"At least out loud, I won't say I'm in love." - Hercules
"LISTEN WILL, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have reacted the way I did when you asked me out. I'm just really caught up with something else right now, and it's making me act like an insane person. Would you maybe like to go and have coffee as friends sometime when I'm not a wreck in a princess dress?
(If only it were that easy to say it to his face.)
I was standing in front of the mirror in my dressing room, trying to practice what I was going to say to Will when I saw him before the show. So far, I'd come up with about a thousand stupid ways to word how sorry I was - and hated every single one of them. Was this how normal people practiced their apologies? Or did normal people even practice their apologies? At this point, I didn't even care - I knew that I was far from the society's mutual definition of normal. All I was doing now was going over what I'd say, in hopes that it would become coherent enough by the time Will came around.
"I don't know..." A voice from my doorway startled me, and I spun around to find Will himself leaning against the doorframe, looking less than pleased with me. I couldn't exactly blame him - I wasn't too crazy about myself at the moment, either. "Do you think Max would mind?"
I sighed, "Will, I honestly don't know what you're talking about."
"You must be really clueless, huh?" he sounded annoyed. "Everyone at this park knows that you two are obviously head over heels - stop playing dumb and just admit it; you like Max, and he likes you."
I crossed my arms defensively. "I do not like Max!"
Will looked unconvinced. "Really? You run around with him all day, watch the fireworks with him - and he even comes to see the show every other day now. Did you really think that nobody would notice?" he asked, and I gaped at him, fuming.
I put down my frying pan. "Alright, let's just get one thing straight here - I am not clueless. I am not head over heels or playing dumb or any of that crap, and even if I was, I wouldn't have to justify it to you if you were truly my friend. But you are my friend and my co-worker, and I like you a lot too in my own way, and I don't want this or anything to get between us," I ranted, throwing my hands up in the air with a "so there" thrown in for good measure.
Will was speechless. "I like you a lot, Alice," was all he could say.
I frowned, looking at the floor guiltily. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry," he smiled, sitting down and motioning for me to come and sit next to him. "I'm not, and I'll be fine. I was never really mad about that, anyway - everything you said was true. We're friends, and friends don't lie to each other. It's all of this pretending that I'm not a fan of - the lying to me when I already know the truth."
"I'm not lying! Do I have to spell it out for you? Because I'd be happy to, really."
"Alice, just admit it-"
"I-D-O N-O-T-L-I-K-E-M-A-X. Are you getting the picture yet?"
"As much as that really did illuminate the subject, no. I'm not going to leave until you tell me the truth."
"Well, then I guess you better sit down, because we're going to be here for a while," I retorted out of habit, only realizing that I'd said the exact same thing to Max once when we were in this same spot. "And even if I did like him, that's not going to work out anymore. He hates me."
"What did you do?"
"Why do you assume that it's my fault?" I glared at him, and he laughed. "Ha! I got you to laugh! You forgive me now, right?" I tried, but he didn't give in.
"You're even acting like him," he mumbled.
"Am not!"
"Oh, really? You've got pictures of Rapunzel up everywhere, a cup that looks like Chip from Beauty and the Beast on your dresser, and you're suddenly acting like you can actually tolerate Disney," Will argued. "And I saw you leaving the park the other day humming to yourself like Ariel - just a few weeks ago, you wouldn't have been caught dead singing a Disney song," he pointed out.
I sputtered, trying to come up with explanations. "The pictures are for when I'm doing my make-up, the cup is for when I get thirsty, and the tolerating Disney part..." I trailed off, trying to think of a good believable excuse. "That's a tough one," I admitted, giving up.
"Alice, it's cool," Will smiled, putting a hand on my shoulder. "I don't care if you go out with Max - just don't lie to me, okay? We have to stick together - we can't do our jobs if we're at each other's throats. That involves being honest, okay?" I nodded, but pulled away.
"Okay - but I'm not going out with Max," I clarified.
Will smirked. "But you want to, don't you?"
I stared at the floor. "I..."
"Five minutes to curtain, you two," a voice on the intercom informed us, cutting me off. Will looked at me expectantly, but I dodged answering his question, partially because we didn't have much time until the show - and partially because I didn't exactly know how to word that answer either. One step at a time, Alice.
"But Alice-" Will stopped me as I walked out the door without another word on the subject.
