Chapter 1

Okay, so I admit that the fairy tale isn’t perfect yet. But it will be. My mom always says that I am a beautiful, wonderful, intelligent person, and someday, I am sure that I will find someone who agrees with that assessment! It doesn’t matter if I don’t always even agree with it myself. I am certain that my “someday” will be soon and that my “someone” will turn out to be Shane Crawford! When that day comes, he will finally realize that he is not in love with his perfect cheerleader girlfriend and that I am the one that he has been searching for all along.

In the meanwhile, I am working on getting to really know who I am for myself. That is the real challenge. You would think, since I have been around me all of my life, that I would have no problem getting to know myself. You would think that, by now, I should be an expert on the subject. After all, I have had more than 17 years to learn about it!

You would be wrong.

I am coming to believe that I must be a very complex and confusing person, because even I cannot figure out from day to day, from moment to moment, who it really is that stares back at me through the mirror. I am a mystery. I don’t know who or what I am. And how can I expect Shane Crawford to see and grow to love the real me when I can’t even figure out who that is?

There are a few things that I do know for sure, but I have to admit that there aren’t many of those. Here are the facts of which I am absolutely certain: My name is Alaina Andersen. I am 17 years (and three months!) old and I am a senior at Southbrook High School. I am 5’8 ½” tall with long blonde hair and green eyes.

I always get straight As in all of my classes, except for that one C in Physical Education last year, but that one doesn’t really count. I am a little bit on the chubby side. I weigh 133 ½ pounds and I wear a size six in jeans (but don’t tell anyone, because I still tell everyone that I wear a size four). My friends all tell me that I’m too skinny, and I wish that were really true, but I know that they’re just trying to make me feel better about myself.

I’m not very athletic. In fact, I am extremely clumsy and uncoordinated. I’m that girl that is always chosen last in gym class. And I am not particularly pretty. I’m not horrible, but I’m not the kind of girl that guys are fighting over or anything like that. I guess you could say that I’m the girl that is always chosen last in the romance department as well.

The best thing about me is my hair. It’s kind of pretty. But it’s really, really long. If I’m not careful, I sit on it whenever I sit down. This is a problem because I’m just klutzy enough to make a complete and utter fool of myself when I try to lean forward or something and I can’t because I forgot that I was sitting on my hair. About a month ago, in my math class, I managed to knock myself so completely off balance that I actually fell out of my chair and wound up on the floor, in the aisle right next to Anthony Matthews’ desk!

He grinned. “You know, Alaina, it really isn’t necessary to throw yourself at my feet. I mean, I know that I am irresistible, but this is taking it just a little bit too far, don’t you think?”

Of course, I was absolutely humiliated, but I tried to play along, to make it look like I really was just clowning around or something. “Well, you know, I heard that you won first place in the district debate competition last weekend. I was just showing due reverence to your greatness.”

As he helped me to my feet, Anthony Matthews held my hands and gazed into my eyes. In a voice that almost even sounded serious, he said, “You don’t ever have to grovel to me. You deserve to be up on a pedestal yourself. All you have to do is say the word, and I will gladly fall at your feet next time!” He winked, and everyone laughed. I am still hearing the teasing from that incident. People who aren’t even in my math class are still talking about it!

In chemistry class today, even Shane was giving me a hard time. “So, I have been hearing things about you and Anthony Matthews,” he teased. “Seems like you are really impressed with him, aren’t you? What do I need to do to get some of that kind of idol worship?”

I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me! I want Shane to notice me, and all he notices is that I’m a klutzy dork who can’t even sit in a desk without falling over! Still, I tried to act like it was no big deal. “I guess you just have to do something worthy of worship,” I grinned.

I almost forgot to breathe when Shane draped his arm across my shoulders and whispered in my ear, “You know, I took second place in the drama competition last weekend. Doesn’t that count for anything?” But then he chuckled and pulled away, and the spell was broken.

“Or do you only fall for the debaters?” he asked. The entire class laughed, and I was back to wishing that I could just fade into nothingness. I mean, really, how was I supposed to respond to that? It’s not like I could admit that I think Shane is my personal Prince Charming and that I’m waiting for him to turn me into a Princess with True Love’s Kiss!

Even if I stood a chance with Shane, that would be way too embarrassing to ever admit. There’s no way that I would tell him that I like him when I don’t even know how to find out what he thinks of me. So I just laughed and changed the subject. Talk about mortification!

That wasn’t the only time that my hair got me in trouble either. Whenever I walk outside in the wind, it blows right into my face and I can’t see where I’m going. You wouldn’t believe how often I’ve run into walls and bumped into people because I was temporarily blindfolded by my own hair! Three weeks ago, I literally ran into Shane and his girlfriend Rachel in the parking lot after school when my hair decided to wrap itself around my head.

I was rushing to get to my car, so I was walking pretty quickly, and I bumped into Shane hard enough that he actually knocked Rachel over! She landed right on her butt in the middle of the school parking lot, and I was absolutely mortified! I’m just grateful that Rachel isn’t the kind of girl who holds grudges or anything. Can you imagine what it would be like to earn the wrath of the head cheerleader?

But my humiliating hair moments aren’t restricted to those times when I have an audience. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve managed to shut my hair in the door when I’m trying to rush out of the house to get to school in the morning. Of course, it only happens on the days when I’m running late and I don’t really have time to dig out my keys and unlock the door to free myself. Do you know how embarrassing it is to explain that you’re late to school because you locked your door while your hair was still inside the house? It’s ridiculous, really.

