The exhibition was going to start at 6 p.m. At 5.15 I was standing outside the grand bronze gates of the Attock castle, hopping from one foot to the other in my agitation. I had told aunt Nell that I’d walk across the countryside to the lonely brick castle, that stood tall in the middle of lush green fields and overlooked the Blue river on one side. She could have saved the extra bucks for her routine visits with Dr.Barrey but she insisted that I take the cab instead.

“One day you are going to meet your prince charming at that darned exhibition is the only reason I dress you up every year, little lady,” Nell muttered as she gently ran her fingers through my hair, twisting one strand over the other as she soothed it into a braid. “And God forbid he sees you walking all the way to the castle, that too in your shaggy brown leather boots,” she shook her head as she stared at my beloved winter boots, that had been loved to almost shreds over the past 9 years since my feet decided to finally stop growing and saved us the pain of buying a new pair of shoes every winter.

“He wouldn’t love me even if I stepped out of a Limousine when he finds out about my true identity, Nell,” I told her gently.

“And even if he did, I will not let him near me. History does not need to be repeated,” I said cautiously watching aunt Nell’s bright face immediately fall.

“Laura-,” she began but I interrupted her with a hasty peck her on the forehead and almost ran out the door, shouting out a goodbye over my lungs. Aunt Nell wouldn’t approve of it, little ladies do not speak loudly in the streets.

The cab took me only twenty minutes to reach the castle, which meant I was a solid forty five minutes earlier. Which meant I was going to engage in the one thing that I absolutely abhorred doing yet did every single time I sat on the steps outside the castle gate- staring at the people attending the exhibition. And these weren’t just any people, they were the richest people of the country, the elitist of all elites, the kind that could be placed in a museum and people would pay money just to catch a glimpse of them. And the castle seemed the perfect place to cater these rare jewels all in one place. Sometimes I wondered if people really payed all this money to look at some dead paintings from some long dead artists nailed to the dusky red stone walls of the castle or to look at these living pieces of art who even laughed in some sort of musical notes. Everything about them was perfect, like God had payed special attention to carve them out of the finest mud. It was both a pain and pleasure to watch them walk past me as I sat on one side of the steps wearing my cloak of invisibility, almost as good as not existing at all.

I watched as a woman in her early thirties stepped out of a carriage( it was a tradition of the rich to arrive in carriages to the castle to honor it’s age old history), one stiletto at a time. She paused briefly, pulling her emerald fur coat tightly around her tiny frame, before wrapping her arm around her partner’s as they started to climb the steps together. She was followed closely by her servant, a girl of merely thirteen years, too young to be working as a maid. Or to be working at all.

As I took my eyes off them, I noticed a young man behind them, probably in his twenties, pacing nervously at the bottom of the stairs. He was dressed in a beige suit tailored to perfectly fit his body, and the maroon of his tie perfectly complimented his fair complexion. He was a very handsome man, I realized, more angel than man. He was probably waiting for someone, someone who seemed to be a little late, and the frown on his perfectly shaped forehead signified his disapproval of the entire situation. And then he raised his eyes to meet mine, and it was in that moment that my heart skipped a beat. And not just metaphorically, it actually stopped beating for the tiniest fraction of a second, and then, it fluttered, loudly. So loud that I was almost certain that he could hear it all the way down. His eyes were undoubtedly the most beautiful pair of eyes I had ever seen, I realized. And also that I had been staring a bit too long at him now.

“Shit,” I muttered as I quickly averted my eyes to the ground.

Shit, shit, shit Laura! How dumb was that. I could feel myself turning crimson, the rush of heat into my cheeks and forehead making me look like a freshly ripened tomato. I really wished he wasn’t looking at me anymore, but I didn’t dare to look up again. Keeping my gaze lowered, I got up and started climbing up the rest of the stairs. It was almost 6 pm.