Someone Else's Fairytale (28 page)

I was early to my next Media Studies class two days later and immediately picked up where I'd left off, my heart in my mouth, willing Gladius to overcome his enemies and become a champion.

When the princess showed up to his final challenge for the movie, I wished I could shoot poison darts out of my eyes at her and step into her place. I watched as he hacked his way gorily through the trial, emerging triumphant against all odds. I thought it was sexy that he was dripping with sweat and covered with a few streaks of blood. I would have run right into his arms, just like the princess did.

Only, that turned out to be a daydream for Gladius. The movie finished with him winning enough for his freedom, but still gazing longingly at the princess, who left the coliseum without a backwards glance.

The lights came up and the professor started his lecture. I tried to focus and take notes, but I kept reliving parts of the movie in my mind. I imagined being there at that final fight and dropping some kind of token onto the battleground (even though that was an idea from a different era). I imagined breaking into his slave quarters to make him forget all about the princess. After all, I had been that girl for him, for a little while at least. I daydreamed in a way I hadn't done since I was a little girl, before Chris's insanity had brought an abrupt end to my childhood.

I missed the end of the lecture and had to gather my things while everyone else filed out. I knew I had to write an essay on the movie, and that, for once, wouldn't be hard. As soon as I got home, I got out my netbook and got to work. I pointed out every ridiculous misogynistic trope in that film and then analyzed how a good
Hollywood
actor got the audience to look past them all.

I certainly had.

Two weeks and two more
New Light
movies later, and I was in even worse shape. I watched Gladius enlist in the Roman army and make a name for himself in
New Light: A Call to Destiny
, then watched him lead the armies to a great and strategic victory in
New Light: Glory's Reign
. I sat on the edge of my seat when he met the princess for the first time and declared his undying love for her, and my heart soared when he returned from battle to find that she'd spurned her betrothed and pledged to be with him instead.

I watched their wedding and a very stylized sex scene and the beginning of Gladius's reign as emperor. The princess was madly in love with him, and he convinced me that he'd be true to her forever, and thus the movies ended on the perfect note. Provided one could ignore the fact that the Romans were shouting “All hail Gladius Caesar!” at the end, and nothing in the historical record supported the idea that they'd had an “Emperor Sword”.

But the unit was over.

I wished my daydreams would end that neatly. After the last class I went to work. One of the magazines on the magazine rack, across the room from me, had a picture of Jason on the cover and boasted a seven page interview. I tried to distract myself by thinking about how I really had done the right thing that last night I'd seen him. He'd have moved on ages ago. I was now just another face in the screaming legions. A fangirl.

A customer stepped up to the register. “Y-” I meant to say “Yes?” but I choked. Standing across the counter was Steve Vanderholt. “H-hi,” I said.

“Hey, Chloe.”

“Hey, Chloe.” That, I realized with a start, was Jennifer, standing right next to him. The two siblings faced me, both smiling. Next to them was a very bored and disgusted looking Kyra.

“Yeah... hi.” My face burned hot. I wondered how often they'd been in before I'd ever met Jason. How many people around town saw them and served them and had no idea. “Um... so... can I uh...”

“How are you?” Steve asked.

I wanted to slink away. To morph into someone else or have someone knock over a table or start a fight so I'd have a reason to take off at a run.

“Ye-ah,” said Jen. “We heard what happened.”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “Really.”

“For what?” said Steve. “Jason made a pass at you, and you, by his account, were real decent about it.”

Now that my head had cleared a little, I saw they weren't uncomfortable. If anything, they looked like they felt bad about how things had turned out. But I knew Steve independent of Jason. He and I were still friends.

“So how are you?” he said.

“I'm real good. The evidence you got for my case? The cops followed some leads and took him into custody for parole violations. I think I can move home again soon, so I'll never be able to thank you enough.”

“That was all you. You took the initiative and got the whole process rolling.”

“Steve said you were amazing,” said Jennifer.

“Can I get you guys anything?”

They placed their orders and I handed them a number to take to their table.

