Riding Princess By Maggie O’Malley Chapter One - Waiting On Angels A woman goes to the mall in search of a DEPARTING gift for three special friends and ends up finding a very special one that gives her the ride of her life.

 
Chapter One: Waiting on the Angels
 

Molly sat alone in the food court at the mall. For a Wednesday afternoon there was quite a bit of shopping traffic, but the sullen woman was oblivious to it all. Molly looked down at a cheesy slice of her favorite comfort food and today it offered her no comfort. She pushed it and her diet soda away.

So far her mall hop had been a complete washout. She’d browsed store after store trying to find just the right goodbye gift for her three special friends, but she’d come up empty.

“Maybe it’s just not meant to be”, she thought. Maybe she should just catch the next bus home and then get on with the business at hand.

Checking her shoulder bag, she found her purse, containing among other things her life savings; Muffin, her cherished stuffie; her bus pass; and most importantly, the pills that she hoped would peacefully lead her to the promised land. The journey to the other side would take a giant final leap today but it truly began in earnest the day she was born.

Molly’s parents never knew the healthy baby boy they'd brought home from the hospital was really a baby girl. Yes, she had the all the proper bits and pieces of a boy, but inside that false shell was the heart and soul of a girl.

Molly’s parents had no idea their child was a prisoner in her own body, and raised her as the son she appeared to be. Molly would look in the mirror at the short back and sides she routinely got at the barber shop, the boy's shirt and trousers she was given to wear, and knew without any doubt she had to be the boy her parents dressed her as and told her she was.

Yet in her little heart of hearts, she so wished she could be a little girl with long hair, pretty bows and play dresses. She wanted a favorite dolly, a white canopy bed, and to grow up to be a beautiful princess someday.

From the time she was 5, she had gone to bed each night praying that the angels would come down while she slept and give her a little girl’s body. Each morning when she would wake, she’d keep her eyes closed for as long as she could, because until she saw the same boy’s body she’d gone to sleep with, there was still hope that the angels had come and granted her wish.

Eventually her mother would holler out, "Last call for breakfast!" and she would have to open her eyes. Sighing sadly at the miracle that hadn’t happened, she’d sniffle back tears as she dressed, and each day, a tiny piece of her heart seemed to die.

Molly suffered this slow death silently, save for confiding in just one person: her grandmother, Alice. Alice babysat her weekdays from the time she was 4 up until she was 8. Her grandmother babysat Molly’s cousins from time to time as well, and had plenty of toys for both boys and girls to play with. Being that Molly was there alone most days, she was allowed to choose her favorites, and for the most part she went straight for the dollies, the tea sets and the princess attire.

Alice watched Molly setting up a tea party one day and asked her if she was having fun. Molly answered with a broad smile that said, 'yes' and then quickly added that it was important for her to learn all these things so that she would be ready for when the angels came and fixed her.

When her grandmother inquired further as to why she needed fixing by angels, Molly told her with supreme certainty that the angels would bring the girl’s body that she was supposed to have had when she was born, because God had goofed, and gave her a boy’s one. Obviously then, she needed to know all the girl stuff she could so she’d be ready to step into the princess slippers when the time came.

Alice was deeply touched by granddaughter’s innocence, faith, and sadly, her pain. Without hesitation, she agreed to help Molly learn everything a proper princess needed to know so she would be ready when the angels came; however, for reasons obvious to Alice, if not Molly, it all had to be their special secret.

When Molly asked why. Grandma convinced Molly that her cousins might not believe her story about the angels, and that she shouldn’t tell her parents straight away either. She should just wait until the angels fixed her, and then give them a wonderful surprise. In reality, the older woman knew how cruel children could be with other children who were obviously different, and she also knew neither her daughter nor her son-in-law would be very accepting of the idea either. How such an uptight straight laced woman could have come from two hippie parents, was beyond her, but she knew her daughter would not understand, at least not without a little softening. Molly was so happy at getting proper princess training from her groovy Gran, that she agreed to keep everything secret without complaint.

