No.

“No.”

Time seemed to freeze as she watched that one single word escape from his lips before he walked off into the sunset. The moment replayed itself over and over in her mind as she allowed herself to crumble to the ground. At first she wasn’t sure if it was reality or just a bad dream, but a simple pinch to the cheek told her the truth.

She wasn’t dreaming

Her fingers dug into the earth as she clenched the ground, holding onto the long tufts of grass as if it were her only lifeline to the world around her. Her breathing was shallow and her head was facing the ground, but she could barely make out the blades of grass through the tears in her eyes. She allowed her mind to wander as her body remained frozen in time.

She had been defeated.

After weeks of dreaming about him and wishing for the moment that he would accept her feelings, she had decided to tell him. The courtyard had looked so beautiful in the setting sun – it was a picture perfect moment. There was no better time in the world to confess.

She had been so wrong.

Her dreams of finding a prince to love her and sweep her off her feet were gone. Reality was nothing like the books she always buried her nose in. In those realities he would have said yes and she would have gladly taken his arm and run off with him.

She had been naïve.

Reality was different. Reality was terrifying and the lingering memory of his rejection was painful. It was an alarm set just a few minutes before the right time, and instead of waking up to find the sun shining, she was waking up to find her world being torn down before her very eyes.

And it was darker than she could have ever imagined.