Boy Charming

Chapter One: I'm Not Really A Princess

I like to think of my life as a Cinderella story, only opposite.

My two older sisters are not step-sisters but real sisters, although you wouldn't know it by looking at me and them. They are twins, tall, blonde, beautiful and cheerful. I'm short, have dark hair, glasses and I'm not cheerful.

Alright I suppose I can be cheerful on the inside. But I choose to look grumpy, so I don't have to join in on the conversations around me, because I usually don't care about anything people talk about, like TV Shows or crushes. And I don't even need glasses, I just wear these cheap fashion glasses because I can 'hide' behind them. Why? Because I'm an introvert. Not one of those negative, moody introverts, really I'm not, but someone with her own inner world who finds the outer world exhausting. I don't bother explaining it to people either. I noticed that most people don't want to listen anyway, they just tell me I should be more social. I don't know anyone else who is like this except my friend online DC.

My room is my absolute favourite place to be. We live on top of a music store. There are book stores, coffee shops, art stores and antique shops all along our street. Renting the office space above the music store is cheaper than living in a regular house, or even renting an apartment, because it isn't really meant to be lived in. It's supposed to be used as office space.

My mom is a single parent so we don't have a lot of money. Both Vanessa and Janessa work part time, on top of all their other after school activities. Me, I guess I'm pretty selfish. My mom says I can concentrate on my studies and get a good job later, but what she doesn't know is that I sit at my desk with my textbook open, staring at the words and daydreaming. At any given time I have two to three storylines running in my head, and whenever I can, I try to write some of them down. But writing them down doesn't bring us any money.

Oh yes, I was talking about my wonderful room. It's at the front of the building, facing the street. It used to be someone's lavish office with tall floor to ceiling windows covering the entire front wall. I keep the blinds closed most of the time because you can see clear into my bedroom from the bookstore across the street. My mom's large 'Happy Maids House Cleaning' cardboard sign fills the other window.

I have a big bed in the center of the room with lots of space left over for a desk, dresser, rocking chair and a small vintage TV/VCR combo that I watch movies on. Sure I usually have to watch old stuff that I find at garage sales because they don't make VHS tapes anymore, but DC copies DVD movies to VHS for me (yes it's still possible to do that). I don't like downloading a lot of movies onto Viros, my mini laptop, she's always been a little unstable and I don't want to fill her up unnecessarily.

Viros had a computer virus when I got her. They were about to disassemble her at the pawn shop down the street to salvage the video card or something, but she was so beautiful... I asked to buy her for $30. She's small and light weight, has a small screen, not like those wide-screen monstrosities they have now. She was never a name brand lap top, just some copy-cat cheap thing someone bought on an Asian discount website.

To make a long story short I kept her idle in my room for months until one fateful day, dot.con (DC – my best online-friend) sent me instructions on how to download Linux to a flashdrive, reformat the hard drive, then run Linux on Viros. I'd never heard of Linux before but I gave it a try and Voila! I couldn't believe it when Viros booted up properly for the first time! I couldn't scream for joy because they would hear me downstairs in the music store, but I sent DC a lot of happy emoticons. Viros was alive!

As you may or may not have guessed my story is about DC, my best friend, whom I've never met, that lives a million miles away, or so I thought...