# A Cinderella Story: Chapter 9 Part II (denouement)



## Huilunsoittaja

"STOP! Shut your mouths! Get away from her!"
Nicholas was never more angry in his life. Such abuse was foreign to him, and he couldn't imagine how this girl could cope with it.
"You wicked people! All you ever live for is yourselves! Get out! Leave us alone!" he turned on all of them, and made them leave the school, except his friends. This he told them calmly,
"Please go. I want to be alone with her. Thanks anyways." They all shrugged their shoulders and left too.
Now only Nicholas and Ella were left in the hallway. He took her by the arm and walked her down the hallway toward a bench by a window. He looked at her face, expecting to see excitement, but instead found fear.
"Ella," he began, when only a few feet away from the bench, she suddenly collapsed to her knees, bowing to him.
"What's wrong?" he said with much concern.
She looked up. There were tears in her eyes, although she hadn't started crying yet. It was from pure guilt now.
"Forgive me, Nicholas!" she cried desperately. "Forgive me everything!"
"What's to forgive?"
"Me ever meeting you! I'm a fraud! A fraud!" she bent her head down.
Nicholas knelt beside her, and tried to lift her head, but she drew back from his hand.
"No! Now you must understand! I'm not the girl I pretended to me! This is me, not that girl in a dress! She was fake! This is me! A nobody, a - a - worthless wretch!"
"Oh, Ella..." Nicholas frowned and stroked her hair. "What you're saying isn't true! Who I met Friday night was you, completely you! My question to you is this: is the girl in front of me now really you?"
This question took her back, and she said nothing in response.
"Ella," he whispered, "I didn't fall in love with your dress. I fell in love with you. You are a beautiful, intelligent woman. Let no one tell you other wise."
For one moment, Nicholas saw something light up in her expression. But he continued,
"Ella, I... if I only knew how much you've suffered! I would have done something long ago to change your circumstances! I will free you, I swear. You'll never be shunned or insulted ever again."
"But... how? I'm trapped. This is all the life I ever know."
"That's not true. Something great was meant to happen to you. You are an extraordinary human being. I'm going to help you."
Nicholas could see the struggle within her, the disbelief. He decided to make one last statement.
"Ella... do you love me?"
"... Yes. You don't even know it all... but, I don't deserve your love at all."
"What does that matter? Don't you remember what I told you? You have a Father who loves you perfectly no matter what. Ella, I love you too, and I would do anything if we could be together. Even... forever."
This completely stunned her. She said nothing for a long time, and Nicholas held her close to him, both kneeling on the floor.

Finally, her heart was crushed, melted, evaporated. Ella couldn't believe, and yet it was all true! Deep down inside, she knew everything he said was true, and she finally let go of all her guilt and fears. She finally had truth, hope to hold onto. She collapsed in his arms, sobbing.
"Ella, there was also something else you forgot that night."
"What was it?"
Here, Nicholas looked into his book bag and pulled out a little tiara.
"This," he said, and placed it on her head. "You were voted Prom Queen."
Her eyes flashed. "But... I'm a Junior, not a Senior!"
Nicholas laughed.
"Does it really matter?"
For the first time in her conversation with him that day, Ella smiled.
"Thank you. For everything. I... never imagined this would ever happen to me...Thank you, Nicholas."
He wiped away her tears. His expression was extremely affected, almost as if he may start crying himself. But he smiled and whispered,
"Please... call me Nick," and they kissed. It was a moment never to be forgotten. 

When Nicholas graduated from high school, he kept very closely in touch with Ella. When Ella's stepmother found out about the rumor that Ella went to the Prom, she couldn't believe it, saying that it's impossible that the house could have been so clean when she came back. This eventually pushed Jane and Joan to doubt what really happened, and never bothered Ella with questions about it. As for Ella, she took the missing shoe and paired it together with the other one, but never chose to wear it. The same went for the tiara. But one day would come.
When Jane and Joan left for college, she was all alone in the house, and for that sake, her senior year of high school was much calmer. Her stepmother even decided to hire a maid to give Ella a break.
Four years later, Ella and Nicholas did finally marry. They had a happy marriage and an excellent living, since Nicholas worked for the government. Ella never told anybody of what really happened that night of the Prom, it was a secret unto herself. But she never forgot the woman in the red coat, who she began to believe was an angel in disguise. The shoes were the only evidence of what happened, which were still rumored never to fit any other woman but herself. It all was ordained that this would be the way Ella would be saved. Spiritual salvation is always more valuable than physical salvation.
And so Ella and Nicholas lived happily ever after.

The End


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