Over the next three years, Molly spent many long summer days, and afternoons following school, being a little princess in training. She not only dressed and played to her hearts content, all in the safety of her Grandmother’s house, but she also got some practical princess training which included folding laundry, cooking, baking and running around with a feather duster helping her grandmother clean, all the while keeping the secret and holding out hope this would be the night the angels would come.

While Alice secretly trained Molly, she began gently working on her daughter, hoping she could ease her into the notion that Molly was really a girl. Unfortunately, her daughter was struggling with a bad marriage and an even worse job. She just didn’t have the time or energy to hear flights of fancy from her hippie mom, who still thought it was the Summer of Love. The best she’d accomplished for her efforts was to get Molly’s parents to let her hair grow out a bit.

Tragically for all parties, the secret came out just after Molly’s eighth birthday. Molly had just placed her small apple pie in the oven next to her grandmother’s when Alice suddenly turned pale and fell to one knee. She held her heart and tried to speak, but no words came. Molly, bright child that she was, knew exactly what to do and ran to the phone. Ten minutes later an ambulance came and whisked both Molly and grandmother to the hospital.

When Molly’s parents got there, they were informed that Alice’s condition was serious but stable, which offered them some relief; however, when the doctor complimented them on having a very smart and brave daughter, they looked at him in stunned silence. When Molly came round the corner holding hands with a nurse, dressed in full princess attire, they knew exactly why the doctor had drawn that conclusion.

Molly’s grandmother survived the heart attack, but Molly didn’t fare so well. Now that the secret was out, she told them the whole truth. She tried to explain to her parents that she was really a little girl, and her grandmother was helping her to be ready for when the angels came to fix her, but unfortunately for Molly, her parents weren’t interested in her truth. They wouldn’t believe, and they wouldn’t listen to her or Alice, but worst of all, they wouldn’t let her spend any more time over at her grandmother’s. Molly died quite a bit more that day.

It would be a very long time before she ever shared her secret with anyone. Her body would grow into that of teenage boy, but her heart and soul still belonged to the little fairy tale princess who hosted tea parties, baked pies and feather dusted her grandmother’s house.

She was 16, over 11 years waiting for the angels, and feeling like she was going out of her mind. In desperation, she took a leap of faith one late afternoon and poured out her soul and her story to her favorite teacher. Miss O’Hare listened to Molly’s heartbreaking story, her own eyes misting to match her student’s.

Two hours later she sent Molly home with a hug, and a promise to help as best she could. She went straight away to the headmaster and told him she had a student who needed help. When he coldly asked her if Molly was failing her class, and she told him no, he wasted no time in telling her that this issue was not a school problem, and most definitely none of her business. In fact, he forbid her to contact Molly’s parents or anyone else on this issue, saying she was meddling in affairs beyond her scope. He made it quite clear to Miss O’Hare that if she valued her position, she would stick to the subject matter and leave amateur psychology alone.

Frustrated, she was unable to help Molly as much as she wanted to, though she did what she could do inside the confines of the rules, and sometimes, slightly outside them. She continued to talk to Molly after school hours, offering what support she could, and because Miss O’Hare not only taught English Literature but was also the Drama Coach, she convinced Molly to join Drama Club. She tempted Molly with the promise of playing with makeup, and discreetly taking on an occasional girl role when the opportunity arose.

Molly joined the troop immediately and gained valuable experience in applying makeup, but her favorite times where those when she was allowed to play girl parts. Miss O’Hare picked several plays where she knew she would be short at least one girl when it came to casting. Of course this meant one of the boys would have to play a girls part, which Molly was ready, willing and able to do. However, to save what little face she had among the other “boys”, she couldn’t appear too eager.

Miss O’Hare solved that problem by having Molly show up late for class on casting day, knowing that all the parts would be selected save for the one girl part that would require a boy to play it. Molly would then complain just enough before 'begrudgingly' taking the part for the good of the show. Considering how much she truly wanted that part, she was already doing an Academy Award performance.

