Magic Lost
This is something else that is completely random. I wrote it a while ago and went through it and edited it recently.
Since I had been eleven, I had wanted to be Hermione Granger.
Even when I had hit high school and had stopped being obsessed with Harry Potter, I still carried a part of me that wanted to be just like her. My hero, I had told myself every time I felt uncertain about whether or not I was smart enough or bold enough to handle something, is not a waif thin model or a popular girl who lacks brains. My hero is Hermione Granger, the bravest young woman in literature.
She was so real to me that she was more of a friend than a dream. In classes, when the other students would look at me strangely when I asked intelligent questions or raised my hand to answer a question, I would repeat to myself my mantra about my hero, and Hermione would give me the guts to keep going. She made it okay to be a nerd, and she set a difficult bar for me to reach, but at the end of my senior year, I felt I was doing a good job of reaching it.
My eyes burned from the hairspray, though, as I set the bottle back down on my dresser. My long, dark blond hair was perfectly curled and arranged in its clip. The shiny silver barrette that held my tresses back from my face matched my dress, as did my jewelry and my shoes. Everything was perfect and ready to go for my first and only prom.
Except, however, I was lacking a date. Unlike Hermione, I had not managed to find a date for the dance like my other friend had. I told myself that it was because I was too busy focusing on schoolwork and studying to concern myself with dating, but I knew it was a lie. I had experienced (or rather endured) a short, rather rocky relationship in the fall that had served only one true purpose.
It had shown me that I could, in fact, have a relationship. Though it was I who had ended it, I had missed the idea of having someone who cared about me in a romantic way in my life (though it was more the idea I had missed than the boy himself).
“Are you ready?” I heard my mother say from the other side of my door. I groaned as I fastened my necklace around my neck and slid the towel from around my shoulders.
“Almost,” I replied, turning and looking at myself in the mirror for the first time. It had been quite a while since I had seen myself that way. I rarely got dressed up, and this would be the first time I would wear an evening gown like the one I had on.
The black satin fabric was just light and flowy enough to hide the imperfections of my body. The silver rhinestones on the chest gave accent to the sheer material that decorated the bodice. The diamonds of my necklace glinted in the cool, evening light that flowed through my window on that April evening.
I looked to the picture of my idol that I kept on my mirror. I had not thought of her that day --- the day of shallow dreams of a romantic evening that was sure to go awry. But as I saw the eyes of the intelligent, sassy Hermione Granger staring back at me, something happened. I gained the courage I needed, not to make an entrance or to dance without inhibition, but to hope.
I was Hermione Granger, my closest friends had told me. So, if I was Hermione Granger, then surely I would find my Viktor Krum that evening. And I knew just who he was. Graham Anderson was one of my closest friends at the time, and the way he had spoken about prom to me had told me that he was thinking about me.
I smiled at myself in the mirror, then I smiled at the picture on my mirror and muttered “I'll make you proud” before walking out to face the music...
Which was very loud. So loud, in fact, that I could not hear my phone at all. I called Graham over and over again, and when he did not answer, I got more and more worried. He was more than an hour late, and there were rumors of an accident on the interstate that everyone used to get to the grand hotel.
The high, arched ceiling gave the ballroom a distinctly magical feel. The glitter on the tables looked more like stardust to me than manufactured sparkles, and I looked around me with wide, childlike curiosity. Did I look to be in the same league as those girls dancing over there? Were the boys looking at me?
The friends I had come with talked amongst themselves. I stood with them, but somehow apart, listening to their voices above the music, but not talking with them. I was waiting for my moment. I was waiting for something.
I felt a hand on the small of my back after a moment. Anna and Steven had left to dance, and I had been left standing with two of our other friends who were kissing and talking alternately.
I looked over my shoulder to see one of the girls I had often envied. She had always been well liked (though uptight), and had always, obviously, deliberated how she looked, since she had never had a hair out of place that I had seen.
“You look fantastic,” she said. I grinned shyly and thanked her. When I watched her walk away with a confidence I could have never had, I saw two boys looking at me from across the room. I sheepishly smiled and waved before looking back to the doors to see if Graham was there yet. My heart sank as I saw that he wasn't, and I looked back to one of my friends who was standing nearby after receiving another compliment on my appearance from another classmate.
“No worries, love,” he said kindly, “He'll be here soon.”
I was astounded, as usual, at his ability to read my mind. After a moment of quiet chatting, he left to get us both a snack. I leaned against our table and watched as people walked by. The star quarterback of our football team who had dated nearly every cheerleader and female student council member approached me. I looked up at him coolly. We had spoken often and I had helped him with his homework several times.
“You look stunning,” he said, smiling at me. I smiled back.
“Thanks, Carl,” I said, feeling more than just his eyes on me, “How did that calc test go?”
