Katie pranced into the house on light feet and hollered, in a deceptively loud voice, that she was home - to anyone that cared to listen. In her late teens and last year of school, Katie was happy and carefree. Her greatest problem was trying to decide on which boy she should take to the masquerade ball which was functioning as their end of year dance.
It wasn't the lack of boys surrounding her that was proving to be the problem – Katie had gloriously thick dark hair that fell in soft waves to her shoulders, alabaster skin and hazel eyes that flashed with specks of green when she was excited, rather it was that none of them lived up to her expectations. In her mind the perfect man was Rhett Butler, a character from her favourite novel, Gone With The Wind. Dashingly handsome, with a strong undercurrent of recklessness and danger, Katie thought Rhett to be the ideal man and had yet to find a boy that came even close to those specifications.
With a sigh, Katie picked up her well worn copy of Gone With The Wind. Dog-eared pages and copious amounts of highlighter marked her favourite parts and she liked nothing better than to read over them again and again and again.
It wasn't a coincidence that her name was Katie. This had also been her mother's favourite book and it was to her great disappointment that Katie's father refused to let her name their daughter Scarlett.
Pushing thoughts of homework and impending exams to the back of her mind, Katie flipped the novel open and began to read…
Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realised it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were…
Katie snuggled into the cushions she was reclining against, thinking dreamily how perfect it would be to be Scarlett O'Hara, Southern Belle.
"I would do everything differently" Katie said quietly to herself, "and make sure that I had Rhett from the beginning, and kept him!" shaking her head slightly at what she considered to be Scarlett's biggest failure, she flicked to another part and continued reading.