Molly had small roles as a girl in two productions and was hopeful of getting a much meatier role in a third when word got round to her parents about her in-drag, on-stage performances and she was forced to quit drama immediately and placed in a different English class. A little bit more of her died the day she walked off the stage for the last time. Once again, she was all alone and waiting for those angels to come.

Molly’s grandmother died shortly after her graduation, and her parents decided to move out of state. Molly chose without much hesitation to go into the world on her own. She found a small flat, furnished it as best she could and secured a job as a meter maid to pay for it all. She had to hit the streets in search of tardy meters by six a.m. each morning, which meant she had to be up by 4:30. At 4:31, Molly would have to open her eyes and see that the angels were a no-show once again. As she sniffled back tears and grabbed her uniform out of the wardrobe, a little of more of her died.

Some ten years and lot of tears and tickets later, another door opened for Molly. It had been her day off and with nothing much to do, she’d put on the television. As fortune would have it, she saw a program that would change her life. It was a documentary on people just like Molly. Evidently she was not the only goof the big guy had made. In fact, there was so many mistakes out there that they’d been given a name by the medical profession: transsexuals. And while the man doing the documentary never mentioned any angels coming to fix these poor souls, he did mention medical treatment and surgery.

On Molly’s next day off she went to the library and began research on transsexuals. Now it wasn’t like she was giving up on the angels. She would never do that. It was just that she really needed to find something to make the wait a little easier, something that might help her live just a little bit more like a girl and a little less like a boy, because if she didn’t, she feared she might not be able to stick around this world to wait for the angels.

At the library she learned about something called “Standards of Care” which spelled out the steps she’d have to follow if she wanted to become the best manmade woman medical science had the ability to make her.

Molly began the process known as transition shortly after her 29th birthday, with hopes of having sexual reassignment surgery in her early 30’s (angel intervention not withstanding of course).

It was an amazing odyssey, filled with psychiatrists and endocrinologists, hormones and legal paperwork, but more amazing than the changes going on to Molly’s body and her life, were the lack of changes going on within her body, more aptly at her heart and soul. It had been over 25 years since she’d started her nightly plea to the angels, and despite the fact her body had grown to 6 feet tall, that she had a high school diploma, and was well on her way to womanhood via SRS, she still yearned for the same thing she’d been cheated out of, the same thing she wanted and needed above all else: to be a little girl.

Molly seemed to be sort of a transsexual Peter Pan, and as we know, the best Peter Pan’s were always played by girls. While the other women she met at support groups were waxing poetically over finding romance with a man, having the perfect hour glass figure, being career women and mothers, Molly’s tastes had never changed or grown. Yes, she wanted the love of a man, but only one man and his name was Daddy. Curves didn’t mean that much to her either, she preferred a short straight stretch of road with a pig tails and freckles to compliment it. Career? Olympic Hop Scotch Champion or Professional Hug Monster interested her the most. Mother? Sure, she wanted to be a single mum of a whole brood of stuffed babies and one special dolly.

How did the little girl within her never grow, in nearly thirty years and a whole lot of changes? Maybe it was as a result of psychological trauma. Lord knows she had plenty of that. Maybe it was just a coping mechanism or escapism. She’d had several psychiatrists tell her that. Or … just maybe, that little red-headed five year old within was a stubborn Irish lass who simply refused to give up or grow up until she had the body, the life and the love she felt entitled to. Whatever the reason, the result was that while living as a woman was far and away better than living as a man, it was still only half way home. She still made the same nightly plea to the angels and she still cried each morning when she found it had gone unanswered.

Molly had her SRS at age 33, and life continued on, a little more comfortably for her in some areas, and much less in others. The worst of it came for her on the job. No one likes a meter maid, but being transsexual and a meter maid is an abomination of a combination, and poor Molly became the most hated officer on the force. Most of the time she handed out the tickets and took the abuse quietly, but there were other times when the frustrations of being transsexual and a little girl overwhelmed in adult’s life and body, combined with her Irish temper and set off some real fireworks.

