I just saw Princess Protection Program and that one phrase that Rosie said just made me have to write this fanfic. I've also got a Channy one coming up tomorrow, and perhaps ff's first Pete/Angela (Hatching Pete) by the end of the summer. :)
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"He looks at you the same way you look at Donny." What a simple sentence. What an obvious insight. How stupid was I? It took a princess to divert me from my old, wrong, path. That one phrase was an epiphany.
But at the time, I had replied with a stupid, "What? Psshh, no..." I stole a glance at Ed and caught him staring at me. He nodded his head and waved. I smiled and waved back as he returned to scrubbing the bowling shoes. I turned around and saw Rosie smiling.
The next few days were quite busy, with homecoming preparations and whatnot. Yet Rosie's explanation on the true role of being a princess gave me many things to think about. A princess had to look good both on the outside and the inside, yes, but in reality...the inside really was the most important quality in a person. The sight of Chelsea - soaking wet with mascara running down her cheek and looking so desperate for a plastic crown – simply reinforced that belief. The inside really mattered more than the outside, for without a good inside, the outside is doomed to look like, well, Chelsea.
So why did I value Donny so much? Was it only because he kissed me under the basketball hoops when we were in third grade? The Donny in third grade was so lovable – so protecting and so kind. In contrast, the third grade Ed was so mean and intimidating. It was amazing the role reversal that occurred between now and then. Ed was now the nice one – he was the first to accept Rosie as a friend (he even put her bowling shoes on for her), and he even helped Chelsea off the grass at the homecoming ball (I must admit, I felt slightly jealous). And Donny...now he's a stuck-up jerk who takes girls out for one-night-stands.
Everything seems so obvious now...I was simply refusing to accept the very different situation I was in, and once I finally accepted the truth, everything fell perfectly into place. Turning Donny down at the homecoming dance was almost inconceivable only a month ago, yet I did it without feeling any regrets. Thank you Rosie.
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"Care for a dance?"
I turned around and spotted Ed smiling down at me, arms outstretched. I blushed.
"Certainly," I replied curtly. I took his hand and he led me to the center of the hall. We would later laugh over the fact that 'our song' was Spanish and we understood not a single word – nor could we have ever found it for later use if it weren't for Rosie's help.
It didn't matter what the man was singing as we twirled across the ballroom – wearing our oddly casual clothing at Rosie's coronation dance. People looked at us in distaste, yet we found it easy to ignore when our attention was focused solely on the other.
What an unbelievable feeling it was, when, at the end of the night, Ed swooped me up and kissed me on the lips. Even though I had previously considered Donny's third grade kiss as my first kiss, I found myself forgetting that memory in the years to come – as Ed's kiss that night replaced Donny's messy third-grade smack.
For everything I shared with Ed, I had Rosie to thank. If she never entered my life, I would still be smitten for Donny, and chasing after him like a lonely wolf; with Ed staring on in the sidelines. If she never entered my life, I wouldn't have just kissed Ed. If she hadn't entered my life, I would never have noticed that the thing I was chasing for since third grade was next to me the entire way through.
Well, except for those times when Ed picked on me when we were little. But like Dad always said whenever I complained about it: "Little boys pick on girls whom they like in order to cover up their real feelings."