my very own fairy tale who lived happily ever a--

Wait.

What am I saying?

The real truth is, I used to be that girl. I used to believe in all that made up nonsense about love and fate and the perfect guy and living happily ever after… but I know better now.

When you really think about it, all those decisions that change your life come down to one moment, one quivering second where it all hangs in the balance right before the scales tip. 

Everyone else at school knew it as the day of 'The Incident', May 13 of tenth grade, a day I'll never forget, a day he made a choice that would change my life irreversibly.

That was the day I stopped believing in love, stopped believing that things would somehow work out in the end and everyone would live as they did in the fairy tales.

All those books and movies just set you up to be disappointed. How often did the popular gorgeous guy really fall for girl who tried to be invisible?

Do best friends really sit there and encourage you to fall for the one who's bound to break your heart?

Can people ever really change?

What was love anyway?

A four letter word that's been used and abused too much to mean anything.

I know now what it means to me, naive.

Because the sad truth is, people rarely live up to your expectations, and 'The Incident' is surely proof of that.

That was the day I came crashing back down to reality, the one place I'd worked so hard to get away from. No knight in shining armour could help me now; no Prince would come and sweep me off my feet. It was the midnight hour and my coach was a pumpkin once more.

And I owe it ALL to Michael Conner...