He shrugged a bit, his smile steady and I suspected he was a bit drunk. “Better than if you hadn't showed me how to do integrals,” he joked. I laughed nervously. A moment later he walked away and I saw my friend returning with my favorite snack: grapes.
But even grapes could not distract me from what I had seen.
Graham was walking through the large, grand doors. His sports coat was open, the top button of his shirt was undone, his tie was just the slightest bit loosened and I had never seen him look more perfect. I saw his face light up with a light hearted laugh to one of his friends and I would have sworn that I could hear him as though he were right beside me. My friend with the grapes sighed as he looked at me, and I glanced back to him.
“Go to him,” he said. I knew he had not looked to Graham's tall, powerful, darkened form walking down the main aisle. I squeezed his arm and walked towards Graham, greeting him in the middle with a hug.
“I was worried,” I confessed, but that was all I was willing to divulge. I would not, for instance, tell him that I had put so much thought into my appearance in hopes that he would take one look at me and fall in love. I would not tell him that I was counting on him to be my last minute date, or that, even when I had seen him earlier that day, I had kept my silence about wanting to be with him on the dance floor that night, hoping for just one slow song. It was something I had never really experienced --- dancing with someone I cared for without looking over his shoulder to the person whose arms I would have rather been in.
“Yeah, well, its okay,” he said, looking over the top of my head instead of at me. I glanced over my shoulder without the slightest bit of notice to him, and caught him looking at two drunk girls laughing and staggering over each other to a table. I noticed that he was intrigued rather than entertained.
“You look nice,” I said. Trying to coax him. Even if I had shown up in a puke green, torn cocktail dress, I would have expected him to say the same, even if it was just because we were friends had he had basically lived at my house for the past month.
“Thanks,” he said simply before greeting a passing friend. Perturbed, I stepped back over to my table and took a drink of my Sprite. He did not follow.
I'm not pretty enough, I thought, I'm not thin enough and my dress isn't low enough.
My eyes swept over the dance floor. He was joining it without me. I opened my mouth in silent outrage and watched for a moment as he wrapped his arms around one of our mutual acquaintances and began to sway with the music.
I had danced. My shoes were discarded at my feet. My eyes were tired, but my hair was still perfect. The glitter was spread about the room and the celling did not seem quite as impressive anymore.
The senior superlatives were almost over, and there would be one last slow dance before the dance was over. My glimmer of hope was fading fast as I looked across the table to Graham as he watched our more popular classmates receive their awards.
The last names were called and before I knew it my table was near empty. My other friends, including Graham, were on the floor and I lost sight of them quickly in the dim light. The only person left with me was a drunk friend from a few years back who was either asleep or uncaring across the table from me.
The mass of dark figures I saw swaying in front of me seemed enigmatic. They all moved in different directions but they all moved the same. It was a beat I had never been able to find. I watched as they grew closer, a class of people who all knew someone to their left who knew someone to their left in a circle that simply would not break for me to join...
When I could not bear to watch them any longer, I pulled my painful shoes on. The hurt they caused me seemed small to the stabbing thoughts in my head. I gathered my friends' purses and jackets into my hands, ready to hand them out when they returned. The limo would be waiting, and I wanted to get to it as soon as possible.
The people broke apart as the music ended, and as my friends gathered once more I laughed and pretended I had been dancing along with them. I handed them their belongings and walked out of the room with them, glad to be beating the mad rush of people from the hotel.
The shiny banisters, fountains and paintings held no charm to me when I saw them for the second time as we left. My tired eyes had taken in too much that night, and I ached for the darkness of my bedroom.
I knew that Graham was somewhere behind me in the group of people leaving the ballroom, but we were so far ahead that I could not even see the first of them. I walked without listening to the banter of my limo-mates and without taking in the beautiful hotel. I prayed it would be the last time I would ever set foot in that place.
I'm not Hermione Granger, I thought bitterly.
But maybe I am, I would later realize, since I walked from the hotel strong enough on the outside to hide my tears, but broken enough on the inside to realize that in those few hours a small dream had been shattered and a little bit of magic had been lost.
Its pretty much a caricature of my own prom night. 'Graham' is based loosely on someone that my friends thought I was in love with, or at least should have been. I can honestly say right now that I wasn't at all, but I started thinking about how I would have felt that night if I had harbored feelings for that young man and how hurt I would have been. I mean, I did have a honest breakdown in the limo on the way home (::grumbles:: stupid Fray song) and it would have been a million times worse had I been in love with him and he did that to me (not to mention that my 'best friend' had told me days before that I was too fat for my prom dress. I wasn't. @%#$&). But yes, all of the actions taken by that character were ones taken towards me, and let me tell you, it hurt like hell in the morning.