Molly often referred to those times as, “when the Evil Beast was loose”. She hated the Evil Beast. She hated her dark side that came out with such fire, anger and vengeance. It was seemingly incompatible with the soft and cuddly little girl, and Molly feared that one day the Evil Beast might consume her. Then of course there was the aftershock from an Evil Beast appearance. Once the anger had subsided, Molly was left with shame, remorse, and usually, a very sick stomach. Nothing good could ever come from the Evil Beast, Molly thought, but one day it proved her wrong.

It was after one of those colorful displays with an irate motorist that she sought sanctuary in her favorite place: the library. She got online and started surfing, hoping this would ease the aftershock of the latest blast. She had just started to calm down when she found something that really caught her eye. It was a site for transsexual literature. Normally she passed by those by without a click, as they were often pornographic in nature, but there was something about this one that called to her: two cute little ladybugs hugging each other.

When she explored this place sweetly known as Hugglebugs, she realized she’d found something special. It was full of wonderful, soft, sweet and sentimental stories, quite a few of which, had magical Hugglebugs transforming adult men and women into little girls. Molly’s heart skipped a beat at the chance of finding magical nanites that would have her skipping rope.

After she read nearly every story she could find there, she found a link to a chatroom. Like the story sites she’d often bypassed, she'd normally bypassed the chatrooms, too. Her few experiences there hadn’t gone too well, as she’d been quite often chatted up by perverts, hate-mongers and those trying to fulfill their she-male fantasies.

Still, somehow feeling a sweet site like Hugglebugs couldn’t lead her into a dark place, she followed the link and her heart. She was not disappointed.

She found a chatroom with a giant pink fluffy couch and loads of warm and welcoming people there. She was greeted with hugs and words of encouragement. It was actually an author’s chatroom, but all were welcome there, and soon she met loads of wonderful people who instantly accepted her for who she truly was, including the little girl still waiting on her angel delivery.

This place that love seemed to have built, became an oasis from the outside world for Molly. After a long day on the streets writing tickets in the freezing cold and catching the slings and arrows of irate motorists, she could come home, fix a nice hot cuppa and then come to the chatroom. There she left the outside world and that badly fitting body of hers behind. She slipped into a life and a body that she’d been dreaming of for so long.

Her friends there easily accepted the bouncy little five year old who jumped from lap to lap, giving and taking hugs. Yes, they knew by day that same little girl went out into the world as a tall, lanky, thirty something meter maid, with Irish red hair and the attitude to match. Most of the souls there lived the same kind of double life as Molly did. They accepted what they had to do in the outside world and then embraced what they could do on the inside one they’d created.

This place and the wonderful people who visited there, really lifted Molly’s spirits, and helped bring joy and life to little Molly. No, playing in the chatroom and getting cyber hugs from friends often half a world away, wasn’t quite the same as playing in a real park or getting lifted up for real hugs, but the joy and the love she felt was real, every bit as real as the friends who shared it with her.

While she met loads of wonderful people and made many loving friends, there were three that occupied a very special place in her heart. Within this extended chatroom family, she found her very own family, the one, save for her grandmother, that she’d never had as a child and that she hoped would be included free of charge when the angels finally delivered her new body.

Considering the quality control people in heaven were clearly at fault for her condition, and that she had been waiting for nearly thirty years now, it seemed only just and reasonable that the big guy should give her a set of proper parents, and maybe throw in a big sister, too. It was the least he could do for all her pain and suffering.

While in the chatroom, she found the perfect people to fill those positions and she loved them every bit the same as she could any family that the angels would provide.

She found her mother first and somehow that just seemed fitting. Jennifer, or Aussie Jen as many of her friends called her, lived in, as you could guess, Australia. She was a beautiful women in her early forties, tanned and athletically built with long dark red hair, a soft sweet voice, and a smile that could melt men’s hearts. She was a strong, independent professional woman, who played tennis with a vengeance, but could be easily felled by a good romance novel, a tall handsome man, or most of all by a small child in need of a hug.

