Cinderella my Ass

Who am I? Dora the Explorer?

Like the freak I was, I kept smiling and blushing, while Aiden was just looking into my eyes concentrated with a small smile laid in his lips. To sum up we looked like freaks.

"We should go now!" Aiden as always broke the silence, because as for me I could stare into his eyes the whole day and not get tired. I know I"m crazy. To answer him, I just nodded and he took my hand into his again as we headed home. Most of the walk we didn"t talk, and Aiden looked deep in thoughts again, frowning and sometimes glaring at he ground, but when we were fifteen minutes away from my house he spoke. "Who was that guy?"

I felt bad. Like I was the silly girl of the horror movie or such a thing. "I don"t know him." That was my simple answer.

"Then why did he said you were friends?" His voice raised a little bit. It sounded like he was accusing me. And I really like the guy, but I went in self-defence mode.

"I don"t know him. He just had seen me at the park a couple of times and came to talk with me twice and that"s it. I didn"t talks back to him. He just... got obsessed." My voice raised as well, and I was angry it wasn"t my fault for what happened.

"I"m sorry." Aiden made me to look him in his eyes. "I... just got worried. If I wasn"t there..." His voice left him. And that made me smile a little bit. Okay, I smiled a lot.

His face softened and smiled back. His hand came to my face and I froze immediately. What was he doing? I felt his hand touching my cheek softly and I freaked out when I saw his face coming closer. What the heaven is happening? What is he doing? His lips touched my other cheek and I felt my legs shaking and turning to jelly. He was kissing my freaking cheek!!!

"I don"t want anything to happen to you, Ryder." You can as well say that I died right there. He cared about me? Or am I imagining things? His voice was low and he was whispering in my ear, his breath tickling my ear. But that just made my face heat up to one hundred degrees and I was about to explode. Aiden pulled back and smiled. "Goodbye." And he left...

It took me like five minutes to understand that I was in front of my house and staring at the empty road where just minutes ago Aiden walked.

"Ryder honey! What are you doing there? Come in, it"s cold outside." My mom called me from the front door. I turned around and gave her a cheeky smile. She just rolled her eyes at me, knowing that I was the weird daughter no one will ever have. Safe to say I got my weird part from my mother, but I would never have the guts to tell her that, since she would kill me after that. So yeah...

For the rest of the day, I was in cloud nine. I would unconsciously touch my cheek and grin at air the whole time. My mother got worried at some point and would ask me every five minutes if I was okay, but since my head had stuck in a cloud, I just murmured something that even I didn"t know what it meant.

And as it was obvious, I couldn"t concrete into anything. So doing the homework turned into mission impossible. But as the movie itself had said more than one time, the mission is always possible in the end, so yeah I did the homework. I was about to lie down on my very comfortable bed to sleep, when a soft knock in the window made me think about it again.

Slowly I walked to the window, and opened it. The dark figure of Midnight came in and as soon as he was away from the light he pulled off the hoodie. His lips formed a smirk at me. For some reasons I kept reminding what happened with Aiden and soon enough I was smiling widely.

"Hi!" He greeted me and his arms wrapped around me. I froze, and for the first time this day, I forgot about Aiden. I forgot everything. There wasn"t anymore wide freaky smiles, but a sincere one just for him. It was there in my face, because only now that I was hugging him, I realised how much I missed him.

"Hi!" Midnight let me go and like always we sat on my bed in front of each other.

"You look happy my Ry. Can I know the reason?" He smirked at me. Something softened in me, and I had no idea what it was. I even forgot why was I happy two minutes ago. Why was I happy? Maybe I should get worried. It wasn"t normal to forget thing like I did most of the time lately.

"Just happy to see you..." It can"t be called a lie, since I was happy to see him. But in the meanwhile I was mentally scratching out the reason why was I happy. s**t! I forgot.

"Bad Ry! You can"t lie to me. Tell me the truth." His whispering was teasing. "Was it a boy?" And that"s how I remembered I was in cloud nine, because of Aiden. How could I forget so easily when I have spent my whole day thinking about it. Maybe I had concentrating problems. Or maybe I just got lost easily in the moment.

"Why would you think that?" I laughed nervously as I mentality thanked God it was night and he couldn"t see me blushing.

