A Mardi Gras Story

Bonne fete Mardi Gras!  Or, as some of you might call it, Fat Tuesday, the day where you stuff your face with all the good stuff.  In honor of this pretty awesome day (and of me finding the plastic baby in my slice of cake) I decided I'd write a little Mardi Gras story for ya'll.  And if you thought the statement in paranthesis was strange, let me explain: a little plastic baby Jesus or king is placed in a slice of cake, which everyone then takes a peice of.  Whoever ends up with the plastic thing gets to be king, or in my case, queen for the day and wears a paper crown.  I am happy to say that I now have a purple crown.  Strangely enough, when I walked into the room I thought to myself "Hey, today I'm going to find the little plastic baby in my slice of cake."  I'm kinda psychic sometimes, I kid you not.  Anyways, here's the story:

My Queen, Don't Cry
Angela looked in the mirror and saw that the splotchs around her eyes had disappeared.  Her whole life she had been cursed with always having them present when she needed a good cry, and a good cry had been a long while in coming.  That made her seem childish, and if she thought about it, it was.  Only little children through temper tantrums and then hid in the washroom by the utility stairwell to hide it.

The sound of another person's presence rattled her and in the mirror's reflection she saw that Jason was now in here with her.  When he opened the door the sound increased in volume, a bone-jarring beat that no one could hear themselves think in, and the strobe lights managed to leak around the corners.  Purple, gold, green.  They were headache inducing.

Jason didn't seem surprised to see the homecoming queen hiding away in the school's only unisex bathroom.  She, on the other hand, was surprised to see him.

Normally she felt uncomfortable around boys, they were intrusive and rude.  Her last boyfriend, Grant, had been that way.  Apparently, the rest of the school didn't get the memo that they had broken up because he had been voted king, right next to her.

The tiara they had given her to wear had been cast on the ground, and she regretted the dent it had acquired, but Angela had never wanted it in the first place.  She wasn't as perfect as everyone imagined, and she didn't like being the center of attention all the time.  Before Jason had moved to the school that had been different, but seeing his reclusive way of life, and meeting a real-life dragon, had changed everything.

Jason came closer to her, but she still didn't turn around.  He didn't ask, Are you OK?, or, What happened?, and she was fine with that.  It wasn't in his nature to ask senseless questions.  Beethoven, the dragon aforementioned, on the other hand, was far from against it.  His voice rang in her mind.

<<Is everything all right?>>

She didn't dignify it with an answer because it would be too complicated and she wasn't supposed to be a complicated person.

"Can I help?" Jason's first words.

Again she didn't answer.  Because he couldn't help, she had to get over this herself.  Work it out herself.  Her fists clenched, nuckles turning white, and a sob rose up in her throat.  Her head pounded with the unreleased energy.

In the mirror she saw Jason kneel down and get something.  The tiara.  He picked it up, brushed it off, and whispered a few small words in anciant Babylon that fixed the dent immediately.  Then he put it on her head.  Like a cruel joke, it fit perfectly, as if it were tailored to belong.

<<You look beautiful.>>  This time it wasn't the dragon in her head.  It was Jason.

Her eyes closed so she couldn't see her reflection.  Beautiful on the outside, but on the inside she was ugly.

<<That's not true.>>  His arms closed around her.

Eyes opening she turned in his arms to look him in the eye.

"You're a dirty liar, Jason Smith," she said, her voice husky and throat raw.  Her nose was plugged as well.  Charming.

His arms came away from around her and a thumb pressed to her cheek.  Wiping away a tear, she realized.

"My Queen, don't cry," he whispered.

And then she did something she could never have imagined doing in a thousand years.  She stood on the tips of her toes and kissed Jason right on the mouth, in the middle of the unisex, utility stairwell bathroom.  They kept kissing even as a couple girls came to clean their makeup.  Someone snapped a picture, but she didn't care, because kissing Jason felt like she was doing penance, washing her sins away, and being reborn.  No longer a dirty bully, snotty, spoiled brat, but someone who could have a heart and rule with it.