Jennifer, although no one would ever believe it to look at her, had been delivered to this world in a factory mismarked package just like Molly, and she too had been a little girl praying for the angels to recall her bad body and bring her a proper one. Jennifer however, was much more aware of her situation at an early age than Molly was. She didn’t just wish she was a girl, she knew despite what her mirror reflection said, she was a girl, and she wasn’t the type to wait on angels. She found those same Standards of Care that Molly did, only at a much younger age, and went after transition like she did a first serve ace. She had SRS at 20, built a good life for herself, and by 30 she had almost everything she could want, except the two things she needed most: the right man to love and complete the woman, and a child to love and fill that place in her heart that only a child could fill. In the chatroom, she found both.

First, she found the man of her romantic dreams. His name was Alex. He was a tall, dark and handsome Greek, and as beautiful as any God who ever stepped down from Olympus or graced the cover of a Harlequin romance novel. And yet, for as beautiful as he was outside, he was even more so inside. He was a kind, gentle, happy soul, with a great love and respect for life in all its forms. Like most Greeks, he loved the sea, good food and good wine. He also loved music with a passion, and he taught it that way to aspiring young artists. His life had been pretty good, and while never having to face it looking out from a body in the wrong gender, he did have great empathy and respect for those who did.

That empathy led him to the chatroom and eventually connected him with Jennifer. They spent long hours talking and getting to know each other, although it seemed as though they’d known each other all their lives. Soon, they’d filled the emptiness in each others lives that only a soul mate could, but each still had a small place open and waiting, waiting for a child to fulfill it and complete the circle.

Molly slipped into that spot as easy as she did a lap for hugs. In no time at all they became a cyber family, with very real love for each other. And while their time together was often stolen moments when Molly’s American breakfast, Alex’s Greek lunch and Jennifer’s Australian dinner hour brought them together for a meal, it was pure gold for all of them, and the joy and love they each took from it when they logged off and returned to their worlds sustained them for yet another day.

And then along came Ally, the last to join the family, but without a doubt, Molly’s older sister. Ally was a true English beauty in all worlds, but in the one known as “reality”, she shared Molly and Cindy’s transgender curse.

When she was fourteen, she found her womanhood and her soul mate. Her life was filled with joy and love and hope for the future, but then "reality" who'd already cruelly denied her the proper body and a loving family, dealt her a near death blow when it took her womanhood and her soul mate from her in a single stroke.

For twenty-five years she'd suffered in silence as she lived a lie and wandered the darkness before embracing her true destiny once again. Now she was 39, and living as a very loving, intelligent, and beautiful woman, who daily challenged young minds at the secondary school to reach for their dreams. She loves her life now just as she does the beautiful English countryside, but not a day goes by that she doesn't shed tears for "Pippa", the fourteen-year-old girl she once was, and for the boy and the future she was denied so long ago.

In many ways, Ally was a bit like Molly, for within this mature woman was the heart and soul of that fourteen year old girl on the verge of womanhood. She still longed for her days at secondary school, only this time on the student’s side of the teacher's desk. She dreamed of having loving parents, a pesky little sister, and to once again be held in the loving embrace of a tall blonde rose-bearing god by the name of Andy.

Molly latched onto Ally, crawling in to her bed at night for a cuddle and leaving cyber biscuit crumbs from her snacks in bed. Ally loved the little hug monster and would often sit at the keys taking Molly on long journeys that traversed both time and English countryside and usually had at least one ride on a dragon’s tail. It wasn’t long before the circle opened up enough to let Ally in and now the family of four was truly complete.

And while those from the outside world looking in might say that the only thing these four really shared was an internet connection and a cyber fantasy, they wouldn’t be seeing the whole reality. Yes, the hugs and the scenes they painted were symbols and words on a screen, but the love and the joy that came from them was as a real as any they would have shared in the outside world. All of the emotions, the wants, the desires, and the needs were real because those four people at the keyboards were real.

