Fullest Heart

Happily Ever After

'Happily Ever After'

Fairytale.

As a little girl, Rachel loved the idea of fairy tale stories. The happy ending it offered, the beautiful princess, the knight in the shining armor, the prince charming in his white horse and his ridiculously impeccable set of hair. The whole fairytale fantasy captivated her heart as a little girl.

She too - just like Cinderella or Snow White - longed to find her prince charming, have a magical fairytale-like wedding, and live in her very own happily ever after.

In the end, the man she eventually married wasn't exactly a prince just like from the fairytale stories she read as a kid. He wasn't a rich guy who inherited a lot of money or a kingdom from his parents, he wasn't great at using swords or any other fighting skills for that matter, and his gelled hair - which never really bothered her by the way - was far from perfect. But Ross Geller, her husband - despite his flaws - was the perfect man for her.

He was the love of her life after all.

That was why, even though he wasn't exactly the kind of a prince she was dreaming of as a kid, Rachel Green-Geller was happily married to him.

She got married to Ross about six months ago after he had proposed to her one evening in the same planetarium they went on their first official date - just the way he described it to her on his parent's wedding anniversary. Together, they had a child, a beautiful four years old, a social butterfly - Emma Green-Geller. Their little princess.

It took Rachel a while, but now she had everything she ever asked for on her thirtieth birthday; a thriving career, a loving husband, a kind step-son, and a wonderful daughter. She was living her own version of a fairytale and even though it wasn't always filled with rainbows and butterflies, she was happy.

She loved being married, she loved being a wife and a mom. But, no matter how happily married she was, sometimes she let herself wonder the reasons why she agreed to marry her husband, and today was one of those days.

Today was Halloween.

As a kid, Rachel loved the holiday - obsessed even. Like any other kid her age, she waited anxiously for this particular holiday as soon as the calendar flipped into October. Along with her best friend, Monica Geller, each year they'd picked their costumes together and planned a route to get the best kind of candies in the neighborhood - which was why instead of trick-or-treating around their neighborhood, they had to walk a few blocks further for the best candies there were.

However, as a mother in her mid thirties who just spent her entire day on a budget meeting, she was anything but excited about the holiday, especially when her husband apparently loved the idea of embarrassing her by choosing the lamest and the most ridiculous outfit she had ever seen.

You know, the kind where no one bothered to buy, the one that required a ridiculous amount of effort and time to wear it, the one that probably went on sale for 75% off a couple days before the actual holiday.

Yeah, that one.

"No. There's no way in hell I'm gonna wear that." She shook her head and crossed her arms in front of her chest adamantly, declining the costume for the umpteenth time tonight.

"Oh, come on.. It'll be fun!"

She scoffed.

Fun? More like humiliating.

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."