If the guy can’t recognize her without a shoe, then there was no hope for Cinderella.

———

Cin hopes and hopes and hopes.

She yearns for someone that listens to her. Who will understand her. Will look at her and truly see her, not just through her.

And she feels like she found that person. Henry.

All she has ever felt is disharmony. Her father dying when she was young throw her life for a whirl. Her stepmother did not help her transition from life with her loving father to life without him.

Her step sister and brother have never liked her, feeling like she is a leech on the wealth of their own mother.

They exclude her every chance they get, blackmailing her into doing their chores and homework.

She dreamt of an escape.

Then she met Henry.

He is kind. Smart but not snobby. Charming in all the best ways.

Best of all, he likes her.

Cin’s only issue is that it was at a masquerade dance, and she never gave him her name or her number.

He has no idea who she is, and she left nothing for him to find her.

She thought about just going up to him at school. They’re in the same geometry class, but being happy felt with him felt so unattainable. Not if she would be the one to approach him. She would look desperate.

That’s when she decided that he would have to come to her. She can’t get her hopes up. If he found out it was her and came to her anyway, then it’s real. She’ll know for sure then.

Cin waits and waits and waits.

OoOoO

“Dude, just forget about the mask girl.”

Henry and best friend, Grant, are throwing around a football in his backyard, practicing their form.

The dance was just two days ago, but Henry still gushed about the mysterious girl he danced and talked with. He can tell his friend was getting tired of hearing about her.

“I can’t get her out of my head even if I tried,” Henry exasperates, followed up with a sigh.

Grant’s eyebrows raise and asks, “What was it about her?”

The skepticism is thick. It makes Henry wince. He can’t help it. He’s a people pleaser. It probably comes from his father.

Reflecting back to the dance, he still feel her hand in his as they danced to the soft music. The way her eyes shined under the lights and just saw him.

Not the rich guy. Just him.

“She was different. She was genuine in a way that you just know she’s a good person. Funny in such an unexpected way. But it was the way she looked at me that made me feel…known. Like she understood my feelings,” he rambles, attempting to explain the multitude of emotions she made him feel.

Grant gives a low whistle, “All that in one night?”

“Yeah,” he answers lamely.

With a moment of contemplation, Grant asks, “What did she look like?” That startles Henry.

Catching the football, he tenses, keeping the ball in his hands, no intention of letting it go. “I don’t care about looks.”

This girl is so much more than her face. He doesn’t even know what she actually looks like without a mask on.

It isn’t about that.

Grant laughs nervously, stumbling over his words to explain. “I’m not asking to be shallow. If you’re going to find this mystery girl, you need remember any detail you have of her looks or her voice or something.”

That makes Henry feel better. He should’ve known that his friend wouldn’t be like that.

“True. She has light hair. It could have been either a sandy blonde or a yellowish color. Her eyes are a lighter brown, like a football. Her skin wasn’t pale, but it wasn’t tan either. Somewhere in between.”

His friend’s eyes widen at the specifics he could recall. “How tall was she?” He asks. Henry closes his eyes and imagines their dance again and her height compares to him. He had to crane his neck down a good bit. “Pretty short. Maybe 5 foot?”

Grant abandons their back and forth throwing and goes to his bag on the ground. Rummaging around in it, he finally produces a familiar book.

He waves it in the air. “That’s good, it that narrows it down a good portion. Here is last year’s yearbook. Let’s start crossing off girls.”

Flipping through the pages, he gets to their junior year faces.

It has to be someone from here. No one outside the school was allowed, not even as guests. She also has to be in their grade because the dance was not open to underclassmen.

“So you said blonde, right?” Henry nods and Grant puts a line through images of the boys and darker haired girls.

All of the smiling pictures remind Henry of how many people he doesn’t interact with. It’s strange that he’s gone to school with these people for so long and doesn’t know a lot of them.

“Brown eyes,” Henry reminds him.

Bringing some of the pictures for a closer look, they only could rule out a couple more since eye color was hard to decipher on the page.

“Ok and she’s super short,” Grant says, bringing the pen to girls they knew was taller than 5’4.

That left only about a handful.

Staring at the ones they narrowed it down to, it could physically be any of them. He recognizes them all, though he doesn’t really talk to any of them in school.

It could be any of them.

But Henry knows.

OoOoO

Cin wakes up in a drowsy haze. She doesn’t remember intending to fall asleep but here she is with probably a blanket wrinkle pressed into her cheek.

Her notebook and laptop are near her, so she must have been lulled to sleep by her homework.

“Lucinda! Get the door!” Her stepbrother, Drake, screeches.

Cin rolls her eyes. She hadn’t noticed the knocking at their front door, but she can’t help but hear it now.

It’s polite but insistent.

Someone must really want to talk to her stepmother.

Or her stepsister, Ana, ordered something that needs someone to sign. She does that a lot.

Looking down at her t-shirt and athletic shorts she had on, Cin shrugs and continues to the door. She’s presentable enough.

“Alright, I’m coming,” she says to the knocker.

Grabbing at the knob and twisting it open, her gaze meets the last person she expected.

Henry.

———

(Also side tangent, when watching a TV series, have you ever felt like you are shipping the wrong couple? Like the couple you ship aren’t endgame? I feel like this happens to me more than it should. Just wondering if that happens to anyone else.)