A Rose in Time: A Modern Fairy Tale

Prologue: Beauty and the Beast

Most girls I knew growing up dreamed about being a princess, the tiaras, the ball gowns, the wedding in a chapel. They dreamed of their perfect prince, a man who would be dapper, tall, and charming. Romance was always a fairy tale for me, not something I saw as a reality. My dad made me watch Beauty and the Beast with him when I was little. It was his favorite Disney movie. I hated it. How could a man who was so evil turn into someone good? I had scoffed saying that, "People didn't change and Belle is not a princess." I was eight. I just couldn't understand how she could love someone who kept her trapped in the castle, even though he ended up showing her compassion. I thought she was a fool. I was not convinced that they would live happily. After making me sit through it once a week for a month, my dad finally realized I was not enjoying myself. That day, he had looked at me with disappointment and worry. He was such a hopeless romantic. Too bad, I was not. That was the same day that I realized I was not an average girl. The next day, I saw the VHS tape shelved away with the other videos we didn't watch anymore.

Love didn't make sense to me. It seemed too good to be true. I swore to myself I would never be the kind of girl who needed to experience love. It's not that I didn't want to believe in love or hope that prince charming existed. Really, the truth of it was that I could not see the world in bright shades. I saw every dreary shadow that hovered over my family. Maybe it was because we didn't have money or because my mom was always working. Whatever the reasons, I knew I was different and I didn't care.

We struggled a lot as a family. I loved them and I knew they loved me, but it was never a feeling that I felt. Love was a fact that meant acceptance. My childhood was not filled with happy dreams of the future, not because of anything my family did. It was all me. On a regular day, I dreamed about eating something other than chips and chicken nuggets. I had a small feasible hope that one day I would get new glasses and maybe some clothes that weren't from a discount store. These were my realistic goals. My dad wanted me and my brother to dream bigger. He kept feeding us the line that we could do anything if we worked hard enough. My dad clung to his childhood dream of being a writer while Miles dreamed about being a lawyer. I was the only one who thought that life was not worth it.

My mom was a story that never made sense to me. I didn't make sense to her either. She loved me but we didn't really talk. During the years of being poor, I never saw her. She worked two jobs and went to school part-time. We were all too busy worrying about money that no one saw that I was fading into an abyss that I couldn't see through. In my mind, the world was a place that drained life, not a place that gave life. It was called depression. I didn't know it at the time. No one seemed to recognize it at the time, I was just a strange kid with issues.

When I was thirteen, my dad wrote a romance novel and after months of trying to get published, he finally got a book deal and he became an instant sensation. We went from a small two bedroom cramped flat in London to a spacious loft. That was when his marriage to my mum, Illiana, began to crumble. Looking back, their love was never real. It was a charade. I knew it was was all along but I didn't want to believe it. Even my father knew that she never loved him, but it took him a few years to finally admit it. They divorced when I was fifteen, after two years of fighting, lying, and cheating. Maybe that is why I stupidly fell for someone I could never have all to myself. 

I was sixteen when I lost my virginity. His name wast Mitchell and he was in my art class. He said he was in love with me and I thought I had been in love with him. At least, I had hoped it was love. In the end, though, it made sense that it was not the kind of love that lasts. It was the kind of love that sweeps you up and rustles your hair, then gently sets you back down again somewhere you don't even recognize, leaving you more confused than before. 

Our relationship didn't happen overnight. It grew from a place in the darkness where forgotten memories go to hide. I was trying to forget my parents. I was needing to escape everything. He was needing to feel wanted after a bad breakup. We were both vulnerable and I should have seen the ending before it even began. It was desperate, in a clinging to each other for dear life sort of way. I wasn't sure I regretted it or not. In a way, I was glad it happened. I learned a lot about selfish love. 

