Cinderfella

01: ONCE UPON A DREAM

"You'll love me at once, the way you did once upon a dream" - Once Upon A Dream, Aurora

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THERE IS NOT A THING IN THE WORLD CINDY LOVELACE HATES MORE THAN RUDE TAXI DRIVERS.

It's not like they have to nearly flatten her on the asphalt as she crosses the street (illegally, but it's New York, so no one even cares anymore), but although Cindy can probably deal with that without turning beet red and blowing up, what she can't deal with is said drivers also honking at her and yelling obscenities, which - she might add - is interrupting a call from her girlfriend of six whole hours.

"Sorry, what was that?" She yells on the phone, struggling to hear Rory's voice. "I hate busy hour," she mutters, flipping her middle finger back at one particularly rude Audi driver.

Rory's voice crackles through the speakers. "Hard day?"

"Something like that," Cindy replies, stepping delicately over the corpse of an unfortunate pigeon. "It's the usual, sadly. Barbarians, the lot of them."

"Charleston seems so quiet ever since I got back," her girlfriend says. Cindy can picture her twisting her long cinnamon hair around her finger, an unconscious habit of hers. "Listen -"

Rory's interrupted by the loud honking of taxis, of which Cindy is currently blocking as she strolls across the last lane. "I am talking to my girlfriend!" she screams at them, increasing her pace.

Rory clears her throat. "Um, actually, Cindy, can I talk to you about that?"

Cindy groans, pushing her red hair impatiently behind her ear. "If you're going to break up with me, fine. Let me cross the street first?"

"Yeah, um - sure." There's a surprised tone to Cindy's soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend's voice, which honestly weirds Cindy out, because surely Rory wouldn't actually think Cindy would be sad about it, would she? (Not to say that Cindy's not emotional, because she is. But she's literally been dating Rory for six hours.)

As soon as Cindy steps safely onto the sidewalk, she sits promptly down on a nearby bench. "So are you cool with being just friends?"

Rory sniffs. "Aren't I the one who's breaking up with you?"

Cindy laughs. "Fine. Do the deed."

There's a moment of silence, followed by: "I can't. It feels too weird."

Cindy shrugs. "Well. Six hours barely counts as dating, anyway. Considering we never went out on an actual, you know, date."

"You've got a point. This must be the shortest relationship I've ever had."

Cindy tries not to wince as her next words come out. "Funnily enough, I think this must be the longest relationship I've had."

There's a silence. "You're so joking."

"I'm not."

"You are."

"I swear on my glass shoes, I'm not."

"Wow. Bringing out the Cinderella references already? You must be serious."

Cindy nods, only to realise that Rory can't see it. "Serious as a magical pumpkin."

"That doesn't even make sense -" Rory stops. "Nevermind. I'm not wasting twenty minutes on that discussion. So tell me," she continues, "If six hours is your longest relationship, what's your shortest?"

Cindy has to think about this. "Are we counting middle school? Because if so, the answer is three."

"Three hours? That's not so bad -"