"You heard her - five minutes to curtain, Eugene," I scolded, grinning.
"Fine - but I better be the best man at your wedding," he teased.
"Oh, be quiet," I grinned. And with that, Will and I got in our places and waited for the curtains to rise, both smiling to ourselves with a reassurance that everything was going to be alright between us - as friends.
One down, two to go.
➳ ➳ ➳
"Grace, Bradley. Bradley, Grace."
"Alice, what do you think you're doing?" Grace hissed.
I grinned, "Introducing you to someone more... your type."
Grace (dressed as Wendy) was standing to my right, as Bradley (our honorary Gaston of three years) was standing to my left, both looking sufficiently nervous to meet one another. Bradley was so built that he didn't even need to wear the padding on his arms like our previous Gaston's had - which was exactly why I thought that he would be perfect to impress Grace. Anything to get her to stay away from Max was something that I was willing to try. My job in this whole operation; to get them to actually speak to each other.
"Gaston, Wendy. Wendy, Gaston," I repeated when neither of them said anything.
"Uh, hi," Grace greeted him shyly. This girl had a shy side? Since when? The only side of her I'd seen was her nasty one - and up until now, I'd assumed that that was the only side she had. Bradley didn't skip a beat before kneeling and planting a kiss on her hand - either he was the old-fashioned type, or just really getting into character before his shift started. Grace giggled and blushed exactly as Wendy would - which actually looked kind of cool from my standpoint, despite the fact that their two characters were from completely different movies. Still, I much preferred this to Max being in Bradley's place, so I wasn't complaining.
Brad asked Grace to lemonade without skipping a beat, and she breezily accepted, acting calm and cool when I knew that she was probably pretty excited deep down, even though her many layers of annoyed and nasty, which were usually reserved for me. "I'll catch up with you," she called to him as he went to go order, shooting a valiant smile in her direction before walking away. "Why would you do something like this for me? I'd never have to guts to talk to someone as hot as him on my own," Grace admitted, looking at me skeptically, even though I could sense I bit of gratitude.
Before I could answer, she kept going. "It's because of Max, isn't it?" she asked with a knowing smile, and I didn't reply. "You two would make a cute couple - I just don't want him to get hurt, you know? When you first got here, you looked pretty vicious - no offence. Just don't break his heart, alright? He's a sweet guy - even to me, and I'm, well... you know. Not as sweet." At least she owns it, I thought to myself. "The point is, he deserves someone great, she finished.
"Alright, but I'm not dating hi-"
"I'm gonna go catch up with Brad. Thanks again," she smiled gratefully.
Two down, one to go. And this was going to be the hardest of all.
➳ ➳ ➳
"Max! I know you're up there, I can hear you humming I Just Can't Wait To Be King."
I called up to him. I felt like a complete idiot doing this - but he hadn't come in to work today, so this was the only way to go. The window opened and Max appeared, and I was mildly surprised by the sight of him without his costume on. He was wearing a normal t-shirt and jeans - while I was still in my Rapunzel dress and hair. As romantic as all of this was - not that I wanted it to be romantic, or anything - I knew that there was no other way to get in touch with him, and even though technically the boy usually came to the girl's window... I was trying something new.
"What do you want, Alice?" he asked, then stopped me from answering. "Wait, how did you even find where I live?"
"You told me you live on this street, you have a Cars bumper sticker on the back of your jeep and a mailbox signed Carl & Ellie," I pointed out. "I took a wild guess."
"What do you want?" he repeated.
"Well..." I began, wondering how to word this. I'd spent so much time working on my apologies to Grace and Will that I hadn't even thought of what I'd say to Max. That was a lie - I'd thought plenty of times about what I'd say, I just never came up with anything that didn't sound pathetic. "I came to say I was sorry. Are you still mad at me?" I called up to him, fiddling with my braid awkwardly.
"For what?" he asked, leaning against the window frame. "Kicking me out of your house, yelling at me countless times, calling me pathetic or using me to get a rise out of Grace?" he listed off, making me feel more and more guilty as each second passed.
I guess that answered that question. "All of the above," I replied. "And how exactly did I use you to get a rise out of Grace?" I asked, not completely following him.