It happened in the summer. I was stuck in summer school, so was he. I told myself that art class was what I needed to get through Phys. Ed. I wasn't being honest with myself. I knew that Mitchell would be there because he wanted to go into graphic design. He was a popular, sports guy, but he dreamed of creating designs for advertisements. He dated Victoria, who was the smartest girl in our class and also was captain of the hockey team. Victoria and I had never got along. I was the weird girl and she was little miss perfect. She broke up with Mitchell at the end of term because she was off on holiday in America for the summer. He was devastated. 

In art class, we were assigned to sit together. It all seemed very cliche when I thought about it. We dated for two months. None of the girls in art class wanted anything to do with him because they knew Victoria would kill them. I was the only brave enough because I didn't care about Victoria. She couldn't do anything to me. 

I didn't like him immediately. What began as an isolated friendship, developed into something more. I don't know how to describe it. It wasn't falling in love. I had been numb to life. I felt like nothing could break through that armor that I had built around my heart. But he had encouraged me, believed in me, and when I saw him smile, it felt like it was just for me. I was desperate to believe in something. He made it easy to believe. I wanted this unlikely love story to be the fairy tale that I had never believed in. Maybe for once, life would prove me wrong.

I was wrong, very wrong. He ended it in August, right before school started. He sent me an email from our school email accounts. All he had to say was, "I'm sorry but I am getting back together with Victoria, you need to move on." Luckily, I didn't have to see him again. We moved at the end of summer. That's when I constructed a shield around myself made of stone. The mortar was made of every tear, every sip of alcohol, and every word that had ever tore me down.  

 I went to parties, I let myself slip away into a life that wasn’t mine. Yes, I chose to do the things I did and I developed a reputation. That year, my dad watched me collapse. He saw me go from an awkward, melancholy child to an unrecognizable person motivated to escape by any means possible. That’s when he decided that he was going to change everything about our life. At that point, he had the money to do so since he was a three time national bestselling author. He could attempt to buy our happiness.

Mom was working at a hospital and living in London with my brother Miles. Dad and I had been living in Nana’s house right outside of London. He broke the news to me on a Sunday night. He sat me down on our expensive couch that I wasn’t allowed to eat on.

“Rosie,” he had said, his voice calm and serious. “We are selling Nana’s place and moving to the country. I bought a manor house and we will be fixing it up.”

Obviously, I protested at first. “How could you do this to me? We have been fine here.”

He knew I hated change. Change made me anxious.

“You have not been fine. I have not been fine. We need something different. You and I will waste away here. I haven’t been able to write for the past year. You only draw images of graves and broken hearts. You have lost your passion and frankly so have I. Rosie, darling, we need this.”

I didn’t want to look at him or speak to him. I crossed my arms over my chest and started thinking about how I was going to reinvent myself in my new life. I could dye my hair blue and get a tattoo. I could go out and buy some ripped jeans and short plaid skirts. I would buy thick leather bracelets and pierce my nose. I had looked like a party girl before we moved to the country. I wore tight tops, push up bras, and expensive sweaters from Harrods. I always spent too much time on my hair. I had done it on purpose. I played a part so that I could forget who I really was. It had all become way too much.

We left Nana’s in May. Dad was constantly talking about the plans for the new house which he wanted to turn into a bed and breakfast that was literary themed. He hoped to attract aspiring writers. I had rolled my eyes. He could be so cliche.

I planned on throwing myself into my art. I was sick of people anyway. I felt exhausted just thinking about a new school and putting myself out there so I could get invited to parties and such. I was an independent girl who didn’t need friends or to drink every weekend, especially with one year of school left. So I decided the loner, artsy type would be a good change.

Everything that happened after we moved made me realize that life isn’t always predictable. In the end, I had to cling to hope. When I had thought that it was over, that everything good and worthwhile was dead, life proved me wrong. I had never been so happy to be wrong.

Sometimes, fairy tales are real. They may break you for a moment, but in the end they are worth believing in. Take Beauty and the Beast for example, they had almost lost all hope until Belle sacrificed herself for her father and changed the whole story. My story didn’t happen like that, but I did meet someone who was as lonely as the Beast. He did change my life forever.