::Deep breath:: Sorry. Rant over.
Since I had been eleven, I had wanted to be Hermione Granger.
Even when I had hit high school and had stopped being obsessed with Harry Potter, I still carried a part of me that wanted to be just like her. My hero, I had told myself every time I felt uncertain about whether or not I was smart enough or bold enough to handle something, is not a waif thin model or a popular girl who lacks brains. My hero is Hermione Granger, the bravest young woman in literature.
She was so real to me that she was more of a friend than a dream. In classes, when the other students would look at me strangely when I asked intelligent questions or raised my hand to answer a question, I would repeat to myself my mantra about my hero, and Hermione would give me the guts to keep going. She made it okay to be a nerd, and she set a difficult bar for me to reach, but at the end of my senior year, I felt I was doing a good job of reaching it.
My eyes burned from the hairspray, though, as I set the bottle back down on my dresser. My long, dark blond hair was perfectly curled and arranged in its clip. The shiny silver barrette that held my tresses back from my face matched my dress, as did my jewelry and my shoes. Everything was perfect and ready to go for my first and only prom.
Except, however, I was lacking a date. Unlike Hermione, I had not managed to find a date for the dance like my other friend had. I told myself that it was because I was too busy focusing on schoolwork and studying to concern myself with dating, but I knew it was a lie. I had experienced (or rather endured) a short, rather rocky relationship in the fall that had served only one true purpose.
It had shown me that I could, in fact, have a relationship. Though it was I who had ended it, I had missed the idea of having someone who cared about me in a romantic way in my life (though it was more the idea I had missed than the boy himself).
“Are you ready?” I heard my mother say from the other side of my door. I groaned as I fastened my necklace around my neck and slid the towel from around my shoulders.
“Almost,” I replied, turning and looking at myself in the mirror for the first time. It had been quite a while since I had seen myself that way. I rarely got dressed up, and this would be the first time I would wear an evening gown like the one I had on.
The black satin fabric was just light and flowy enough to hide the imperfections of my body. The silver rhinestones on the chest gave accent to the sheer material that decorated the bodice. The diamonds of my necklace glinted in the cool, evening light that flowed through my window on that April evening.
I looked to the picture of my idol that I kept on my mirror. I had not thought of her that day --- the day of shallow dreams of a romantic evening that was sure to go awry. But as I saw the eyes of the intelligent, sassy Hermione Granger staring back at me, something happened. I gained the courage I needed, not to make an entrance or to dance without inhibition, but to hope.
I was Hermione Granger, my closest friends had told me. So, if I was Hermione Granger, then surely I would find my Viktor Krum that evening. And I knew just who he was. Graham Anderson was one of my closest friends at the time, and the way he had spoken about prom to me had told me that he was thinking about me.
I smiled at myself in the mirror, then I smiled at the picture on my mirror and muttered “I'll make you proud” before walking out to face the music...
Which was very loud. So loud, in fact, that I could not hear my phone at all. I called Graham over and over again, and when he did not answer, I got more and more worried. He was more than an hour late, and there were rumors of an accident on the interstate that everyone used to get to the grand hotel.
The high, arched ceiling gave the ballroom a distinctly magical feel. The glitter on the tables looked more like stardust to me than manufactured sparkles, and I looked around me with wide, childlike curiosity. Did I look to be in the same league as those girls dancing over there? Were the boys looking at me?
The friends I had come with talked amongst themselves. I stood with them, but somehow apart, listening to their voices above the music, but not talking with them. I was waiting for my moment. I was waiting for something.
I felt a hand on the small of my back after a moment. Anna and Steven had left to dance, and I had been left standing with two of our other friends who were kissing and talking alternately.
I looked over my shoulder to see one of the girls I had often envied. She had always been well liked (though uptight), and had always, obviously, deliberated how she looked, since she had never had a hair out of place that I had seen.
“You look fantastic,” she said. I grinned shyly and thanked her. When I watched her walk away with a confidence I could have never had, I saw two boys looking at me from across the room. I sheepishly smiled and waved before looking back to the doors to see if Graham was there yet. My heart sank as I saw that he wasn't, and I looked back to one of my friends who was standing nearby after receiving another compliment on my appearance from another classmate.
“No worries, love,” he said kindly, “He'll be here soon.”
I was astounded, as usual, at his ability to read my mind. After a moment of quiet chatting, he left to get us both a snack. I leaned against our table and watched as people walked by. The star quarterback of our football team who had dated nearly every cheerleader and female student council member approached me. I looked up at him coolly. We had spoken often and I had helped him with his homework several times.
“You look stunning,” he said, smiling at me. I smiled back.
“Thanks, Carl,” I said, feeling more than just his eyes on me, “How did that calc test go?”
