Once upon a time...

"My story isn't a fairytale," she said. For a second, she looked desperately sad. But then the hardness returned to her exquisite face and she threw back the last of her pint. It was the twelfth I'd seen her drain but she showed no signs of intoxication. And she hadn't paid for a single one.

"But it is," I insisted, unwilling to let go of my dreams.

She leveled her dark eyes at me, scrutinizing me, accusing me. "It's people like you. You're why I'm still here." She reached up as if to wipe a tear but her cheeks were dry.

We were sitting in a tiny, dirty pub in Dublin. These were her favorite and this one was the latest in a long string of dives I'd found her in all over the world. She would have been harder to find if she didn't have a weakness for cities. But then, I had always felt she wanted me to find her. It was raining and she gave the window the same accusing look she'd given me. I started to fear that she would leave and I wouldn't know how long before I saw her again.

"Ok, maybe fairytale is the wrong word," I tried, "but it's a wonderful story. Every child has heard some version of it." She snorted. It should have been unattractive but it wasn't. Nothing she ever did was unattractive.

"Tell me," she said, "how do your fairytales end?" She was looking straight ahead, not seeing, just listening. I watched a small, sad, knowing smile curve into her profile when I replied, "'And they lived happily ever after.'" 

She kept her head turned away from me, but there was pain in her eyes and that smile lingered at the corner of her mouth. "They don't tell you the rest, do they?"

"The rest of what?" I asked.

"What comes after 'ever after.'"