For Ever (Star-Crossed City #2)

Prologue

prologue

Cinderella is an idiot.

I remember the first time I saw the movie. I was seven, new to America, and just fluent enough to understand the English version of the classic film.

I watched it on the floor of my abuela’s tiny apartment, over the tailor shop, while she worked below. It was only a few weeks after she took me from her son, my father—so maybe I was a bit more jaded than the average seven-year-old girl.

But, honestly. Who wrote that mierda ?

A man, of course.

But I digress.

I watched the animated movie alone in our cramped apartment. As the story unfolded, I just could not understand. Was I misinterpreting the language? Or perhaps missing some sort of cultural cue?

Or was Cinderella truly just a weak ass bitch ?

There were no imaginable circumstances under which I would suffer through years and years of abuse at the hands of my own family in order to… what ? Have some dusty attic room full of mice ?

How, pray tell, is that an improvement upon being alone but being free ? Why would anyone trade their dignity just to be able to say they weren’t lonely? What’s so wrong with independence?

I watched on, thinking I must have been missing something . Surely, the heroine of one of the world’s most classic love stories wouldn’t just lie back and take this crap. Certainly, she would do something to save herself.

Pero no .

She slaved away without a peep until a random fairy godmother gave her a makeover—a temporary makeover… as if someone with magical powers couldn’t have given the girl some setting spray—and then she crashed a party, met a guy, and didn’t even tell him her name , but somehow fell in love with him?!

What kind of utter lunacy ? I mean, truly.

I began steeling myself for the tragic ending—the big life lesson I knew must have come at the end of this sordid tale.

Well, we all know how it ends. In fireworks and true love and forever-afters.

The credits rolled. I sat open-mouthed on Abuelita’s floor, completely dismayed.

Because I may have been seven years old, but I had seen enough in life to know the truth. That women who take abuse, get more abuse. That men don’t show up to save you in your darkest hour. That no one —not one single person—can rescue you from your own choices.

Cinderella wasn’t a heroine. She was pathetic.

And I would do better.