Happily Ever After by Kseniia Chernova

“Ugh, those perfect love stories are so boring”,
— said Melanie.
“But those are the best ones!” — argued Maddie and threw a pillow at her sister.
“Okay, enough. Off to sleep you go”, — Ellen wished a good night to her daughters and kissed two little foreheads. When she was about to turn the light off, she heard the younger daughter call her:
“Mommy?” — Maddie’s voice was sad, — “You didn’t say prince and princess lived happily ever after. Did they?”
“Oh, I must have forgotten about that. Of course, they did”, — a soft smile appeared on Ellen’s face. She turned the light off and left the room, not being sure why her last words sounded fake.

On the way to her bedroom Ellen wondered, if their family could be her own “happily ever after”. Ellen has always dreamt about being a devoted mother and a beloved wife. Now she was spending most of her days caring for the kids and almost every evening was reserved for her and her husband’s alone time. She shook her head at those absurd thoughts about not-so-perfect life and entered the room to get ready for bed. The woman reached to take off her favourite necklace. And just like that, she was hit by a lightning of memories.
Ellen saw herself pregnant with her first child again. She was lying on the cold bathroom floor unable to think or feel anything. Tears froze on her cheeks as the wounds stopped hurting. She knew they will leave bruises. The ones Ellen will have to hide not to throw shade on their marriage. Her husband Ryan has never done anything like this before, so Ellen was still in shock. What does she do now? She didn’t know how many hours have passed since that dreadful evening, but her instincts told her she was hungry. She pulled herself together and put every bit of her courage in standing up and opening the door. Then the brightest of lights hit her swollen eyes indicating it was already morning. Ellen blinked twice and looked away from the sunlight. She noticed something on the floor at her feet and instantly picked it up. It was a black box with a post-it sticker on top. She saw some letters written on it but couldn’t make a word out of them. After stepping away from the light she opened the box. Ellen was surprised to find an exquisite piece of jewellery inside the box. That necklace was meant to scream “Sorry”, just like the letters on the post-it sticker that was now lying on the floor did. She freed the necklace from the packaging and put it on her neck.

 It has been seven years since the incident happened and Ellen has never thought about it before. Ryan was a good husband and a wonderful father. Ellen forgave him and convinced herself it was all a nightmare, so there was no need to remember the details. Yet an innocent question of her daughter made that day real for Ellen. She took the necklace off and put it away. It shouldn’t be her favourite, because its’ story is not what she loves in her life. She deserves to have her “happily ever after” without a burden.