Challenge #61
Title: Fairytales
Submitted by: nuthinguconfess
Submitted for: Challenge #61 - "What do you want, a happy ending?"
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 432
Time: Roughly one hour (including edit)
“What do you want, a happy ending?”
His eyes darkened as he glared at me, sparkles throbbing angry waves at me. He sniffed and swiped at the moisture on his cheek.
But... he never cries. What have I done?
“That would be perfect, wouldn’t it? Your story of tragedy, punctuated by the scorned lover falling into the arms of the betrayer, right?” He picked up a half empty glass from the table and flung it at the wall; it shattered like a starburst, glass and water flying every which way, glinting in the dim light. “Look what you’ve done to me!”
“Andrew…”
“Shut up! Don’t speak. Don’t you… just…” His breath hitched and a heavy sigh tore from him; he buried his face in his hands. My stomach tightened as he stilled, tensed, visibly withholding sobs; my heart was breaking, too.
I drew in a long breath, braced myself.
“Andrew, the way I see it, you have two options right now.” He looked at me with hard, vacant black eyes. I forged on, unfaltering. “You can decide right now to hate me, throw me out and never speak to me again; or you can believe me, open your heart and forgive me. I can’t fight with you about this anymore. I can’t.” His eyes never faltered. Panic washed over me like white heat; his steady, hollow gaze made me uneasy. “Yes.”
He hesitated; then his lips parted and words dripped from them--the sound took a while to reach my ears.
“What?” he’d said.
Tears prickled my dry eyes. I tried to find my own voice amidst the sound of his reverberating in my head.
“Yes, I do want a happy ending.” More fat tears spilled from his eyes, but they softened and he tucked his lip between his teeth. I put all my energy, all this emotion into these final words: “Baby, I love you. Please, can’t you believe me?”
He looked away from me for the first time, but his body relaxed. I watched him, studied him, tried to read his movements-or lack thereof. When he looked back at me his eyes were dry, but there was an odd sort of sadness in them. A soft sadness, sorrow. He came to me in two quick strides, wiped a tear from my cheek and kissed where it had been, and whispered so softly in my ear I could hardly hear him.
But I did hear him. And my heart stopped.
He said, “Happy endings are for fairytales, princess.”
And he was gone, as if he’d never been there at all.