Promises

After breaking yet another promise to my brother, a fairy appeared before me. She was beautiful and ethereal, having a comforting aura about her. For some reason, I thought I would be rewarded by her presence, but instead I was cursed.

"Hear me, Charlotte of Champaign, you can no longer break a promise."

At first, I was pleased, I thought this meant that I would be granted the power to fulfill every promise I made. The curse did not seem so bad.

"If you cannot fulfill the promise, you will not be able to make it," the fairy continued.

This seemed odd, I thought. I thought every promise I had made had been one I could have fulfilled. Sure, I had not fulfilled them, but that was not because I was incapable...was it?

Before I was able to ask anything of the fairy, she vanished as quickly as she had appeared. I blinked and the memory of the fairy began to fade. Perhaps I dreamed the whole thing I thought to myself and carried on about my day. I met up with a friend and she divulged numerous secrets: her husband had a boyfriend and a girlfriend that she had just learned about, our mutual friend was about to declare bankruptcy, our boss secretly loved Hello Kitty, and my brother had sent her a flirtatious email the other day.

"Just promise me you will not tell anyone these things," she whispered conspiratorially.

I tried to promise that I would not, but I had already texted another coworker to tell her about the Hello Kitty obsession of our boss. "I---," I began trying to force the words out, but found that they would not come, "cannot."

My friend froze for a moment, but then smiled, "Well as long as you can promise me that you will not say it came from me, we're all fine." She winked at me.

"No," I said without thinking. I had already made the plan in my head to call my sister to discuss our brother's newfound flirtation.

"What?" my friend asked, confused.

"I just...I cannot promise that," I faltered.

She seemed prepared to yell at me, but just then I got a call from my sister. I signaled that I had to answer my phone and excused myself. "Hi, Ivy, I'm at lunch, is everything alright?"

"Yes," came her voice from a few towns over. "I just wanted to call to invite you to Timothy's graduation next week. I think I had mentioned it to you a little while before, but we just wanted to be sure you could come."

"I will try," I said, even though the words I had meant to say were 'I promise I will be there.'

"Great!" replied Ivy. "I'll tell Timothy you promise to be there."

"Well," I interjected before I realized, "I did not say that."

"Oh, I know, but you promise you'll try right? I know the timing may be hard with work or something, but Timothy really wants you to be there."

"I'm not sure I can promise that either."

"You cannot even promise to try? You mean so much to him," came Ivy's disappointed voice. "I know your promises do not mean much these days, but promising to try seems a small thing to ask."

"I promise I will try to try," I finally eked out.

"Okay," replied Ivy. "I send you the details." She then hung up without another word.

I stood there, silent phone to my ear and realized that I must reflect upon what kind of person I am that I cannot even fulfill a promise of trying to appear at a momentous point in my nephew's life.

(Prompt from writing.prompt.s)