Fairy Tale Fail

by Mina V. Esguerra

  I knew this was rare. I felt happy, like a kid in a theme park.

  But something was also nagging at me.

  "What do you think, Ellie?" Don said, after we ordered dessert. "I'm not sure what kind of relationship you're in right now, but I just wanted to take my chances."

  I wasn't in one. That was part of the fairy tale. The heroine didn't have flings on her way to winning back her true love. But I needed to know something first.

  "How many girlfriends did you have after me, Don?" I asked.

  He hesitated.

  "I'm not going to be hurt or offended or anything, I just really want to know."

  "Three, I guess."

  "And they all didn't last long?" That was obvious. "What did you tell them when you broke up with them?"

  That was a hunch, by the way. I wasn't sure if he would ever tell me if they had broken up with him, because he was the kind of guy who'd be able to rationalize it to his advantage.

  "They were just too different," he told me. "They all were."

  "What exactly did you say?" I asked again.

  Don acted like he was sitting on something really uncomfortable. "I don't want to go into everything, but the common thread was that they were all just… of different backgrounds. They weren't on the same level, like you and I are."

  If he wanted to shut me up at that, it was the wrong thing to say. "What do you mean, same level? What level are we both on?"

  "We have… we have the same values. We want the same things in our future. I know that because we talked about it, Ellie. I'm just sorry I didn't appreciate it before, when you told me that you wanted us to have those things together."

  "You actually told a girlfriend that you wanted to break up with her because you weren't on the same level?"

  Don lifted his hands in surrender. "I don't know what to say. I could tell that they needed me more than I needed them. But because of that I remembered you. And the future you want us to have together. I thought you'd be happy to hear that."

  "Something about their neediness reminded you of me?"

  "I'm not explaining this right," Don said. "It's… Back then, when you were telling me your plans and what you wanted us to have, I wasn't ready for it. But now I know that you had more character because you knew what you wanted. I've been with people who don't know what they want, or are too willing to change for me. And then I appreciated how you stood by your principles to me."

  Wait a second. Shouldn't I be happy? I was happy, giddy, just a few moments ago. But that was an adrenaline rush that was already starting to fade, like the rollercoaster ride I was on screeched to a halt five seconds ago.

  Oh, shit. I wanted the rush back, I wanted the feeling of having exactly what I wished for, but something was still nagging at me.

  "Did you love her?" I asked.

  "Who?" Don said, frustrated at the interrogation.

  "I don't know. Pick one."

  "I guess I did. I was the boyfriend, after all."

  "Then why would you do that?" I demanded. "You pretty much dumped me because I didn't want to change for you. And then you dumped someone else because she changed for you too quickly? You could have just said you didn't love her anymore. Why didn't you just do that?"

  But I knew the answer already. It was because good guys didn't dump you and tell you they just didn't love you. Good guys broke up only for very good reasons, and gave you the impression that everything can be fixed.

  "Don," I said, and by doing this I knew I had passed a point of no return. The rush from getting what I had wished for was gone, and only the satisfaction of telling him off remained. "When you tell a girl that you have to break up because of her 'issues,' if she loves you, she will think that all she has to do is change and you'll go back to her. But if you weren't brave enough to just break up honestly, then you're just being cruel."

  "Is that what you think I did to you?"

  "Isn't that why you want me again? Because you think I worked on the issues you told me you had with me?" I felt my voice start to go shrill, and I fought to keep it level. "I didn't change at all. These things that happened to me? I didn't plan them. I just started a job that I knew how to do well, and got rewarded without even trying. I'm having fun now, because I've been hanging out with people who enjoy my company and don't give me grief about what I should be doing. I've been confident because I've been meeting new people who find me interesting. When I tell them my passion is traveling, even if I don't make a lot of money, they find it fascinating. If you like me now because of this, well, I like me like this too. And I did it all without you."

  At this point Don began to realize that it might not go as he planned. "But I do love you. And I realized when you were gone that it wasn't fair to you that I demanded those things. Ellie, I don't know what I said that's making you angry, but in the past months I learned that I love you. I really love you. Can't we focus on that?"

  "But you didn't learn anything!" I said, shaking my head. "You did it again to the girl you just broke up with. You mean well, Don, but you're a bad boyfriend. How sure am I that you won't find another thing that's wrong with me and break up with me again?"

  "I can be better," Don said. "I obviously need to work on some things."

  Admitting to a flaw and wanting to change was something I never thought I'd hear Don say, ever. I said that I wanted him back and here he was.

  But then I remembered something. Let me tell you what being with a "good guy" was like: It was as if we were always watched, by disapproving eyes, or at least by his own judgmental self. He was always the first to stop – and scold – himself for being less than perfect at work, at home, with his friends. He set arbitrary standards for his girlfriends. When we broke up, he said things like "I hope you understand where I'm coming from" but no apologies for breaking my heart were given, at least none sincere, because he was a good person, who never meant to hurt anyone, ever.