"Why? Is it true?" I like the guy. He is a good friend, but he was just pissing me. How could he always find the exact time when something actually happened with Aiden, to ask me about boys? It was irritating. And to don"t forget the blushing season I was on for, every time I would talk about Aiden, so... Yeah, it was pissing me off.

But yet again it was just a small feeling as I felt weird at the memory him kissing my cheek. I was being all girly and stupid like that, but in my defence I have had a crush on the guy for over a year. What could you expect from me? Act like a grumpy turtle in a raining day, and shrug it off? That would be crazy. That would mean, I didn"t like him. That I just was more clumsy around him and that"s it. Nothing more. But I couldn"t deny the weird thing in my stomach or how jelly like I felt when he touched me. Was all of this unhealthy?

"I have a girl friend to talk about my boy problems Midnight." I said to him grinning at my badass answer.

"So you like a boy." Well the jerk caught me there. s**t the badass answer. I just kicked myself off the cliff by admitting to him that I actually like a boy. Great way to go Ryder.

"I will talk to you about the boy I like, when you will talk me about a girl you like." Still trying to be a badass, I answered with fake confidence. But a frown formed on my lips when I saw him froze and looking dazzled. I didn"t say anything that could upset him, right?

"Maybe that day will came faster than you think." All of sudden Midnight came closer to me with a playful grin on his face. "And maybe you will have to tell me about the guy you like. A lot of things can happen in a small amount of time Ry." We were close enough for his breath to touch my face and for the first time ever I could see his eyes. I couldn"t make out the colour, all I could see was black and white, but there was something in his eyes that made me want to never look away again. Since I was so damn concentrated in his face, I left my only opportunity to somehow make out his face, but yeah, I kicked the opportunity off the cliff as well. "I mean look at us..." He was about to say something, but he stopped himself in the right time. For sure I knew he could have slipped a few words that would lead me up to finding out his identity, but lucky for him he didn"t say anything. "We are friends."

I couldn"t help and notice a small change of his tone when he said the word "friend". Like it was something distasteful in his mouth. But yet again, it could be my mind. My very tired mind. And now that I was thinking about it, I was feeling very sleepy.

Not letting him time to think off anything, I lied on my bed and stared at the ceiling. The smile came back to my face again, for some reasons. I felt Midnight"s eyes glued to me, thinking of something. I just gave him the time to think of whatever he was thinking. But after two or three minutes he lied next to me and my smile grew wider. "I know that I last saw you..." He stopped again. Ugh! All of the information I could get, but never left his mouth, made me glare at the ceiling. What a pain in the ass. "Just a while ago, countable hours, but I missed you."

I smiled at the ceiling, before turning my smile to him. I missed you too." He smiled back at me. "I"m happy I have you in my life Midnight."

"I"m happy to have you in my life as well Ry."

***

You know those mornings when you wish the mornings never existed? When you wish you never woke up? When every piece of you was crying for your comforting bed, but you had to leave the poor thing and turn everything into a Romeo and Juliet tragedy?

I was in that morning. God knows how much I didn"t want to get up. I wanted to sleep. And the fact that, that warm sunshine fell comfortably in my face, didn"t help me at all. But the voice of my mom shouting like a mocking parrot made me to unwillingly get up from my bed and head to school. I just didn"t want to go to school with a burning desire.

"Ryder!" That voice made me stop in my spot, and shakily turn around to face with Aiden. It would be so more helpful if he wasn"t this good looking, but he was handsome, hot, good looking and some other words that couldn"t describe him well. He was running to me with a goofy grin in his face. His hand rested on my shoulder when he was next to me. It looked so naturally to him. I"m not complaining, I will never do it. "Hi!"

"Hi!" I smiled at him, mentally begging to not be grinning like a freak to him I instead of smiling.

We walked to the school together and he didn"t say any other kind of word, and there was no way I was going to open my mouth and risk to say something like "I"m wearing pink panties." or God knows what else. So the walk was quite for the most part of it.

"I was thinking..." Oh my God he is thinking! Wait. What is he thinking about? Just let him finish Ryder! Right! "If you want to skip school today. With me? We can spend the day together..." He was nervous. And blushing. Lightly, but he was blushing anyway. That made him look more cutter than I could afford.