Max sighed. "Oh please, like I didn't notice that whole hand-holding stunt you pulled the other day outside of Ariel's Castle - you were obviously just trying to use me to make Grace angry." I opened my mouth and was about to make a comeback when I shut it again. What was the point of trying to lie to him? The whole idea of this was to fix things between us - not make them worse.
"I can't argue with that..." I admitted. "But it wasn't entirely because of Grace, I just-"
"Then what was it about?" he asked. "Why are you always pushing me away every time I think that you're finally starting to like me? I just don't get it - no, I don't get you," he corrected himself.
"I know - I know I've been a jerk. I didn't mean to be - I just, well... could you maybe come down here? I don't want to keep shouting up at you and wake the whole neighbourhood."
"Oh, how considerate of you."
"I try," I tried a smile, but he'd already disappeared and closed the window. I waited a few minutes and realized that he'd probably taken that as an opportunity to ditch me and wasn't going to come back. I turned and was about to head over to the car that would take me home - I'd paid my new driver extra to stick around while I talked to Max - only to realize that the car was gone.
I should've known that there was a reason why my 'new driver' looked so sketchy. What kind of company hires a driver with empty soda cans in the backseat anyways?
A tap on my shoulder made me jump. "What are you looking at?" he asked, following my gaze to the road.
"My ride - it just..." I started, trailing off. "I wasted my money."
Max sighed. "I'll drive you home, don't worry."
"Max, you don't have to-"
"Right now, I'm more interested in what you came here to say," he got straight to the point. "So, what didn't you mean to be?"
I resisted making a comment about his horrible grammar and turned around. "I didn't mean to be... well, everything I was. To be honest, I've always had an issue with Peter Pan - and you following me around all the time just had me on edge."
"You could've just told me to go away - or better yet, you could've just told me the truth."
"I was going to-"
"So why didn't you? Why did you let me tick you off without knowing that I was doing something wrong? You know that I would never have acted that way if I'd known that it would upset you - my intentions for that night were the exact opposite of that."
"Your intentions?" I asked, and he was about to say something when I cut him off. "Never mind - I did try to tell you that night, but we got kicked out of the ballroom, remember? And after that, I felt like dropping a big bomb like that on you would've been kind of a downer. We were having fun, I didn't want to-"
"So you had fun?" Max asked, a hint of a smile on his face.
I laughed. "Max, of course I had fun. It was Belle's castle," I pointed out. "But that isn't the point. The point is that I had something to tell you - I still have something to tell you."
"Go ahead then," he prompted, crossing his arms.
I did - I told him everything. Everything from watching Peter Pan on a continuous loop when I was younger to almost jumping out my window just to get him to show up. I told him about my outburst at school and the night that I just stopped believing altogether. I explained the real reason why I said that Disney ruined my life - and how I began to judge everything about it once I began to hate it even more.
"But I had to take the job, so I figured that I'd just avoid you-know-who at all costs-"
"And then I showed up," Max finished for me, "and ruined everything."
"No, no! You did not ruin everything - I mean, I thought that at first, but things are so different now. I'm glad you caught me that first day of work - partially because I would've died if you hadn't - but mostly because I... I like hanging out with you," I admitted bashfully. "I just had a hard time looking past the whole 'Peter Pan' thing."
"You could've just told me," Max pointed out. "I would've understood."
"I know you would have," I smiled. "But you've known me for a while now, and I'm not exactly the definition of smart - or trusting," I shot back at him, and we both laughed lightheartedly, our fingers still entwined. "So does this mean you're not mad at me anymore?" I asked, giving him a hopeful look as I bit my lip nervously.
"I don't know..." he began in a teasing tone. "You did turn my life upside down for almost a week there..."
"Has anyone ever told you how insufferable you are?"
"I'm pretty sure you have, once or twice."
I couldn't believe this - I was sitting in front of this Disney-crazed lunatic, wearing a ridiculous costume of a princess that I didn't even like - and to top it all off, I had no idea how to get home. But the unbelievable thing about it all was this - I didn't even care. I could've stayed there on his porch all night long just talking with him, for reasons that I was beginning to understand why.
I was wrong about not liking Rapunzel too, I realized. Although the costume was still borderline ridiculous, I was really beginning to enjoy playing her character. Even though we were not very similar - aside from looks and a very similar singing voice - she'd brought me close to someone who I was beginning to really, really like. And even though I had to dress up and walk around Disneyland all day long, I was glad that I'd at least get to dress up as her.
