Dear me,
Once upon a time—because all the best and worst things start this way—there was a
kingdom. Not the kind with dragons and dark forests, though we'll get to those. This
one had something far more dangerous. Women.
The kingdom had a rule. Unwritten, naturally. The best rules always are—that way
nobody has to admit they agreed to them.
The rule was this: Every girl born into the kingdom would be handed, at birth, along
with her name and her first breath, a crown. Not to wear. To chase.
The crown belonged to the prince. The prince belonged to the story. And the story
belonged to everyone—which is to say, to no one—which is to say, to the kingdom
itself.
And so the girls grew up understanding, without ever being told directly, that the point
of the whole thing was to be chosen. To be seen. To be selected. To be made real by
someone else's wanting.
And aren't we good at those little things? Bright smiles for breakfast, effortless casual
for lunch, and intriguingly vain for dinner. Every 24 hours, by the clock. Tick tock. Tick
tock. We brush each other's hair, we take walks in the gardens, giggle under a cotton
umbrella, hiding from the sun. All girls' stuff. Great—until. Well. Until the prince gets
there and fucks it all up.
You see, not every story has a happy ending. And not every princess gives a fuck about
the prince. Some were waiting for his horse.
Here is the part the fairy tale never tells you. Here is the part I had to figure out by
being on both sides of it. The women who couldn't support each other weren't cruel by
nature. They were frightened by design.
The Kingdom had one final rule: If you are not chosen, you are rejected. The Kingdom
called it rivalry. I think it was simply mathematics taught to frightened little girls.A girl raised to believe her worth lives in being chosen will, inevitably, see every other
woman as competition for the choosing. Not because she wants to. Because the
kingdom taught her that the crown is singular. That there is only one prince. That the
throne only fits one.
She is not a villain. She is terrified. Because what if there is no prince for her? What if
him choosing her friend ruins her entire life?
And worse—what if the prince chooses one of those women who looked at the crown,
looked at the prince, looked at the throne, and said: “No, thank you. I'll take the horse.”
Not because they didn't want love. They wanted to ride. To run with the wind until their
hair stopped being decorative and started being a weapon. To be friends with the
dragon. And frankly, waiting to be rescued had always seemed like a spectacular waste
of a Tuesday.
Yes. Those are the witches. The bitches. I have been both women.
Dear me,
The kingdom is not the enemy. Neither are the women in it. Maybe I was wrong to
dismiss L. so quickly—when she was only following the rules of the kingdom. Because
she genuinely wants the prince. And because she is so close to getting him. While I'm
only hoping for the horse.
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