I’ve had my fairy tale. I’ve had my Prince Charming. I’ve had the life I always dreamed of, but now I realize that this is no “happily ever after” in the real world.

I’ve had my summer romance. I’ve had the feeling of udder happiness. I’ve had what I assumed was going to be my future. I’ve had that one mistake. That one mistake that will haunt you for the rest of your life. That one mistake that causes you to lose the only thing that you care about.

I’ve had those people telling you that you are too young to know about love. I still think they are wrong. Love is two people that care about each other unconditionally; I’ve had that, but screwed it up. I’ve had those regrets that followed up to the mistake. Those regrets that make you hate your decision to move on; even though it feels like it was so far back into your past.

I’ve had those stages. Hating everything to finding the one person you care about. I can’t say that I don’t think about him from time to time. In fact, he is still all that I think about. I could have wrote another sappy love song about having your heart broken, but instead I could tell me story exactly how it happened. It’s the typical story; boy meets girl, they fall in love, girl leaves boy. I bet you guessed it, I’m that girl and you’ll soon find out who the mysterious boy is.

I’ve had those moments that remind me of the great times I spent time with him. I’ve also had those moments that I beat myself up over the fact that I left. But most importantly, I have those moments that remind me of how much I cared about him and how much I still do.


The same as every other story, mine has a beginning as well as an ending. My story begins in the spring of 2012. The school year was coming to an end and summer was right around the corner. The temperature was starting to get warmer as summer approached. As the temperature increases, so does the drama following up to the end of the school year. I wanted to get past this school year and proceed onto high school. I was sick and tired of being treated like a child all throughout my years of schooling. Hopefully high school was going to be different for once.
My best friend was making me go to this masquerade ball just so she could meet up with her friends, and most importantly, her boyfriend. Her mother wouldn’t let her out of the house unless she had somebody else going with her.
I didn’t even like her boyfriend, Matthew, he was very self-centered and stuck up. He was the complete opposite of Ashley and he was starting to make her more like him. I was not certain of two things: why she was still together with him and why I agreed to go with her.
So pretty much, she used me to be able to hang out with a bunch of different people. I used to go to dances in middle school all the time, but never something this formal. These balls consisted of fancy dresses and much dancing. I never enjoyed dancing or dresses or being in a room with many people as a matter of fact.

I guess I could’ve been considered a tomboy when I was that age. I’d rather sit at home playing on my Xbox 360 than be caught dead in a dress. I’d rather talk with my guy friends that go out shopping. But, my best friend made it quite clear that I did not have a choice in the matter and I was going whether I liked it or not. I tried to talk her out of going, but this plan failed miserably.

On the other hand, Ashley loved these sorts of events. She was gushing over her dress and how many sparkles it had on it. Even though it wasn’t her usual favorite shade of pink, it was an elaborate combination of black and red sequins, vaguely similar to a disco ball. She was one of those people that tried to dress up as much as they could to fit into any occasion. We were at completely different corners of the world when it came to fashion but we were still best friends.

The masquerade was coming up in a few weeks and I had no idea what to wear, nor did I care too much. I was only going to the ball the amuse Ashley. I knew that not even halfway through the dance she was going to ditch me and leave me with a group of people that I didn’t know at all. Halfway through seventh grade, she transferred into a public school and left me and all our other friends behind and made new friends. Her two groups of friends did not get along very well. They were popular, and well, we weren’t.

Ashley forced me to go to the mall with her to find a dress for me to wear. I already had a dress at home that was for my eighth grade graduation. But, it didn’t measure up to Ashley’s ideal dress for me to wear. I had absolutely no interest in shopping and trying on whatever dress she forced me into. She was most likely going to go crazy over all the options and make my try on many dresses of many varieties. I figured I would just grab some Starbucks and walk around and wait for her to pick out my dress for me. I was so wrong.

Ashley was moving like a tornado, frantically pulling dresses down from where ever she saw them. She was picking out dresses from nearly every rack and making a pile of them onto my extended arms. The weight kept increasing until I thought my arms were going to collapse with all the dresses falling to the floor. I could barely even see the smile on Ashley’s face because the dresses were piled up so high. I assumed that there was at least one dress from every color of the rainbow in my arms at that moment. But knowing Ashley, there were probably many different shades of pink. She threw a couple hangers on top of the pile of dresses so at least it could be a little more organized in the dressing room.
“Katherine! Go try all of these on now and tell me how they fit!” Ashley shrieked with pure excitement. I didn’t think it was possible to have so much energy about clothes crammed into such a little person. Even though Ashley wasn’t such a little person.
She stood at about 5’7 and was barely even shorter than me. She had that typical popular high school look about her, even though we were in eighth grade. Ashley had the long dirty blonde hair with blue eyes to match. That perfect skin tone that never burned but always tanned. She looked like she would be a mean queen bee, but she was the most down-to-earth person I knew at the time. She was my best friend because she almost always put others first and wanted to help as many people as she could. This was also why she wanted to take me dress shopping; she wanted to help my look amazing for one night out of the year.
I didn’t want her to start making a scene, so I headed towards the nearest dressing room. I closed the door and took a deep breath then proceeded to look at the massive pile of dresses I was about to tackle. It was the start to the long day ahead of me. This was only the first step, I still needed to find shoes and earrings and whatever else Ashley felt would be necessary. Knowing Ash, she wanted to get as many accessories as she could; which was a lot. I hung up the hangers on the rack of the door and counted them. There were at least fifteen hangers and I could barely cram all of the hangers onto the tiny hook.

