So there was this girl.

She was a lonely little thing who had never known real friendship. She’d spent years at the hands of her captors, getting beaten and treated with almost nothing but brutality. It was hard on her, but she dreamed of escaping to a castle in the sky, where kindness actually existed. And that kept her going.

When the day finally came to go to the castle in the sky, she stood in front of the building without a name. It didn’t look like much, but at least there she could hope for freedom.

The shy, quiet, abused girl took almost a year to adjust to her castle in the sky, but it magically started to feel like home. Where she had once known force, she now knew kindness. Where she had once experienced hatred, she learned love. The girl blossomed and flourished into a happy, caring teenager. The scars of her past were neither erased nor forgotten, but simply written over, so they didn’t seem so bad anymore.

And you can’t have this story without a fairy godmother.

Unlike the proverbial fairy godmother, this one was a svelte, quiet thing. She didn’t seem to know her power over the newly blossomed girl, but after some trial and error, the girl discovered that if she talked about herself, the fairy godmother would hang around, whereas if the conversation turned to the fairy godmother, things got ugly quickly.

When summer came and the girl was banished from her beloved castle in the sky, she found that she missed the fairy godmother’s presence more than the castle. So she wrote the fairy godmother letters, and counted minutes before each returned one.

That was a dreadful summer, but the fairy godmother got the girl through it.

And when September came and the girl came back, they were both closer and more distant with each other. But that was okay, because when they wrote letters, personal matters didn’t matter quite so much to the fairy godmother. The girl learned a lot about her that way.

The girl came to rely more and more heavily on the fairy godmother, until one day the fairy godmother pushed her away with such force that she cried for days on end, which was something that the fairy godmother didn’t seem to notice.

After more than a week of crying, the girl wrote the fairy godmother a letter, and somehow they made up, While it seemed that the fairy godmother had moved on from the incident, the girl never really forgot, but merely let it fade into the background, along with all of her other emotional scars.

The fairy godmother was encouraging, especially when it came to the girl’s talents; she was particularly gifted in writing and music-and the fairy godmother gave such praise that the girl wondered if maybe the fairy godmother knew how much it meant to her.

Another year passed. The girl knew that her time in the castle in the sky was running out. The girl had come to the castle in the sky knowing that she only had four years in which to gain everything the castle in the sky could offer her. The girl started to get scared at the thought of leaving-what if this was it? But the fairy godmother assured her that when she left, they would not fall out of touch. The girl believed her.

Until they had another fight. This one wasn’t as bad as the last one, since the fairy godmother hadn’t even known that she had upset the girl. After a while, the girl got over it, adding it to her collection of scars.

The girl wanted to be herself around the fairy godmother, but since she was curious by nature, she had to repeatedly stop herself from asking questions. And that was hard.

It wasn’t long after that that the girl’s stay in the castle in the sky was officially terminated. After a short goodbye ceremony, the girl was thrust out of the castle. But the fairy godmother again promised that they would not lose touch, and that since the girl was no longer a part of the castle in the sky, they could become closer, since technically she was no longer the girl’s fairy godmother, but a friend.

The girl was excited by this promised change, and she awaited it eagerly. She knew it would be more than she could even fathom.

But as it turned out, the girl missed the castle in the sky-all of it, and not just the fairy godmother. She went back to visit the castle in the sky several times within the next few months. The fairy godmother seemed to like this, especially since the girl had noticed that she had stopped writing the girl letters. The girl suggested, half-jokingly, that the two of them get together away from the castle in the sky. The fairy godmother happily agreed.

The girl was shocked because this went against everything she knew to be true about the fairy godmother, but she assumed that this was the fairy godmother keeping her promise-that things would be different once she was gone.

For three weeks, the girl lived in happy bliss. The fairy godmother was clearly excited about the girl meeting up with her, and she said as much, even asking when it was going to happen.

Suddenly, the girl received a letter, three weeks after the original invitation, that stated that the fairy godmother was very sorry, but that things were becoming too personal again. The meeting had to be cancelled.

The girl was crushed, broken worse than any other time she’d fought with the fairy godmother. Didn’t the fairy godmother understand the pain she had just inflicted onto the girl? Didn’t she understand how confusing it was to be told to approach and yet be firmly pushed back at the same time? Didn’t she understand how much she meant to the girl? Obviously not.

But the pain was much deeper than that. The girl had thought that they were becoming friends. Everything had been changing, and the girl had liked that. She’d liked going to see the fairy godmother when they vacationed in the same area, even if the fairy godmother had brought a friend. She’d loved talking to the fairy godmother over the phone. She’d loved the direction their friendship had been headed. But now that she’d been forced back once again, the girl had to wonder if the friendship might have been out of pity; was it possible that that was how it had started? Was it possible that they’d written letters only because the girl’s mother was so sick? Definitely in the beginning, but after, too? Was it possible that their phone conversations had been because the girl’s mother had died? Again, maybe in the beginning, but after? Had the fairy godmother taken the girl out during their vacation only because it was the one-year anniversary of the girl’s mother’s death? Had their friendship been founded on pity? Was that why the fairy godmother never talked about herself? Was that why she kept pushing the girl away? As it stood right now, the answer seemed to be yes.

And that was a shame, because the girl hated pity. She also hated what the fairy godmother had done, pulling her along, letting her follow, and then brutally cutting the rope. They tied it back together time after time, but the fairy godmother kept pulling the strings, allowing them to slip a little each time. And because she walked in front of the girl, she couldn’t see the knots in the string. But the girl could. And that made her sad.