Elphaba Thropp's Tried and Tested Strategies to Avoid Falling in Love with the Handsome Prince Who Sees You A Little Too Well
Don't let him run you over with his horse. Much less accept a ride from him. These kinds of things set a dangerous precedence. He will definitely give up after that.
Draw the line at library vandalism. If this man steps on books, step on his heart. It's only fair.
When your roommate tells you to "talk to boys more," she doesn't mean him. Just because he seems to be watching you far more often than you initially thought, and just because he suddenly stops dancing on tables and ruining books doesn't mean a thing.
Don't think about him watching you toss your hair. His smile is amused, not besotted.
Don't let your eyes linger when he takes his shirt off, no matter how golden his skin looks, or how the sun's shadows dance on his chest, or how the cords of muscle move in his forearms when he chops wood.
Don't think too much about why your magic doesn't seem to work on him. Why it never seems to work on him.
Don't burden him with your honesty. Don't show him that you've been watching him a little closer than even you maybe realized.
It's just a scratch. He will live. Your hand doesn't need to linger like that, like it wants to touch more, like it wants to heal more than the shallow scrape of a lion cub's paws. You're just a girl. And he's just a boy who was not made for you.
Don't wish. Don't start. Wishing only wounds the heart. You know this. Repeat this to yourself often.
Avoid lingering on doorways and side posts, watching him with eyes that want. He is not waiting for you, or looking for you, or whatever your imagination is telling you he must be doing. He's not. This is the safer thought to think.
There's no point standing at the train station waiting for him to come. You barely even know each other.
Okay, so he does come. Big deal. A poppy is just a poppy, not a symbol, or a hidden message, or a promise he can't say out loud. It's just a flower.
Figure out how to keep it alive anyway. Because some days even the silly dream of an innocent girl is better company than the hollow emptiness of fighting alone, every single day.
Don't wish for him. Don't whisper his name in the darkness when you are alone and you touch yourself, hoping to feel something, anything. It is only your own skin, your own blankets, the dark, vast coolness of the woods.
On desperate days, don't wish you'd get caught just so that he could find you, just so you can see his face again. It won't be worth the look of disdain in his face, won't be worth hearing the word Wicked from his lips.
When you find out he's getting married, don't cry. There's no one to hear your tears. There's no difference it could make to the world if you were innocent or not, if things had been different that day, if you had made different choices. What does it matter? Beautiful things only belong to beautiful people.
When he offers to follow you, don't let him. Don't let him fly with you, don't let him into your home, don't let him see the evidence you'd gathered over the years of your own wickedness. Don't let him look at you with pity while your stubborn little heart tries to convince yourself it's love. It's not. It's delusion, the last desperate act of the lonely.
When he kisses you, don't let yourself melt into it. Don't let yourself believe, because... It must be too good to be true. Good things, beautiful, wonderful things don't happen to people like you. They never have.
When he tells you he loves you, shut him up with a kiss. Take the warmth he will offer you and sear it in your memory. Catalogue every inch of skin on skin, every breath, every sigh. Are you listening to me? Remember every single moment. This will be important in the future. You will need this to survive.
When he says goodbye to you in a cornfield... don't go. Don't listen. Don't leave him.
Learn to live with that regret every day. It's your only recourse now.
Nothing matters anymore. Not being good. Not doing right. Not proving anyone right or wrong. Nothing matters except that the world burn for what they've done, for what they've taken from you.
Watch the flames rise and the shadows grow and the mountains scream in terror, and let it blot your heart out with rage, so that there won't be any more room for the pain and the grief and the loneliness.
In your bed, later that night, in this dark, cold, empty castle, you can finally be honest. You can cry yourself to sleep again. You try to recount the memory of that beautiful night, the brightness in his eyes, the warmth in his voice, but the memory is worn from repetition, each image a mirage, blowing away like sand through your fingers.
Pray for a miracle. Surely even the wickedest of people are allowed this much. And you find that even now, despite everything, you still have the strength to dream.
A companion piece to this.
