Broken Illusions

So this is an orginal fanfiction piece I wrote. It took me a couple months to complete, which is weird since it's only a few pages. Still, that sometimes.

I started this after a conversation with my friend Tonya several months ago. She made me wonder if reality could ever live up to fantasy and this is what I came up with.

With most of my original stuff, I start with my own life and then diverge. I mess with situations and emotions and let my imagination take over. It starts with fantasy and becomes something else entirely.

I'm not sure if I like this one or not, but I think it certainly captures what I was going with when I started it. It captures the emotion that I wanted to display. I wanted to answer that question of what happens when you acheive something you've spent years trying to attain?


Created October 23rd, 2004

Broken Illusions
By Michelle


It wasn't supposed to be like this. She had waited her entire life for this and now that it came, it just felt so... Wrong.

Rachel lay in the darkness, just staring at the ceiling. She felt so cheap and dirty. Not the way she had expected to feel.

She glanced over at the man sleeping next to her. He seemed unaffected by the consequences of what had happened, but then why should he? It was nothing out of the ordinary for him. She was just another woman he had taken to his bed.

Actually, she knew that wasn't quite true. He wouldn't write her off that callously. After all, she wasn't just any woman he had taken to his bed.

She was his lifelong friend, the daughter of his parents oldest and dearest friends. Their lives had always been intertwined. They had been so many things to each other.

He had been part brother, cousin, friend, foe, crush. He had never fit into one role in her life and maybe that was why she had wasted so much of her time and energy over the year thinking about him.

This day had been several years in the making. Since they were sixteen year old kids.

She had thrown herself at him back then and he had rejected her. The next few years were spent with an awkward tension that they never spoke of. They tried to pretend that everything was wonderful between them.

But they couldn't pretend any longer. They were twenty-four now. No longer children. But then she was perfectly aware of that, as this was no childish mistake she had made.

No it was the mistake that only a woman could make.

She should have known it wasn't a good idea. Maybe rationally she did, but some part of her wouldn't listen. Some part of her still clung to the childish dream of happily ever after. But she didn't think that was in the cards.

Nick wasn't the settling down type, at least not at this point in his life. She supposed that's why he had spent so long trying to prevent this moment.

She had wanted him since she was sixteen and she had recently learnt that he had always wanted her as well, but for eight years he ahd insisted on pushing her away. Because he knew that taking her to his bed was not a good idea.

Everyone had tried to tell her that. Her mother, her sister, his sister, her friends. They had all tried to warn her that some things were better left alone, but she couldn't do it. Not once she discovered that he wanted her like she had always wanted him.

So, for the second time in their lives, she threw herself at him. Except this time, she wasn't an inexperienced child. She was a woman who knew what she wanted and how to go after it. In the end, she had succeeded.

His resolve had cracked and now she lay naked in his bed. And she wished with all her might that she was anywhere else.

"Do you really think you can handle being one of the women he sleeps with and then discards?"

Her mother's words, spoken several months earlier, rang in her head now. Not that he had discarded her yet, but she had no doubt that he would.

Maybe not right away, maybe their fling would last a few weeks or even a few months, but it would end, because with Nick, the flings always ended. No woman could hold him down for long.

Not even the girl who had adored him all their lives.

She closed her eyes, trying to fight back tears.

God, this was so wrong. She hated herself, hated him, hated everything about this stupid situation.

She thought she might throw up. This wasn't how it was supposed to be at all. It was supposed to be beautiful, magical, the first night of the rest of their lives.

Instead, it just felt wrong.

Not that the sex hadn't been fantastic. At least that hadn't been a let down. No, Nick was pretty terrific in bed. Very skilled, very considerate.

But that's all it was.

Sex.

She had always assumed that went she went to bed with Nick, they'd make love. That there'd be deep emotion as well as physical pleasure and there wasn't.

She had spent eight years building it up in her head and the reality was a terrible let down. It wasn't his fault, of course. It was her own.

Nick had always been up front with her. Well, except about his feelings, btu that was natural. Still, he had never pretended that this was anything but what it was.

She was the one who had built up in her own mind, expecting it to be a life-changing experience when all it was some great sex with a guy she liked, but didn't want to spend the rest of her life with.

As she lay in the darkness, Rachel was forced to admit that she wasn't in love with Nick.

She loved him, of course. He had been a part of her life for as long as she could remember, of course she loved him. But not as a woman loved a man.

She loved him like a sister loved a brother. Like you loved a dear, old friend. She loved him like a young girl loves the boy next door.

She had always assumed that he was the one and had never stopped to really examine her feelings. Maybe she hadn't wanted to, because loving Nick was easy, she had been doing it all her life, after all.

Admitting that she no longer loved him was much harder. Nick had been her shield from every other man. After all, it was okay that she never got seriously involved with any of them, because her heart belonged to Nick.

Except it didn't. Maybe it never had.

Rachel contemplated getting out of the bed and getting dressed and sneaking out of there. Except, she knew that she couldn't do that. This might not be the grand love affair she had wanted it to be, but it deserved more respect than a quickly regretted one-night stand.

Not that she hadn't had a few of those, but not Nick.

No, even now, he was more than that. Even if he wasn't Prince Charming on a white steed who'd sweep her off her feet to go live happily ever after. But that wasn't his fault. He never pretended to be anything he wasn't.

If it was anybody's fault it was her own. She was the one that had made a flesh and blood male into a fantasy creation. It's no surprise that in the end she was disappointed.

But maybe it was for the best.

Maybe this what she need to start facing reality, to go find what she was really looking for. Nick wasn't it, he'd never been it.

Rachel smiled slightly, if a tad bitterly.

This night hadn't been what she had wanted it to be, but at least it had made her grow up.

Perhaps, that was why it hurt so much.

Nobody ever likes to have their fairy tale shattered and she was no exception.

But, there was no going back. One night had destroyed the illusion she had lived with for eight years and she'd never get it back.

The End

It's mainly fiction. But those that know me, know where I got the idea. Of course the difference is, that I'll never find out how the reality matches up.

First of all, it's not in the cards. But even if it was, it's not worth it. Things work the way they are and there are some places you should never. Besides for me, that was never an option, anyway.

Still, that's why I wrote this story. Who knows if that's the way it would really be in real life? Maybe, maybe not. But I'm not likely to find out, nor do I really want to.

I think I'd rather have the fantasy than face the harsh reality.