"Listen Alice, I had something to tell you too that night," Max began, bringing me back down to earth from my thoughts. I scooted closer to him on the steps and put my chin in my hands like Rapunzel did as Eugene was telling her about his childhood, making Max grin. I really did love it when he smiled like that - I didn't know why, I just did.
But I did know - I knew exactly why I loved it so much.
All of the blushing - countless times per day - falling into his arms, feeling tingles when he took my hand to drag me to our next destination; all of it was for one reason. I finally knew what Will was talking about - and why Kiera and Jamie had looked at us so knowingly when Max caught me. I knew why Rachel told me the whole story about Marlin and Dory, and why Grace told me not to "hurt him". All the times I'd wondered why my heart sped up while we watched the fireworks and why it'd devastated me so much when we fought, and now I knew why.
I had liked Max all along - and everyone else seemed to think he liked me right back.
"Wait Max, I need to tell you-" I started.
He kept going. "Ever since that first day when I caught you-"
"Ever since that first day when you caught me-" Well, now we were just talking at the same time.
"I've just been trying to keep you around because-" Max continued.
I just kept blabbering on. "I was trying to get away from you because-"
"And I realized that it was really because-"
"Max, this is ridiculous," I stopped us both. We were silent for a moment, hoping that the other would talk first. "You go first," I suggested quickly, anxious to hear what he was about to say. Maybe, if I was lucky, we were both about to say the same thing anyway.
Unfortunately, he had to make me go first. "No, you go ahead."
Did he really have to make me say it? "Alright..." I started, my breath catching despite myself. "I was looking online earlier, and I saw that Frozen was playing in 3D tomorrow night at 8 at the Rainbow Cinema down the street. We both get off work at 7:30 on Fridays, so I was thinking that if we changed really quick and drove illegally fast-" Great. I was taking at the speed of light - I was definitely going have to repeat all of this.
"What are you trying to ask me, Alice?"
I sighed. "I was just wondering... if maybe, you possibly wanted to go and see it? W-with me? Like, as-a-date?" I asked quickly, not meeting his gaze. Although I hadn't slowed down my speech very much, I could tell from his silence that he'd understood what I'd said. And from the way he lifted my chin before leaning in and kissing me slowly and sweetly, I was beginning to feel very glad that he'd made me go first.
I don't know how long we'd kissed for - I'd lost track after I forgot how to count. When I first met Max, I never would've dreamed that I'd be sitting here now, dressed as Rapunzel, kissing him on his front porch. And even though the next time I saw him, he'd be dressed as Peter Pan, I was now more than happy to run away with him, at last. "I'm going to take that as a yes," I decided after we pulled away, grinning stupidly to myself and blushing fiercely.
"Do you still want me to drive you home?" Max asked breathlessly, his forehead resting against mine.
"Not just yet," I uttered quickly before pulling him in again, beaming as we kissed again with smiling lips. My smile only grew as a thought occurred to me suddenly - Max had won the bet. After his countless attempts to get me to fall in love Disney, this was the one that had finally worked. But it wasn't riding It's A Small World with him that'd won me over in the end - it was knowing that Max was the first thing since Disney to make me feel truly magical again.
So sure, Max finally won the bet - but I couldn't help feeling like we had both won something much, much better.
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a / n ~ ARE YOU GUYS FANGIRLING AS MUCH AS I AM?!?!?! Okay, so even though this isn't related to Disney at all, I just want to tell you guys that Wicked is coming to Toronto (which happens to be very close to where I live) and I AM TOTALLY FREAKING OUT!!!!! I am so excited, words cannot even describe how happy I am. Other than that, are you happy that I had Max and Alice get together??? I had some people shipping Will and Alice at the beginning, but I liked this plot better. What did you think about Alice setting up Grace and Bradley (Gaston)? Tell me your thoughts!
While we're waiting for the epilogue to be posted (and written), what is your favourite Disney duet? I'd have to say that mine are "I See The Light" from Tangled and "Love is an Open Door" from Frozen (even though Hans ends up being, well... you know) because they are just so cute!!!! I also adore "A Whole New World", "So This Is Love", and "Something There". What about you? ~xoxo, sydney ♥