Of course, they wished they weren’t separated by miles, oceans and time zones. Nothing would have made them happier than to truly be together and live together as the family they were in their hearts and online, but it just wasn’t possible, so they each shared what they could, cherished it and made the most of it.

It really wasn’t enough for any of them, but Alex, Jennifer and Ally seemed to maintain the balance between the two worlds. Each was sad when they logged off and “left home”, but they went out into the real world and functioned until once again until they could return to their family. Molly however, didn’t seem to fare so well. The goodbyes were always the hardest for her, and quite often after logging off, she would sit on her bed, clutching her favorite stuffie, rocking and crying for quite some time before she could pull herself together to join the outside world.

Perhaps Molly struggled the most when it came to balancing the two worlds, because in both worlds she was the youngest. The child within her reacted very much like any five year old would when separated from her family and left all alone.

Perhaps it was that Molly just needed more than the others. It did seem as though she could never get enough hugs, or perhaps it was that stubborn little Irish girl, who after having a taste of the love and life she always wanted, refused to go quietly back into the night. Whatever the reason, Molly suffered terrible post chat depression and it deeply concerned her family.

Alex and Jennifer did their best to comfort Molly by telling her to think of their time apart as if she were going off to school or daycare. Ally taught her how to visualize pretty pictures of them all together, when it was impossible for them to be together. Molly took all their suggestions to heart, but each time she logged off, the real world got just a little harder to survive in, and a little more of her died.

Today started off like every other day for Molly. She woke early, kept her eyes closed until the snooze alarm went off and then opened them to find the angels had been a no-show once again. Sighing heavily, she sniffled back tears and then shuffled over to the computer. She hit the power button and then put the kettle on for tea.

There was one good thing about today. It was Wednesday and that meant Molly didn’t have to don her meter maid uniform and be the wicked witch of the Westside. It also meant she could have a long and leisure breakfast with her daddy Alex and her big sister Ally. Mommy Jen rarely made the breakfast club during weekdays. She normally caught up with Molly for dinner.

Molly was sipping her hot cup of tea and impatiently waiting for the computerized magic carpet ride to the chatroom, when she noted the flickering of buttons on her modem. Seconds later she got the dreaded message saying that no internet connection was available. No doubt the server was down yet again.

Molly tried to reconnect again and again over the next twenty minutes but hit the same brick wall every time. It was terribly frustrating, but not anything she hadn’t experienced before. She was pretty sure that her daddy and big sister knew what had happened and why she wasn’t there for breakfast.

With nothing else to do, Molly sat on her bed and looked around her tiny flat and the life she lived. She saw the meter maid uniform hanging neatly on the rack, waiting for her to hit the streets and face the hate tomorrow. She looked at the computer, her currently broken life line to love and sanity. The flashing internet connection seemed to tease her by offering half a dream, by taking her so close to being home, and yet still outside the reach of those who loved her. She would never get closer. She would never actually meet her family in the outside world. She could barely afford her flat rent. How could she ever afford a plane ticket to England, Greece or Australia? And if she did, what then? Who would her family greet at the airport? It certainly wouldn’t be a bouncy little five year old who would pounce into their open arms. And even if they could accept her physical image and still love her, she couldn’t stay with them. In a very short while she’d have to return to her empty flat once again.

Molly stood up and walked to the mirror and looked at the body that hormones and surgery had done their best to alter. It was an improvement over the original factory defect, but still it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. Nothing but an angelic make-over was going to make things right.

From there she walked over to the window and looked out on the world. Tears fell from her eyes as she faced it and the cold reality of it. She was tired of waiting for angels that had been standing her up for over thirty years. She was tired of cyber hugs and faulty internet connections. She was tired of a mirror reflection that truly wasn’t her own. She was tired of tickets, tears, and the terrible loneliness. And most of all, she was tired of dying one day at a time.

Wiping fallen tears from her face, she went over to her dresser and opened the top drawer. There nestled among her warm wooly socks was deliverance in the form of a pill bottle. She’d secured those long ago from another officer who dealt in drugs as a sideline. They were a guaranteed one way ticket to the promised land, or so she had been promised.

