A Long, Long Sleep

I haven't finished revisiting Sleeping Beauty. As a faerie tale, that one is rife with inherent difficulties. After all, the world doesn't stop just because one person is asleep.

I am free. I am haunted. But if nothing else, I am wide awake.

I didn't want the sun to rise. I didn't want the world to continue turning. I wanted the whole planet put into stasis until I could catch up.

Now I have a question," Otto wrote. "Fire away." "What do you see in him?" "Apart from the obvious?" "What’s the obvious? I’m afraid I’m not a teenage girl.

A fierce hand gripped my chest, squeezing my lungs. No. it wasn't my lungs. It was my heart. It was breaking. Wasn't I stronger than this?

Did you know I blush purple? Jamal’s teasing me about it." "Is he reading this?" I asked, horrified. "No." "Sorry I made you blush." "I’m not. Good night, Briar Rose." "Good night, blue-skinned alien.

What we have is what it is, and all I want it to be...for now

Bren's eyes always drew me, until I found myself drawing them.

I smiled. I was starting to like being called Briar Rose.

He brushed his hand over my cheek and a thought of a wild briar-rose hedge surrounding a beautiful castle flashed into my mind. Sleeping Beauty's castle. Only he didn't see me as the cursed and passive beauty, quietly waiting to be awakened by her Prince Charming. I was the stunning rose hedge, wild and impenetrable and strong enough to withstand a hundred years of people trying to hack their way through it to the vulnerable innocents I would protect. A hedge that knew which person, which people, to let inside.

And I know that I could. I could like you, let myself really care for you. But if I did, I just know that I'd throw more and more of myself down into that abyss, and it wouldn't begin to fill it. Rose, you just need more than I have to offer. There's so much pain there that I could never heal. And I'd want to, I'd shrivel up and wither long before anything started to get better for you. It would just be worse for both of us, in the end.