Steve looked confused, “Wait, what about-”

“You're not paying,” I said, curtly. “Go sit.”
 

Jen gave my arm a squeeze before they went to find a table. I looked after them wistfully. Jason did have a great family. I was glad more customers flooded in so that I could forget they were even there.

Only, when I returned from the back to fetch something, there stood Kyra, by the milkshake line. She didn't look like she was in line, though. She was at the counter, next to the people placing orders.

“Hi,” I said to her.

“Hi...”

I paused to see if she wanted to say anything else.

“So... um...” She shifted her weight like I was the one who'd put her on the spot. “Can I see your scar?”

I had a pitcher of juice in one hand, and the counter was too high for me to show my calf. I pulled up my shirt and showed her the one on my stomach, a glossy circle of scar tissue.

“Whoa,” she said.

“Hope you don't know too many people with those.” I moved on.

Only, she stayed. I took a couple more orders. Jen and Steve were seated at the edge of the dining room, and Jennifer glanced over now and then, but didn't call her stepdaughter back. I went over to stand across from Kyra again.

“Jason said you were the strongest woman he'd ever met.”

“Well, he never saw that scar,” I said. “I've got another one on my leg.”

“Oh... really?” Confusion clouded her expression.

I laughed. “Yes, not that it's any of your business. Really.”

“You were just his friend?”

“I was.”

She looked down. There were customers in line, but my coworkers seemed to be on top of it. I waited.

Kyra said nothing.

“So how've you been?” I asked.

“Fine.”

“Family treating you all right?”

She shrugged at that and pulled a face. “Who, the Vanderholts?”

“They would be your family.”

“They treat me fine.”

“What's that mean? Jen been feeding you too much?”

“She doesn't do that to me.”

I nodded.

“They don't like me.”

“I happen to know that isn't true.”

“They're always telling me what to do.”

“Well, that's what's really not fun about being a teenager. It gets better. 'Scuse me a sec.” I went to help out by putting bread rolls on plates. “Sorry,” I told the guy who was manning the Red Stuff machine. “Don't mean to be slacking.” He just waved that away. I dished up a few slices of cake and cookies, then returned to where Kyra still stood.

“They like you,” she said. “They still talk about you. They all think I'm messed up.”

“You got into the Academy, which I happen to know isn't easy. I graduated from
Rio Grande
and have bullet holes in me. There's no way they think I'm okay but that you're messed up. Gimme a break.”

She blinked a few times in surprise, then giggled.

I made as if to look her over critically. “You seem all right to me. How do you like school?”

“It's okay.”

“What's your favorite class?”

“Drama.”

“Really? You ever talked to Jason about that?”

“No...”

“You should. I bet he doesn't even know.”

“Nobody knows.”

I didn't get why she would tell me, then, when she had such a close knit family, but the girl standing across the counter from me looked lonely. I wondered if I would have been that way if my mother had married my father, and I felt the rest of the Winters family didn't approve of me. Not exactly the same situation, but close enough, it seemed.

“Kyra?” Jen called out. Kyra and I both turned and Jen pointed to the plates of food that had just been delivered to the table.

“I gotta go,” said Kyra.

“Nice to see you,” I said.

“Thanks.” She said it awkwardly, and scurried across the room.

At closing time, I had a moment of weakness and bought the magazine with Jason on it. I took it home, stared at the cover for about half an hour, then flipped open to the interview. The first page had a two page picture of Jason lying on a couch, gazing at the camera with the loneliest expression I'd ever seen. It was the way he'd looked at me just before I'd kicked him out of my house, and right then I wanted to put my arms around him and tell him I was sorry, and that I wanted to take it all back.

But the stack of printouts that Matthew had made was tucked under the couch. I'd put it there in a moment of laziness when I ought to have cleaned. Jason would most certainly have moved on. Even if I had kissed him that night, it'd probably all be over by now. I was no one special to him.

I shut the magazine and tossed it on the table.

Mom showed up at my house a couple of weeks later. No tears, no crisis, just Mom. I let her in and she sat down on the barstool, and said nothing. I took a deep breath and said, “What?”