Molly sat at the computer, placing the pill bottle at her side and opening her word processor. Thank goodness she didn’t need the internet to do that. Selecting the file listed only as “Escape”, three letters immediately appeared on the screen. She had no letter for her biological parents. In their eyes, she had died the day she decided to live as a woman.

Molly was glad she'd had the presence of mind to write these goodbye letters some time ago, just as she had to purchase the pills. She had hoped the angels would come and that she would never have need of either, but today she’d finally run out of hope and time.

Looking over the letters, she noted everything seemed in order. She’d done her best to say she was sorry for leaving them like this, and to assure them that there was nothing they could have done that would have prevented her exit. She begged their forgiveness for any pain and sadness her early departure caused them, and she closed with the hope that the memories of the love and happiness they had shared would not be tarnished or lost by this last one she would leave them with. She hoped they would understand that she never meant to hurt them, she just wanted to stop hurting. She didn’t spend a lot of time telling them how much she loved them. She was confident they already knew that.

Molly printed off the letters, and then folding them neatly, placing each one its own envelope. Molly sat the letters on her desk and took a sip of her now lukewarm tea. She sat down on the bed and held the cup with both hands.

“What to do next?”, she thought. She’d never really planned it out past printing off the letters. At that point she’d always gotten so depressed that she ran to the computer and the safety of the chatroom where at least one of her friends were there. They would “talk her down” and then stay with her until the darkness passed. This time, however, was different. She was sad, but yet strangely calm and felt no desire to run to the computer or to run anywhere for that matter. Still, she wanted to be sure she’d done everything she wanted or needed to do before taking the final step.

She looked round the room at her worldly possessions, and saw nothing save for her stuffed cat,“Muffin” who had any real meaning to her whatsoever. She couldn’t very well leave Muffin all alone.

She knew she had to send Muffin home, even if she couldn’t go there herself, so she grabbed a small mailing box out of the wardrobe and prepared to send her cherished fluffy on a trip of her own.

Of course the trouble with this plan was that home was scattered between England, Greece and Australia. After some deliberation, it seemed the logical choice was Greece. Jennifer had hopes of one day moving to Greece to be with her beloved Alex, and England wasn’t really so far away that Ally couldn’t hop over for at least a visit.

Molly held Muffin once last time, kissed her, and then placed her in the bottom of the box. She started packing her transport with tissue paper, smiling sadly at her best friend who would be taking a long trip all alone and then suddenly she had an idea, a really wonderful idea.

"A gift!” she thought. She knew it was more traditional for those staying behind to give a parting gift to those leaving, but considering where Molly was about to go, if there were to be any gift giving, she’d have to be the one to do it.

The more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea. If she could find a really nice gift for her family, then the last thing she would be giving them didn’t have to be bad news in the form of letter. She could give them something special to remember her by that could be with them long after she was gone. It would be a solid symbol of the love they’d only been able to share in cyberspace.

Molly went to her purse and checked her finances. Her life savings were less than a hundred dollars, most of which had been promised to the landlord for her flat rent, but that was now no longer a concern for her. What was a concern was finding the perfect gift for each of them, or one gift for all of them.

Molly put the kettle on for a second cuppa and chance to sort out this very important issue. By the time the kettle was singing she’d already found her answers. With her meager finances, it would be easier to buy one special gift than three, and there was a hidden bonus to buying only one. It would force the three people she loved who wanted to be together, to come together if they wanted to enjoy it.

Molly sipped her tea and smiled as she thought, “They often say something good can come from something bad”.

She couldn’t think of anything better to come from such a terrible thing that she was about to do, than for her family to come together and enjoy a special gift she’d left them.

As for where she’d find this special gift, that was an easy one: the mall. Even though she had no idea what that special present would be, surely somewhere on those three floors of shopping paradise she could find it. Finally, everything was in order.

