When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a princess. I wanted a pink castle and a closet full of puffy dresses. I wanted an entire kingdom to adore me and to go to balls and dance with princes. I'm not sure if it was Disney that brought the dream of true love and happy endings into my imagination, but it seemed to enwrap my every thought. From the way that I played with dolls, to the way I held a teacup, I was convinced that secretly, my mother was a queen and my father a king. That good would always win, and true loves kiss could solve any problem ever. My prince back then was my grandfather. The days my parents worked I would go to daycare. One day, all the kids were in a circle holding hands. Someone squeezed my hand too tight and the band aid my mother put on my paper cut the night before came of... I was devastated and never went to daycare again. I spent the days with my grandfather dancing around the yard, playing dress up, and being a little princess.

Then I went to school, and my sister was born, and my world grew. I thought that my five year old self knew everything, but I learned to sound out markings on paper and again, my world grew again. I could read the fairy tales now, but my real life seemed more exciting. I had so many friends and so many play dates, and soccer practice seemed more exciting than any dancing with some stranger at a ball. Boys had cooties and I hadn't thought of when I might meet my true love in ages, which granted isn't that long on the little kid time scale. Time went bye and I had become the quintessential "independent young lady".

I was in first grade now, and my teacher asked who we should care for the most. My little wide eyed self raised my hand, stretching it as high as possible. She called on me, to my delight, and I said, "others". She looked at me sternly and informed me that I should care for myself more than anything else. If I had known the word "B****" back then, I would have used it. I can't explained why it hurt me but I felt like the idea of good always beating evil, and love being the answer was slipping away, and I couldn't hold on to it.

The years went on and the teachers started separating the class in two groups. One that the teacher taught, they read the thicker books and took different tests. The other was the group the class aid taught, and we had thinned books with bigger print and too many kids asking too many questions. I fell to the back, not asking questions to avoid the aid's anoence and to not chance being wrong and proving I belonged in the dumb group. I remember when they called the names for the smart group, every piece of me would tighten hoping that that was the day, and every piece of me seemed to shatter when the teacher read the last name, and it wasn't mine. I hated that feeling. Trying so hard, giving it all you have and it still not being enough. I always thought I was special, not a princess, but deserving of love and appreciation if I worked for it. The teachers ignored me and the aids didn't have the time of day. Eventually my mom found out I was struggling in math and it was like she blamed me for it. For not paying attention, not succeeding. My little sister was having problems speaking right, she stuttered. My mother gave her so much sympathy for it, blamed herself. Every time my mother drove me to my math tutor, she looked so ashamed. She wouldn't make eye contact with me and she'd tighten her lips so much they'd get white and blue. When she talked to her friends about my sister getting help with her speech she almost had a proud look in her eyes. It was like having two stupid kids was one too many. I just couldn't understand the different expectations for me and my sister.

I worked hard. For hours every night. I wanted to feel the love that princesses got. I wanted the responsibility, to be trusted. Every day after school I did sports and clubs. My mom got sick of my friends mothers, so playdates had gotten rare. I wanted to prove myself to the world. I had become the envy of all parents. The perfect child. I got obsessive over things like cleaning my room and brushing my teeth. Things were black and white. There was a cause and an effect for everything. If brushing my teeth five times a day meant I wouldn't get cavities, then what reason was there not to do it. I controlled all the variables I could get my hands on. My schoolwork being my main focus.

By middle school I had all A's and a path laid out. I knew what classes I was going to take in highschool and what college I wanted to go to. I had a group of friends that gossiped and stabbed each other in the back but we held on to each other like you would a tree in a tornado. There were mean girls out there and they came after the weak. I don't need to elaborate much here on how much hell a teenage girl can cause another teenage girl, its common knowledge, but I was one of the weak. To this day I'm insecure about, well, everything. The captain of the boys soccer team asked me out in social studies. It was the moment all the books talk about, the moment I had worked so hard for. This would be my way to get back at all those girls who had hurt me. He liked me! He chose me over all the other girls there. He saw something different in me. His blue eyes were so honest. My diary could confirm that I wanted those blue eyes to look at me for five years now. Everyone was standing around us... my cheeks burned red but I couldn't close my lips from this stupid smile. I looked down at my shoes and whispered yes. When I looked up him and all his friends were laughing. It was a joke. For the rest of my middle school career it would haunt me. After all the embarrassment and tears, I discovered that human emotion wasn't something to play with.

