She hasn’t taken a shower for three days and couldn’t care less. She gently harassed her wine glass and left a deep sigh of satisfaction as she sank more comfortably in her effortlessly expensive couch, a birthday present from her parents celebrating her being 32. Like her mother often did, Netflix thought it wouldn’t be condescending to ask if she was sure she wanted to keep watching Once Upon A Time. She took a generous sip of her wine and stared back at the screen. She knew she was too old to believe in fairytales but her hopes of finding the prince of her heart have dangerously deteriorated ever since she broke up with Jim a couple of months ago.

“Are you sure you want to keep watching him taking 10 minutes to wear his socks?”, her mother had asked her a while ago. She didn’t really mind. Besides, Jim was tactful enough to take them off while they were having sex. He was a musician which meant he was a barista which meant he never had money to go out so she ended up paying for everything, including Jim’s steaming milk classes.

“Yes! I wanna continue fucking watching! True love does exist!”, she threatened Netflix and clicked the desirable answer. She was running low on wine which was stressing her out a bit but, on deciding that there’s no way in hell she’d go out and have to wear a bra, she concluded that there’s always that old bottle of vodka in the freezer if things got intense between Snow and Charming again.

She heard a knock at the door and got up with a sudden burst of energy to open it. She could afford losing the previews but not a minute more. “You’re not pizza!”, she exasperated. “You smell like pizza”, Charlie said judging her behind her designer eyeglasses. “Get dressed. We’re going out.”, Charlie announced and grabbed her wine glass from her hands.

She knew that, like Snow and the Evil Queen, this was a fight she wouldn’t win so she tried one last distraction tactic. “Can we watch one more episode and then go?”, she begged her best friend. She saw terror followed by pity in Charlie’s eyes as she realized what was on TV. “Melinda you’re scaring me! You really do! You need to get out of the house and get laid otherwise you’ll soon be fangirling over Mistresses and The Vampire Diaries!”. She lowered her head ashamed so she wouldn’t admit the truth and break Charlie’s heart. 

It was the typical hipster oriented house party. She put on a few extra pounds recently so she decided to wear a cardigan in order to appear chic and slim but she was only getting sick from the heat. “I’ve just taken a God damn shower!”, she thought desperately. “By the way, what’s with the wine drinking nowadays? You used to love margaritas. Only intelligent, introverted people enjoy wine and no one wants to date them.”, Charlie patronized her. “Whatevs! Where’s the stupid bar in this place?”, Charlie asked. “Go straight ahead and make a right”, a man answered her. “I’ll keep your friend company.”, he continued. The man was too good looking to be genuinely interested in her. He wore torn jeans, a T-Shirt that said: “Troublemaker” and had the most beautiful man-bun she’s ever seen. One that even Edward Sciccorhands would spare.

She knew exactly how this story would go. He would get her a couple more drinks, he would ask her if she wants to share an UBER and convince her to come to his place on the pretext of showing her his photos from that time he volunteered in India. The pictures would be Instagram-worthy but nothing more. Mainly selfies of him with scared kids. She would sleep with him and he would be enough of a gentleman to call her an UBER again and tell her: “That was fun.”, giving her a friendly punch on the shoulder instead of his phone number. 

She smiled uncomfortably at the dashing man and went to find Charlie. He was definitely no prince Charming material. She took her cardigan off and looked around her. “This isn’t such a bad party after all. Who knows? Maybe I’ll meet someone special.”, her newly found confident self said. 

She saw his socks first. One green and one blue. She knew that he didn’t do that on purpose in an attempt to look aloofly stylish. He just didn’t care. They were only socks at the end of the day. His jeans were turned up not because he was hipster-friendly but because he rode a bicycle. She remembered one time when Jim had arrived to her parents house super late and super sweaty. “You’re  perspiring in your Pinot Noir darling. The bathroom is upstairs if you want to refresh.” her Evil Queen mother had told him.

Jim looked great. He looked like himself. No designer eyeglasses, no man-bun. Only a big smile. She guessed the cause of his smile must have been the suspicious blond next to him. An actress probably. Or a model. Or maybe a singer. Perhaps all of the above. The actress/model/singer kissed Jim. For a moment, she wished she was Rumpelstiltskin and would turn her ass into a snail and send her to Neverland. Jim saw her first. He smiled again and waved at her. She waved back. 

Later that night, when the man with the beautiful bun put her in a car, she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and so she asked him timidly: “Are you?”.  The man didn’t say anything. He kissed her on the cheek and left. At least he was honest enough to wear it on a T-shirt. On her way back home, she remembered that she hasn’t clicked the stop button so she would have to deal with that never-ending question again.