Molly rose from her bed with a cool resolution that came from knowing that the next time she lay down to sleep, it would be her last. Never again would she have to deal with the pain of awakening to another morning where her dream didn't come true. Never again would she have to deal with the heartache and envy of watching a little girl playing at the playground, and knowing that she'll never get the chance to do the same. Never again, would the meter maid fear unleashing the anger and frustration of a lifetime on some irate motorist only protesting a ticket. The Evil Beast’s reign of terror ended here! It all ended here!

Molly strode confidently over to her closet and picked out her best summer skirt and blouse. It was going to be her last mall hop, and she was going to go out in style, literally. Heading next to the bathroom, she emerged thirty minutes later with face fixed, and hair styled as good as it was going to get.

Molly nodded, closed her shoulder bag, then briefly reviewed her itinerary. She would go the mall, find the gift, mail it from the post office, return home and then take the pills. Satisfied, that even a toddler could get this simple plan right, she closed the door to her flat behind her.

Molly stood there a moment and asked herself one last question. “Why today? What was really so different about today that it made her give up and chose death?”

Her answer came fast and easy and pretty much said it all. “Nothing, there was absolutely nothing different about this day, except she no longer had the faith to believe tomorrow would be any better.” Even the faith of a child has limits, and she’d reached hers. The angels weren’t coming, so she was leaving. End of discussion. Dropping her keys in her shoulder bag and taking a final look at her bus schedule, she headed off to catch the next one heading up town.

For once, the bus was right on time, and thirty minutes later, Molly was standing at the gateway to a shopper's paradise. Molly stepped confidently into the artificially air cooled market place, but with each step she took, her resolve began to wilt like a delicate flower in the high heat and humidity she'd just left behind.

Being a Wednesday, she'd expected to find a near deserted mall, but she'd forgotten school was out for the summer and the mall was loaded with teenage girls babysitting little sisters who tagged after them. All Molly could do was think of her and Ally. Molly's heart and her step quickened as she turned one corner and saw a young couple with a little girl. The little princess skipped along happily with her parents, constantly pointing were to all the wide-eyed mall wonders she found.

Molly watched the trio, lowering her eyes as she passed and then suddenly she felt compelled to turn and take a final look. Giving in to her impulse, she turned to find the little girl smiling at her. Molly felt tears well in her eyes as she returned the little one's smile with one of her own. This seemed to please the small child to no end, as her smile widened and then her tiny fingers wiggled a wave at Molly. Molly returned the wave but her toddler soul sister never saw it as her father scooped her up and whisked away toward the ice cream parlor.

Shaken, but undaunted, Molly tried to clear her head and concentrate on the objective at hand, however brief forays into several shops brought her no closer to finding the perfect gift, and each new corridor she explored had scenes similar to the one she'd found earlier.

After over an hour of fruitless forays, she thought perhaps a brief break might be in order, so she headed over to the food court for what she was sure would be her last meal. Without any indecision, she immediately went over to the pizza shop and picked up a couple slices of her favorite pie and a diet soda to wash it down with; however, mozzarella held no magic for her today.

Frustration and doubt began to rise within her as soon as she sat down with her tray. Just a few hours ago, she had been so sure, so strong, and so confident, and now she was on the verge of tears. A part of her wanted to run home and go to the chatroom. Someone would be there, someone was always there, and they would stay with her until her mommy, daddy or big sister could come on. Once one of them were there, they would calm her down, promise her it would all be better soon and then send her off to bed, but then there was the other part of her, the part of her who had bought the pills, wrote the letters, and just wanted to end the pain.

"Damn it Molly, we've come too far to turn back now!" she muttered under her breath.

"For once in your miserable life, show some courage.” she chastised herself. "If you can't find it within you to live, then at least find it to die."

Molly pushed herself back from the table, and took a deep breath to regain her composure. She would not run to safety of the chatroom this time and she wasn’t going to leave this mall until she’d found the gift she’d come to get.

Dumping the contents of her tray into the rubbish bin, she started out once again, more determined than ever to accomplish her mall mission and return home for the last time.