I have always wanted a perfect, fairytale romance. A magical prince to sweep me off my feet and take me away to a world where there was only love and happiness. I blame this on watching to many Disney movies as a kid, but this was how I was determined my life would be. Maybe this is why whenever I had a boyfriend, I could never accept his flaws, or really I couldn’t accept him being anything less then perfect. But this all changed, my view of romance, and my hopes of what to find in a boy, when I meet Matt.
Matt is awkward and skinny. His eyes are to far apart and he has stringy blond hair. He does not fit in to my ‘prince charming’ category. And at first when we were put together for a huge project I thought nothing of it. He was relatively smart, so we should get a good grade and he didn’t seem like the type of person who was to opinionated so he would be an easy partner. The thing I didn’t count on was falling for him.
It all started two days after the big project was assigned, he said we could work at his house because both of his parents work late so we would have the whole house to ourselves. When we got to his house, I was surprised to see a different version of Matt then I had ever seen. He was more confident, and almost flirty. We decided to make snacks before we started and he reached around my waist and playfully pushed me like we had been friends forever. I was surprised at how much fun I was having and time flew by. Before I knew it, it was almost eight o’clock and my mom called, asking if I wanted her to come get me. Before I could tell her yes, Matt offered to drive me home and my lazy mother jumped at the idea of an early bedtime for her.
The atmosphere in the car was different than the easy, fun one that we had all night. We talked about the project and slowly sank into silence. We pulled up to my street and Matt tentatively reached over the console and took my hand. Before tonight, I would have been majorly creeped out and ran into my house. But now it was quite obvious he was thinking the same thing I was.
‘Margret,” he said, quietly ‘I know this is weird, and you don’t really know me, but I feel like I’ve known you forever’ he paused to take a shuddering breath. ‘The thing is, I’ve been watching you and well now that sounds creepy.. It’s more like, I’ve been paying attention in the classes we have together and I.. well I’ve started to fall for you. I was wondering.. Maybe.. If you might like me too?’
I sat confused for a few minutes.. I’ve never really talked to him before, but he’s so sweet and so kind. I thought, maybe I could give it a try. So I replied ‘I think I might.’ The smile on his face was huge and I laughed as he kissed my hand. ‘well mademoiselle, its time for you to depart.’ I laughed and wondered if these, his weird little quarks, were the reason why I was starting to like him.
The next day, Saturday, my mom called up to me that someone was on the house phone for me. This was weird, everyone I knew called my cell phone. I picked up to find Matt on the other line. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I didn’t think through this very well, I forgot to get your cell number.’ I laughed and told it to him, making sure he wrote it down. After that we talked about the project for all of two minutes before tangent after tangent lead to tales of camping trips and fishtails that couldn’t be more then half true. Before I knew it, it was two hours later and my mom was calling down for me to come to dinner. Before I hung up, Matt asked if I was doing anything later. ‘nope,’ I said ‘pretty boring weekend for me’. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘how bout we have a boring night together? I got movies and a really comfy couch?’. I laughed and agreed, saying I’ll be there as soon as I finish dinner.
My mom drove me over after dinner and Matt opened the door in a t-shirt that had a printed tux jacket on it and an old pair of jeans, and for some reason, to me, he just looked perfect. Twenty minutes later we were settled comfortably on the couch with some action movie on, but we weren’t watching. I was laying across his lap and he was stroking my hair and we were talking, just talking. I couldn’t believe how easy it was to be with him. We had a simple, fun night. We gave up on the movie and burnt a couple batches of popcorn. We ended up playing Super Mario Bros on his old Nintendo 94 and the winner got a kiss. I know that he lost on purpose.
Being with just him was easy, being with him, around other people, was hard. I first told my friends and I was so happy and I wanted them to be happy for me. Even when I told them he was right next to me, holding my hand but I could see confusion on their faces. They knew how picky I was about guys and they couldn’t fathom why I would want a guy like him. I didn’t know what to tell them other then I took a chance and found something amazing. It was still hard to be around all of them at the same time. He could tell they didn’t understand why I liked him and he knew he didn’t always belong in my world. But I tried so hard to keep them and a few times I came so close to losing him. Finally I realized that maybe my girlfriends and my boyfriend should be kept separate. So as much as it hurt me, I stopped bringing them together.
My friends worked so hard, harder then I ever thought they would, to break us up. They tried to tempt him in to cheating on me, and when that didn’t work, try to set it up so it looked like he did. But I trusted him. I knew he would never hurt me. So I made the decision that if my friends are that against me being happy, they cant want what’s best for me, so their not really my friends. I hated losing my friends but Matt stayed by my side through the whole thing, I cried a million tears in to his shoulder and spent hours over analyzing the situation but he sat and listened through everything.
Two months after we started going out I found a rose and a note next to my bed, he had my mom leave it there that morning. Then I found one in my first class, and then my second and all the rest. I walked out of my last class with an armful of roses, to find him standing there in a tux with a sign that read ‘I’m all dressed up with nowhere to go, Margret will you go to prom with me?’ I ran into his arms and I realized how lucky I was to have a guy like him.
The night of prom I walked down the stairs in my purple dress to find him in a tux waiting at the bottom with a corsage and a giant smile. A few years later, I walked down a different set of stairs, but he was still standing there in a tux with a giant smile, waiting for me to walk down the aisle and marry him. I would never have pegged him as my prince charming, but he made my life a fairy tale.