So, once upon a time—

(This is not the story you think you know.)

There is a girl—

See, you know this girl because there's nobody in school who doesn't know this girl. She's that blonde beautiful queen bee from your high school who was dating that blonde, beautiful quarterback from your high school. They would have blonde, beautiful children, obviously, because that's a mandatory clause for Happily Ever After.

Everyone knows that.

But one day, the Evil Witch wore her best friend's face and stole the air right out of her lungs and then her eyes turned red and oh, Grandmother, what big teeth you have.

And what do you know? Red Riding Hood is the wolf in disguise.

All the better to eat you up with, my dear.

Rewind, repeat, flip tape.

This is the other story, the High School Teen movie about the girl on the sidelines.

(This is not the story you think you know.)

There is a girl—

You don't know this girl very well, but you know her best friend, Aria.

Everyone knows her best friend Aria. Even the new guy in school, who took one look at her and fell in love. The blonde quarterback was her lover once and if you ask him, those children at the back of his mind still have dark hair like this one girl he knows.

The Big Bad Wolf finds his way into Red Riding Hood's room and nobody else finds her because nobody else is looking. But that is a different story.

In this part of the movie, the villain of the piece is a bad boy and thinks of her all the time.

You're beautiful and so strong.

So basically, the ditzy blonde friend whom you vaguely knew ends up with the super-villain. It's so ridiculous; it probably never made it past the editing table.

Turn to page 147, start from the middle of the second paragraph.

This is the story of the girl who got lost in the woods.

(This is not the story you think you know.)

There is a girl.

She sat behind you and History and once in eighth grade you thought you would ask her out maybe, but Mike Montgomery would have laughed at you, so you didn't.

Then Mike Montgomery kisses her behind closed doors and it is more desperate than she remembers. But he's not dead. He's died and he's not dead and the only thing that matters is holding on and bruising his naked skin with her grip and never letting go.

He speaks in different words these days and looks at her with ancient eyes, but she is beautiful and strong and full of light, and also stupid, and shallow and useless, and she doesn't see.

The wolf's disguises are better now, and her father isn't alive to tell Red Riding Hood to stay away from the woods. But that story ended many pages ago.

This is the girl on the sidelines, so starved for affection that she doesn't ask how. How he clawed through the shallow grave and found his way back to her. But you paused that tape in the middle.

No, this is the other story; the one where the girl discovers the monster behind her lover's mask and thinks:

Nobody has ever loved me like that before.

This is what happened: She didn't leave a trail of breadcrumbs behind, and the woods swallowed her up with the monster's first kiss.

Listen closely to the choir singing the hymn on Sundays.

This is the story of the girl who eats the apple.

(This is not the story you think you know.)

There is a girl—

You passed her car by on the interstate and adjusted your rearview mirror a little because she reminded you of someone you used to know.

There is a man beside her who can't keep his eyes off her and she can't seem to look at him. They drive off into the sunset, even if it kills them.

I don't love you, she says, looking straight ahead at the road, I might never loved you.

He shrugs, and the misleading gesture makes the wolf in him seem domesticated (don't fall into that trap, press control-alt-delete and quit the game.)

Never say never when you have forever to change your mind, sweetheart.

Here is what he learns over the next few days: She sleeps on the side of the bed and breathes when she doesn't need to and finishes all the hot water in the mornings.

She looks up at the night, hesitant.

I want you, you know, even though I don't love you.

He watches Red Riding Hood take off her cape, as the girl on the sidelines takes centerstage in page after page under his hands. He follows the scent of the girl who got lost through the woods and ravishes against the silence of the river.

She turns off the light each night, as if she can't do this while looking at him. He'll wait for the day she leaves the lights on. He has all the time in the world to wait after all.

Here is what you don't know: Theirs is the original sin.

Move straight to the series finale, skip the title sequence of the last episode.

This is the show about the Ever After.

(This is not the story you think you know.)

There is a girl—

You've seen her before because when you're giving your final English exam, she's in Tokyo. And when you die, she's in Paris in a pair of those huge sunglasses that make people stop and turn and try to figure out if she's a star from the movies in disguise.

Or maybe this is the spin-off they didn't tell her about, the one where she stopped being a supporting character in her own life.

The man beside her shoves his hands in his pockets and he's a shade warmer than the sun. She's always cold, but every night, and most days, he covers his body with hers, and then she burns. She still uses up all the hot water in the mornings.

This is the girl who doesn't need, but wants anyway.

Have you been in love long, another girl at their hotel asks, wide-eyed with the romance of it.

Red Riding Hood followed the Wolf through the woods. But that wasn't in the original fairytale book your grandmother read to you. The girl on the sidelines realized in the middle of the movie that life didn't end with the ringing of the school girl and race to Rome with the bad guy. But that scene never made it beyond the notes the scriptwriter scribbled on the margins. The girl who was lost was found by a monster. But that was in a story you never heard. The girl who ate the apple built another paradise. But the Bible never mentioned that.

Yeah, she says, casually, forever, it seems.

The smile the man beside her gives her is nothing short of wolfish.

Flip to the center page of the newspaper and complete the phrase in three down of the crossword without cheating.

This is not the story of knights and dragons and true love's kiss.

(This story you know; it's the one you just read.)

And they lived—