My mom got the call in the middle of the night. My aunt had died, it was sudden and unexpected. I never liked my aunt, she always seemed selfish to me, but I had never experienced death before. The finality of it all was terrifying. I hated how everyone who turned their backs on her had the nerve to mourn her. Her funeral was on my birthday and I knew I wouldn't get invited to any birthday parties that year because I didn't have one. Three months later my grandfather died. I was closer to him than anyone else on the planet. The fact that I had lost my whole universe and somehow the world kept going... it was the most painful part of all. He was just, gone. Just like that. I would go to his house, run to the garden to meet him, and he wouldn't be there. My world got smaller. I felt so insignificant and alone. He didn't love alot of people, but I was his everything. And he was my everything. I remember seeing his body in the casket, it was like a shell. But what happened to him, his spirit? I looked it up on google, the infamous "What happens when we die?" search. It made me doubt a lot. What if... what if it was light out. Like when you sleep and don't dream. What if you just stop existing. Its just, over. I didn't touch his body, or kneel to pray. At the funeral the priest said something funny and I laughed. My mothers gentle hand holding mine tightened, her nails digging into my skin. I felt her high heel smash into my foot and she gave me the ugliest look I had ever seen. It was hate. Pure hate. My grandfather would have hated this. He would have laughed with me. I couldn't even cry, I couldn't get angry. I felt nothing. Numb. I learned that funerals were for the living, not the dead.

I didn't make the high school soccer team. I fell off the plan. I studied but I wouldn't get the grade I want. I made new friends and we got close and somehow that sense of belonging helped me feel less numb. Sometimes I'd still feel out of place, like I was watching myself, the laughter just wouldn't reach me. My sister was getting older too. She never stopped being a princess though. Her world stayed the same as she grew. My Dad messed up with the money. He had an affair. Mom caught him hiring prostitutes too. She was miserable all the time but pushed it away. She thought she was being strong but in reality she was suppressing it. I used her makeup and she grounded me for three months. House arrest grounded, not you can still use the computer and stay school for help grounded. She'd threaten to send me away. She'd hit me alot too. She pushed me down the stairs once. She held a knife to my neck another time. I still dont tell anyone about the things she did to me, the things she said. I was five inches taller than her but I'd never push back. Only talk back. I would never shut up. It was the one thing I could still control. My bedroom was closest to my dads room. I'd hear him stumble in at midnight with alcohol on his breath and watch porn. My mother and sister would be fast asleep across the house while I covered my head with pillows trying not to hear the sounds coming from his computer and his commentary, trying to get to sleep. I never told anyone about that either.
Then I met him, this kid with sandy blonde hair and braces. I didn't like him at first but I knew I wanted to get to know him. We talked everyday for a year about everything and nothing. There was never an awkward silence with him. He made me feel like a princess. He made my world small again and I liked it. Nothing else mattered. One day he just stopped talking to me. Im not sure if I loved him, but it hurt more than anything else I had been through. There was no explanation. I didnt ever ask either. He walked by me everyday after that and never looked at me. I opened myself up to him and he just left. He opened himself up to me and just left. I missed laughing with him and touching him. Miss him looking at me.

My world got bigger than I had ever seen it get before. I was nothing. Love was nothing. Everything was nothing. All just an allusion. Something to make us feel like there is an answer to all of it. There is no answer though. We just don't want to admit it. The truth is that there is no truth. We're afraid of the dark because we don't know what's there. People don't like not knowing. So we turn on the lights. We still don't see everything, but we are no longer afraid. The allusion of life is all that is real. The allusion of being special and different. Of getting all we desire. Of love and appreciation. Of prince charming. Of good and bad. Of happily ever after. Of there being a reason. The princess dream is not real. I'm glad my sister can live it though. She'll always just be existing, she'll never have to wake up. I want that for her.

The doctors said I'll be living with the disease the rest of my life. Its not fatal, but I will never again see a day without pain. Its ironic really. I take so many pills, go to so many doctor appointments, explain to so many strangers who regret asking... I'm numb all the time now. Its not really life, its like something in between. They see the rashes on my skin and they want to understand, make it part of the dream. They all get the same look on their face when they realize they can't understand it. They can't fix it. They can't help. Can't make it about them.They erase it from their minds and get back to the dream. I don't want to be a princess anymore. I don't ever want to dream again. I've gone too far for that. I just want to have a second chance. I'm never gonna get one though. I just get the nothing part.