The girl in the light blue sweater shuffles her feet and twists her fingers around in a way that makes me look up at her face and notice the slight downward tilt of her smile and droop in her eyes. She doesn’t want to be here and the sweater is too tight for her liking. I can tell because she pulls at the sleeves in a nervous way that I sometimes do to my skin. 

Eyes. There’s nobody here, and yet I feel the eyes of the world, rubbing against me like thick honey I can’t wash off. Such an odd sensation, feeling as though me and my tied up ginger hair and bandaged arms, me and my miss-matched socks and flower dress, me and my confusion are out on display.

And so, like every other night, I will go out onto my balcony at dusk and play pretend. I will smile, because people don’t like when the sun is angry, and I will let this kingdom be deceived by a facade for a little longer. I will be their illusion, the royal family’s lie. And I will do it again. Over and over again. 

A sixteen-year-old me had run into the garden just as wild as her surroundings, with messy tears running down her cheeks and found the best thing in her life.

The sky is not quite blue today. No, today it is frosted gray: hints of a pale, pale blue slipping through the glassy, cold sky. It makes me want to fly, fall back into the clouds and never-ending gray. Instead, I am here, sitting at the old coffee shop, my fingers numb and my face frozen. 

“Oh, young one, you must learn that there is always beauty in the sad. Without the darkness there can be no light and without tears there can be no joy."

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