  But… didn't I want us back together? I admitted it out loud just weeks ago.

  I could imagine it. And saw that history would repeat itself. This was not "happily ever after" still, because nothing about us had really changed. I wasn't deliberately ambitious or driven now – my success was all a happy coincidence. And he didn't really appreciate me yet – he just got burned by his recent relationships and wanted to go back to his comfort zone.

  This was, and I could see it now, the Stepmother in disguise, handing Snow White the poison apple for the third time. I had survived that last two encounters, but believing it this time would probably break me.

  "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I don't believe that you love me," I said, after a long and deep breath. "I think you're on the rebound again. I wasn't good enough for you before, but I'm at least better than the last girlfriend you had so you're willing to settle."

  "That's not true, Ellie—"

  "Don, I still think you're a great guy. You're responsible, ambitious and we believe in a lot of the same things. But I'm not different at all. I'm the same person you had 'issues' with, and those haven't changed. I think I should be with someone who doesn't care about all that. You'll know what I mean when you actually love someone, for real."

  I didn't wait for dessert. I excused myself, and told a waiter on the way out to charge the entire dinner to my room instead.

  It was the least I could do, pay for dinner.

  ***

  I didn't even notice that my hands were shaking until I saw the reflection on the elevator doors of my little sparkly clutch bag. Like tiny disco lights.

  None of my plans covered this possibility. I didn't think I would ever be faced with a reunion with Don and say no. But at the same time, I felt so relieved. I may have rushed to catch the elevator but I wasn't running from something, I was running to someone.

  Someone in room 1123.

  Lucas opened the door and he was just in a white shirt and shorts. He had changed into sleepwear. It was his last night in Bangkok and he was staying in.

&
nbsp; Lucky me.

  "Is your roommate here?" I asked.

  "He's out," Lucas said.

  "Good." Not exactly friendly, and very impolitely, I kissed him. I crossed the threshold and let myself in, going up on my tiptoes and pulling his face halfway to meet mine. I gave it to him determined, deep, and somewhat sloppy. I messed up his damp hair further by taking handfuls and just hanging on. I tugged at his lower lip playfully when he came up for air.

  "Do Not Disturb sign," he said in the single second that I allowed him to breathe.

  Chapter 16

  Naturally, being a girl who obsessively planned things, I didn't just daydream. Certain life events I already plotted out in my head, complete with agenda, outfits, and lighting. But I didn't exactly plan for finding myself in my Office Crush's hotel room in a foreign city.

  I thought I would be lost and panicky; instead I felt… unburdened.

  It helped that Lucas knew exactly what would make me feel better: reciprocity. Whether he wanted this too wasn't a mystery. I could tell in the way he kissed me, and when he reached for the buttons of my jacket after I fumbled clumsily with them, and when he disposed of his shirt in one movement before I even thought of it. He knew what he was doing. It was like I could, for once, let my life actually happen and not obsess over every detail.

  It just worked.

  I let him set the pace and he responded with a long leisurely kiss that zapped me of conscious thought for who knows how long. Without the jacket I would have shivered in the cold room but he kept his body close, so close, and his shoulders were surprisingly warm and smooth in contrast to the stubble that he took care not to scratch against my skin. I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing but he would gently shift my hand, my hip, my shoulder, my chin, so I would be right where he wanted me to be, and it was as if I knew where things went. It was nice of him to save me the embarrassment of asking.

  Or maybe I spoke too soon, because some things needed asking.

  "Shit," Lucas said. "You wouldn't happen to have…?"

  "What? Oh." No, my clutch bag had lip gloss and a cellphone, not contraception. "No."

  "Shit." Lucas looked adorable even in a frustrated state, as he pushed me back slightly and struggled to gather his thoughts. "I didn't think I'd be needing it."

  I giggled. "This is what happens when you don't have a plan."

  "No, this is what happens when I – wait." He gently lifted me off his lap and headed to Anton's side of the room, and found what he was looking for in a pile of crumpled receipts and foil.

  And then at the same moment we realized that he had fished through Anton's trash for an unused condom, and that killed the mood faster than anything.

  Um, yuck.

  "We don't have to right now," I said, biting my lip to keep from laughing.

  "Yeah, well, I'm going to wash my hands." He threw the packet back into the pile and headed toward the bathroom.

  The second and third tattoos were on his back, I discovered right then, on top of each other, in the general area of his left shoulder blade.

  ***

  "Thirty minutes."

  "Can't do it."

  "Twenty minutes."

  "I don't think you can get the essence of Patpong in twenty minutes. Plus we both have to be at the airport before nine PM. Might as well skip it and try again next time."

  "See, this is my punishment for not doing my research."

  "You could have gone tonight. I'm sure there's at least one group out there now. Why didn't you?"

  "I was thinking of how to sabotage your dinner."

  "Seriously?"

  "Well, maybe for an hour. And then I gave up and just stayed in."

  "It would have been easy to sabotage, you know." I peeked at the clock on the nighttable. "It's three AM. I should go back."