"I..." Skipping school? Spending the day with him? But... I shouldn"t do this. I shouldn"t do this. I shouldn"t do this. I shouldn"t do this.

And that"s how I ended up holding hands with Aiden walking on the opposite direction from school. He was smiling widely and I knew my mom was going to kill me if she ever finds out about me skipping school, but he was smiling... He was smiling at the fact I accepted to go with him. I couldn"t get out of my mouth the happiness in his eyes. How could it be real? Was I dreaming?

"Where are we going?" Aiden turned my head to me. His smile made me feel weak in the knees, but I tried hard not fall in the road, and embarrass myself once more in front of him. I have done that thing a lot lately.

"The lake." He said and I frowned. The lake? What lake? Aiden noticed my confused face and his eyes went wide. "Please tell me you know that there is a lake in our city." I remained in silence. "You"ve got to be kidding with me." I was blushing furiously. It"s not my fault I don"t get out too much. Last year I didn"t even know there was a supermarket at the left corner of my neighbourhood. It"s not in my type to go out and explore. Who am I? Dora the Explorer? Aiden noticed my discomfort and smiled. "I"m glad I will be the person to show it to you for the first time."

Okay he is too good to be real.

Turned out the lake wasn"t that far, so we could walk to it. And I expected a lot of awkward atmosphere around us, but to my surprise it wasn"t like that. Aiden wouldn"t let the conversation to die in silence. He would joke or say something, anything that would made me smile. To be honest everything about him, could make my smile. His words pushed me to talk and I felt uncomfortable talking about myself, but the way he looked so interested and eager to know more, made me go on, and ignore the feeling in me.

When we arrived at the lake I felt like spacing out when I breathed in the view. The lake was small, but the trees around it, and the way the sunlight fell perfectly on it, made it worth it for a fairly tale. We sat on the sand, looking at the waves, caused by the wind.

"If I tell you something embarrassing from my past, will you answer a question?" The offer made me frown. The question could be about anything. Maybe the answer was something I would find hard to give, but as I looked at his eyes, I just nodded. "Once... Okay, I lied, a few months ago, I got drunk off my ass at my cousin"s wedding, and after I tried ten times to convince his wife that she had married the wrong man, and that the right one was a poor waiter who I wasn"t willing to let go, I kind of ended up looking around for Narnia, still without letting go of the waiter. I have seen the poor guy a few times, but he will run down the hill as soon as his eyes lay on me."

I laughed at his confess. For some reasons I couldn"t imagine Aiden drunk in that way, but some part of me wanted to see him like that. It was just curiosity. However the idea of drinking alcohol was something that I was never going to do myself, let alone feel comfortable while knowing that the people I care about consume it.

"Now the question..." My hear bumped against my chest rapidly. Why was I feeling so nervous? "Can I call you by a nickname?" I was caught off guard. His innocent smile and eyes made me feel that weird think in my stomach again.

But like always, I found myself smiling to him and agreeing once again. "Yes."

"Now, how can I call a pretty face like yours?" I blushed at his words. How could he do it? Looking so carefree? When I was around him, I felt like dying from a heart attack every five seconds, and if that didn"t happen, I would end up, wishing to die or kill myself because of the embarrassment I cause to myself. It was like a speciality of mine to make myself look like a fool. Does that mean that he doesn"t like me? The fact that he is so carefree around me?

After five minutes of trying to find me a proper nickname, Aiden just gave up. For every nickname that would cross his mind he would think it wasn"t good enough for me, which honestly made me feel weird things all over my body.

"You know what?" I raised an eyebrow at him. He chuckled a little and carried on. "I will call you Ry."

My heart stopped as I heard the nickname. For some reasons it felt like I was betraying Midnight if I let people call me like that. I don"t know why I wanted only him to call me like that. But that"s how I felt. "What about an other nickname?"

"I thought you would like it." He frowned.

"I do... But a friend of mine calls me like that... And..." How the hell could I explain to him that I just didn"t want him to call me Ry because calling me like that was something that I wanted to be only between me and Midnight.

But to my surprise he smiled. It was a sincere smile. "Good. Then I will call you Queen. It sounds like your surname, but... I can get used to it. Yes. Congratulations Ryder. You are my Queen now."