He shrugged a bit, his smile steady and I suspected he was a bit drunk. “Better than if you hadn't showed me how to do integrals,” he joked. I laughed nervously. A moment later he walked away and I saw my friend returning with my favorite snack: grapes.
But even grapes could not distract me from what I had seen.
Graham was walking through the large, grand doors. His sports coat was open, the top button of his shirt was undone, his tie was just the slightest bit loosened and I had never seen him look more perfect. I saw his face light up with a light hearted laugh to one of his friends and I would have sworn that I could hear him as though he were right beside me. My friend with the grapes sighed as he looked at me, and I glanced back to him.
“Go to him,” he said. I knew he had not looked to Graham's tall, powerful, darkened form walking down the main aisle. I squeezed his arm and walked towards Graham, greeting him in the middle with a hug.
“I was worried,” I confessed, but that was all I was willing to divulge. I would not, for instance, tell him that I had put so much thought into my appearance in hopes that he would take one look at me and fall in love. I would not tell him that I was counting on him to be my last minute date, or that, even when I had seen him earlier that day, I had kept my silence about wanting to be with him on the dance floor that night, hoping for just one slow song. It was something I had never really experienced --- dancing with someone I cared for without looking over his shoulder to the person whose arms I would have rather been in.
“Yeah, well, its okay,” he said, looking over the top of my head instead of at me. I glanced over my shoulder without the slightest bit of notice to him, and caught him looking at two drunk girls laughing and staggering over each other to a table. I noticed that he was intrigued rather than entertained.
“You look nice,” I said. Trying to coax him. Even if I had shown up in a puke green, torn cocktail dress, I would have expected him to say the same, even if it was just because we were friends had he had basically lived at my house for the past month.
“Thanks,” he said simply before greeting a passing friend. Perturbed, I stepped back over to my table and took a drink of my Sprite. He did not follow.
I'm not pretty enough, I thought, I'm not thin enough and my dress isn't low enough.
My eyes swept over the dance floor. He was joining it without me. I opened my mouth in silent outrage and watched for a moment as he wrapped his arms around one of our mutual acquaintances and began to sway with the music.
I had danced. My shoes were discarded at my feet. My eyes were tired, but my hair was still perfect. The glitter was spread about the room and the celling did not seem quite as impressive anymore.
The senior superlatives were almost over, and there would be one last slow dance before the dance was over. My glimmer of hope was fading fast as I looked across the table to Graham as he watched our more popular classmates receive their awards.
The last names were called and before I knew it my table was near empty. My other friends, including Graham, were on the floor and I lost sight of them quickly in the dim light. The only person left with me was a drunk friend from a few years back who was either asleep or uncaring across the table from me.
The mass of dark figures I saw swaying in front of me seemed enigmatic. They all moved in different directions but they all moved the same. It was a beat I had never been able to find. I watched as they grew closer, a class of people who all knew someone to their left who knew someone to their left in a circle that simply would not break for me to join...
When I could not bear to watch them any longer, I pulled my painful shoes on. The hurt they caused me seemed small to the stabbing thoughts in my head. I gathered my friends' purses and jackets into my hands, ready to hand them out when they returned. The limo would be waiting, and I wanted to get to it as soon as possible.
The people broke apart as the music ended, and as my friends gathered once more I laughed and pretended I had been dancing along with them. I handed them their belongings and walked out of the room with them, glad to be beating the mad rush of people from the hotel.
The shiny banisters, fountains and paintings held no charm to me when I saw them for the second time as we left. My tired eyes had taken in too much that night, and I ached for the darkness of my bedroom.
I knew that Graham was somewhere behind me in the group of people leaving the ballroom, but we were so far ahead that I could not even see the first of them. I walked without listening to the banter of my limo-mates and without taking in the beautiful hotel. I prayed it would be the last time I would ever set foot in that place.
I'm not Hermione Granger, I thought bitterly.
But maybe I am, I would later realize, since I walked from the hotel strong enough on the outside to hide my tears, but broken enough on the inside to realize that in those few hours a small dream had been shattered and a little bit of magic had been lost.
Its pretty much a caricature of my own prom night. 'Graham' is based loosely on someone that my friends thought I was in love with, or at least should have been. I can honestly say right now that I wasn't at all, but I started thinking about how I would have felt that night if I had harbored feelings for that young man and how hurt I would have been. I mean, I did have a honest breakdown in the limo on the way home (::grumbles:: stupid Fray song) and it would have been a million times worse had I been in love with him and he did that to me (not to mention that my 'best friend' had told me days before that I was too fat for my prom dress. I wasn't. @%#$&). But yes, all of the actions taken by that character were ones taken towards me, and let me tell you, it hurt like hell in the morning.
::Deep breath:: Sorry. Rant over.