On the rare occasion that I was in the house by myself, I was that girl who lay on her couch watching sappy love movies and eating chocolate because of a bad breakup. Except we hadn’t technically broken up because we’d never actually been together. And instead of a sappy love movie, I was watching Beauty and the Beast, and still wondering how my life hadn’t turned out the way I wanted it to. And my hands weren’t covered in melted chocolate, or holding a spoon that dipped in the tub of ice cream over and over again; they were holding the book I was simultaneously reading. That. Those two things. I blamed them for why my life was the way it was. Once upon a time and happily ever after . . . words I grew up hearing from Disney and children’s stories, and words I’d always believed in. As I grew up and my reading material grew with me, my standards for my Prince Charming morphed, but never lessened.