I shrugged out of my jacket and hung in on the metal hook on the back of dressing room door. I ran my fingers through my light brown hair and glanced at the dresses once more. I took one last look in the mirror and slowly examined my body. I wasn’t exactly one of the thinnest girls or one of the most attractive girls at my school. But, I would not classify myself as over weight or as ugly. But, I did wish that I were popular and more attractive with a better body. I also noticed how pale I was starting to become and I realized that I really needed to go to Florida to tan some more. My grandparents lived in Florida and I went every spring break to go and visit them. They moved to Florida when I was on 3 or 4 and I’ve rarely been able to spend time with them ever since. I realized that I was wasting time and the last thing I wanted was for Ashley to personally go in there and put the dresses on me.
I started to reach for the shoelaces on my Converse when something came flying at my head over the door that made me jump half a foot into the air. I heard Ashley yell out “Thought you might need one of these.” I could hear by her tone of voice that she was trying hard not to laugh and once I looked down I could see the reason why. I looked and the strapless bra on the floor and groaned. I didn’t see the few strapless dresses she had picked out for me. I was already dreading trying on the first dress and tried to find one that did not look half bad.

If I had to wear a dress, I was at least going to find one that had the type of style that I liked. At least Ashley picked out many of the kind that I liked. My favorite type consisted of a sash that tied in the back along with the bottom of the dress, below the sash, flowing out around my thighs. The dress also needed to be one or two colors, not some multicolored dress that clashed with its self. I took a last glance at the pile and picked a random dress without looking; something blue caught my eye.

The first dress I tried on was Sapphire blue that had a white silk sash that tied in the back. It flowed down like blue waves around my body. I spun around in a circle and that was when I noticed the glitter above the sash. There was more than what I was willing to accept in a dress. If she had to force me into a dress, the least she could do was let me at least sort of like the dress. I undid the zipper in the back of the dress ad let it fall to the floor like a waterfall all around me.

Something green caught my eye next and decided to try it. This one was a shade or two deeper than a mint green. It wasn’t exactly sparkling; it was shimmering. This dress was much more fitted than the first one but not skin tight. I really liked the color, but I hated how it fitted. I never wore tight clothing and I wasn’t about to start now. I was having a hard time trying to get the dress off of me and finally accepted defeat and asked for Ashley’s help.

This process was going on for about thirty minutes until I decided to narrow down all my choices by deciding which one looked the best. I started tossing the pink dresses over the top of the dressing room until I was left with only greens, purples, blues, and blacks. Then from there, I narrowed down my choices even more so by laying aside all of the dressed that would be looser around my body. Once again, all of the dresses that didn’t fit the criteria were thrown over the door. I finally had the dresses narrowed down to 5 options. I was willing to wear any one of these dresses to the masquerade, but I couldn’t decide which one.

The decision to try on the deep purple dress was the smartest decision I made all day. It fit me perfectly and I actually liked it. There was a light grey sash- with very few sparkles in it- that tied into the back of the dress. Below the sash was another shade of purple that cascaded down in little ruffles that stopped right above my knees. I felt a smile tugging at the corners of my lips as I was admiring myself in the mirror. I was actually enjoying the dress until I heard Ash yell out, “Kat will you hurry up? We still need to go find some heels for you to wear!”

The smile slowly faded from my lips and I tried to quickly get back into my jeans and my t-shirt. But then it suddenly hit me. Why was I rushing to go look at shoes? I slowed down my pace and slowly put the rest of my clothing back on. I exited the dressing room and showed Ashley the dress that I liked.
“Go back in there and put it on!” Ashley jokingly demanded.
“Do I have to?” I asked.
“Unless you want me to rip off your clothes right now and put it on you.” She replied.

I frowned in defeat and walked back into the changing room once more. I stripped down to my underwear and put back on the dress. I was dreading that she was going to think that the dress needed more sparkles or something pink. I just hoped that she would let me have an opinion of my own if she were going to make me go with her. I decided to put back on my converse along with a dress for the sheer purpose of seeing Ashley’s reaction. I felt the familiar smirk spreading on my lips and went with my decision. Once I finished lacing up my shoes, I slid the lock on the dressing room door, prepared to face the worse. I scooped up my dress and pulled the door towards me and proceeded to face Ashley.