I keep threatening to chop all of my hair off and just be done with it, and after the humiliation with Anthony Matthews, I almost did it. But if I’m really being honest, I have to admit that my hair isn’t that bad. It is actually kind of pretty the way that it cascades down my back in soft curls. And the golden highlights catch the sun just right, so that when I’m outside in the summer time, I really turn some heads.

Besides, my best friend, Jarod Johnson, is always threatening that if I cut my hair, he’ll never speak to me again. Of course, he doesn’t really mean that. Jarod is the best friend that anyone could ever ask for! I know that I can always call him when I need someone to talk to or a shoulder to cry on. And he would still be there for me, even if I shaved my head. Our friendship has endured much more than a haircut over the years!

Jarod wouldn’t ever really stop talking to me. He just threatens it because he likes to play with my hair whenever we’re having one of our “serious” conversations. He says it’s soft and silky, and he likes the way it curls around his fingers when he’s messing with it. Guys are so weird!

Still, I have to admit that I kind of like it when Jarod plays with my hair. Sometimes, it almost makes me feel like I’m not just “one of the guys.” Sometimes, I even feel like an actual girl – and I kind of like that. I really want to be the girl sometimes. I don’t get to play that part nearly enough.

Besides, Jarod isn’t the only guy who likes to play with my hair. Shane plays with my hair in chemistry class. When I lean over to work on my assignments and my hair falls across the lab table, Shane likes to twist the curls into elaborate mazes on the table top. Yeah, I know it’s silly, but I sometimes like to imagine that he’s doing it as a way to get close to me and not just because he’s bored. I know that Shane likes my long hair. So it stays.

Prologue

My first clear memory as a child was of the fog. It was winter, and it was cold. A thick fog blanketed the earth and transformed everything. The frozen fog had frosted the world. The bare trees were crystal sculptures. Even the weeds that lined the street by our house looked like giant snowflakes, frozen in a moment of time. The fog was so thick that I couldn’t even see to the end of our block. I felt like I had stepped into my very own enchanted wonderland.
“Daddy, what makes fog?” It was the most important question I had ever asked. Was this special miracle really made just for me? My father understood the gravity of the moment, and he began an enchanting explanation all about the science behind a foggy morning like this one. He used magical words like “vapor” and “condensation” and “sublimation” – phrases like “dew point” and “relative humidity.” I was amazed! I was entranced! I didn’t understand a single word.

Suddenly, I remember, Daddy stopped talking (right in the middle of explaining that for moisture to form into fog, there must be some mystical power that he called “condensation nuclei”), and he grinned. My Daddy has always been my special friend when he grins, and so I knew that he had a marvelous secret to share. Daddy knelt down so that he was looking right into my eyes, and he told me, “Alaina, sweetheart, fog is what happens when a cloud decides to come down and touch the earth.”

I knew right then and there that the fog would always be one of my very special friends. I knew that it had left its home in the heavens and come to earth just to embrace me. The fog could understand me. Like me, the fog must dream of being something more than what it was born to be. I loved being able to walk on the clouds, just like the fog loved to walk on the earth for a while. Even though I knew that the stern midday sun would drive my fog right back into the sky with all of the regular, everyday clouds, I knew that for a moment, we could be friends in our own enchanted place.

The fog could hide me. The fog could protect me. The fog could understand my need to be different. I really had found my very own enchanted wonderland, and in that magical place, I was one step closer to heaven. Since then, I have known that someday, somehow, I will find a way to capture that magic and carry it with me always. Someday, I won’t have to wait for the fog, because someday, I will be able to walk in the clouds all on my own.

***

The first time I saw Shane, it was a foggy, frozen Friday morning. I was sitting under my favorite ice-sculpture tree, waiting for Jarod to meet me. We were going to go out for an early breakfast before school, as we always did on Fridays. While I waited, I was trying to capture the magic of the morning in my poetry. The words wouldn’t behave themselves and line up properly, so I had set my pen and notebook aside.

I was staring across the park, marveling at nature’s gift to me, when Shane suddenly stepped through a portal and entered my secret kingdom. He smiled as he approached, and when he said hello, I knew that my White Knight had come to rescue me and to carry me off to a castle in the sky, where we could live happily ever after. I would never need to seek the solitude of my enchanted wonderland again.

I knew instinctively that Shane would break all of the enchantments that held me captive and restore me to my true self. I knew that he would be able to see all of the amazing qualities buried deep within the layers of enchantment. I knew that he was the Prince Charming whose kiss would finally wake Sleeping Beauty from her deep and endless sleep. With him, I knew that I could finally be the beautiful princess that I always suspected was hiding somewhere deep inside of me.

It’s only fitting that Shane entered my life through the fog on that magical morning. I have been walking in the clouds ever since! Can you believe it? I am barely seventeen years old, and I have already found my one true love, my knight in shining armor, my perfect prince. Shane is everything that I have always looked for.

He is smart and sexy and absolutely amazing. He is a true prince, noble and kind, brave and strong. I don’t need to kiss any frogs to know that Shane is the one true love that I have been waiting for! We will be together forever and live happily ever after – as soon as I can figure out how to make him notice me!!