  Lucas stuck his head between my shoulder and a pillow and faked a loud snore. It tickled.

  After he emerged from the bathroom earlier, we laughed for a bit about the situation, but didn't dwell on it. Lucas asked if I wanted to eat, and I said I wanted dessert. I didn't get to have dessert.

  Soon, we had a selection of goodies sent up to the room. It was expensive, and I might as well have eaten my per diem money right then and there. Hours later, cakes and chocolate all gone, I just lay there beside him thinking of what to do on my last day in the city.

  "Anyway," I said, casually talking up to the ceiling, like any of this was normal, "I have errands to run tomorrow. Stuff to buy in Pratunam."

  "How about I join you? I have nothing planned tomorrow."

  "You had an entire day in Bangkok and didn't plan for it?"

  "This day would have ended differently if I had a plan, remember?" Lucas turned to lie on his stomach, raising himself up on his elbows. "You look beautiful tonight. In case I haven't said it yet. Did you do all this for him?"

  "I thought so, but I probably did it for me. I think I look great in this dress."

  "I completely agree."

  I laughed and reached over to touch his hair, intending to smooth down a patch that was sticking up, realizing that I could.

  I could do that now.

  "I'm a little nervous," I admitted. "I just gave up what I thought I wanted."

  "You regretting it?"

  I pushed myself up against the headboard, my brow furrowed. "I guess not. I just realized earlier that even if I got him it wouldn't be the kind of relationship I wanted. I'm just… well, give me a minute to grieve."

  He smiled and pressed his lips together. And waited. And then, in less than a minute, "Was that enough time?"

  "You think you're funny," I said ruefully. "I have no idea what my life is going to be like now."

  Lucas pushed himself up, closer to me, and lifted my hand up, our fingertips touching. "You told me that your life wasn't all about work. That you had a lot of things you looked forward to when you got out of the office."

  Yes, I remembered that.

  He pushed himself up, even closer, our fingertips still touching. "Then that's exactly what your life is going to be. You've still got your family, your hobbies, your friends, none of that will change."

  "Really." It wasn't a question.

  "And I'm probably going to, you know, start calling. Driving you home. Taking you to movies you hate."

  I started to smile, but he wasn't done yet.

  "And then you'll probably want to introduce me to your mom. Your nephew Dylan will love me because kids like me, and I'll tell him about my brother's job and our pirate story, and he'll just be so attached to me. And then you'll want me to go to church again, and we'll probably discuss that at length. But I probably will go to church with you at least once, and it will be in your college church, to erase the memory of what that douche did there."

  I opened my mouth to speak, but no, he wasn't done yet.

  "And then we'll hang out with my friends, who apparently like you, and I'll meet your friends, some of whom spread rumors about me, and we'll talk about them behind their backs to each other. You'll want to take another trip abroad, and I'll want to take you to a small town in the province where we have to share bathroom with our host's neighbor, but we'll compromise by agreeing to go anyway and tolerate any whining that may happen."

  It didn't sound at all like happily ever after, but I couldn't keep from smiling. "Are you done?" I asked.

  "So that's the plan," Lucas said. "Sorry, I only had a minute to come up with it. Will that do?"

  "It's already better than any relationship I've ever had."

  What mattered was that despite the reasons why he didn't have to be there with me, he wanted to anyway. And that despite my original plans, the guy I was kissing right then was the one who gave me my confidence back, not the one who took it away.

  Fifteen minutes later I took the elevator back to my room, but I felt like I floated three floors up instead.

  Not a bad end to the day when I decided to let my fairy tale go.

  The End
r />   Author’s Note

  Thank you for reading this book! I have so much love for Fairy Tale Fail. I wrote it at a time when I thought that only Filipinos living in the Philippines would be my audience for it, and upon releasing it to the world, I was proven wrong. (But delightfully!)

  Fairy Tale Fail was independently published in 2010, both in digital and print. It has been purchased, downloaded, and read by thousands worldwide. It won the Filipino Readers’ Choice Award for Chick Lit in 2012, and has since been released in print by Summit Books in the Philippines.

  About the Author

  Mina V. Esguerra learned everything she needed to know about writing romances from Sweet Dreams novels and the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series. When not working as a communications consultant, she writes contemporary romance, young adult, and new adult novels. When not working and writing, she's hanging out with her husband and daughter. Visit her site http://minavesguerra.com.

  More from Mina

  Contemporary/New Adult/Chick Lit

  My Imaginary Ex

  Fairy Tale Fail

  No Strings Attached

  Love Your Frenemies

  That Kind of Guy

  Young and Scambitious (A Short Story)

  Welcome to Envy Park

  YA/NA Fantasy

  Interim Goddess of Love

  Queen of the Clueless (Interim Goddess of Love #2)

  Icon of the Indecisive (Interim Goddess of Love #3)

  Non-fiction

  #romanceclass: Learning to write (and finish) a contemporary romance novella