The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Getting Married

Everybody knows the classic story of Cinderella.  I know it especially well, considering that I am her.  But here’s the thing: it didn’t happen exactly as they would have you believe.

‘Kay so, my mom never died.  I think the writers had it that way to make it seem like I was all lonely and heartbroken and stuff, but my parents actually split up when I was nine, and my dad got full custody.  Not that I even liked my mom, anyway.  She had like, twelve tattoos of peace and love symbols and her closet was full of eighties clothing.  Whenever I said anything to her, she quoted the Bible.

Anyway, my dad married, like, three months later, claiming that he needed to “support me,”  and have “another person to provide for me,” even though he had a high paying corporate job that could buy us a mansion, and he totally couldn’t fake a low income that well.

But who could blame him, really?  Belle was in-your-face gorgeous, with calm features and flowing blond hair.  I felt, like, really lucky to have her as my stepmom.  Plus, she was really cool, and always gave me tips on how to do my heavy black eyeliner and lipstick right.  I grew to love her much more than my hippie mother.
You heard it right folks.  Heavy black eyeliner?  Lipstick?  Your blond haired, blue eyed princess is goth.  As in, neon and black striped socks, black pigtails, death metal t-shirts goth.  I’ve even got bat-wing tattoos on my back and about five piercings in each ear, not even counting the rest of my face.

‘Kay so, my stepmother turned out really nice, but my stepsisters didn’t.  There were two, just like in the fairytale, and they were both pretty good looking.  Like, medium beauty.  My dad thought they were the sweetest girls in the world, but you already know not to trust his judgment.

Anyway, the one girl, Charlotte, would like, blackmail me into doing her chores and giving her my allowance – which my dad STILL gave me.  At sixteen, you can’t be goth if you’re dad totally babies you.  But try explaining that to him.  You see, I was hanging out with my friends one night, walking through the woods, me and Andy almost carrying Chealse and Violet, who were high (don’t worry, I’m one of the few in my group who refuses to do drugs) from the pot they had gotten from some guy on the street corner.  We ended up stumbling in on a party my neighbors were having in their mansion and my friends said some really stupid things.  They threatened to rat us out for trespassing unless we mowed their lawn for the next year for free.  They have a HUGE lawn.

‘Kay so, while I was stuck doing chores one night, my sisters declared they were going to a big fancy party held by the rich kid down the block that all the girls in my school swooned over.  And I wasn’t allowed to go.  At first, I didn’t really care.  But as I saw the girls pick out flowery dresses and twirl around in the mirror the princess side of my came out and I totally hid in my walk in and pigged out on chocolate to make myself happier (it was the good stuff from Belgium!  Don’t even try to tell me you wouldn’t do that too!).

By the end of the day of the party, I felt like I should not be the only one not at the party, so I opened my closet and shifted through eons of black and funky-colored clothing trying to find the one dress that I had that was okay to wear:  a mini black strapless with a line of paperclips down one side on the front.  Once I tried it on and stared at myself making poses in the mirror for at least, like, fifteen minutes, I was the teeniest bit excited.  I pulled my stick-straight hair into pigtails.  I had gone with magenta streaked black hair for the month.  It wasn’t as cool as neon colored, but Belle said I had to turn it black at least six months out of the year or I wouldn’t seem as awesomely goth as I was, and she kinda had a point.  That was why I made her do my makeup.

After doing my makeup, we were all pumped up, so we hijacked the neighbors Mercedes Benz and drove through some bushes to beat it up a little on the way to the party.

As soon as I stepped through the door, my best and totally emo friend, Sammi, was all “Hey, Ella, over here!”  As soon as I goth walked my way over to her, the music changed to a dub-step tune I’d never heard before.  Sammi pulled me into the crowd to dance.

When the song was over, she was all, “awww…” and sad, so we hung out near the food table trying to scare off other girls’ dates.  When Sammi was all happy again, we danced to a bunch of punk, dub-step, and heavy metal songs.  After like, five songs, I started to get blisters on my heels from my awesome lime green high tops (I know.  So unfair!).  I didn’t want them to rip my fishnets I had gotten for half price at Hot Topic (score!), so I snuck to the bathroom and took them off.  My eyes had watered when they scraped against the blister, so my awesome mascara was running down my face and totally gave me a sad clown look.

‘Kay so, I totally couldn’t go barefoot in fishnets (so uncool), so I like, wandered the halls looking for a bedroom or something that might have black pumps.  I kinda had to hide from the security guards, though, cause they were coming down the halls every like, five minutes.  Eventually, I found a woman’s bedroom and stole black heels from her closet.  On the way out, I couldn’t resist the urge to bounce on the bed.  It might have been smart to take the heels off first…

Anyways, I totally realized that the rich kid’s mother was at the party, and she might recognize her shoes, so I put them back and kept up my search.  I was just about ready to go back to the party barefoot when I came across a quite secretive looking door.  I was all intrigued and stuff, so I picked the huge lock with my giant skull barrette and heaved the chain off.  The doors were so totally heavy that I had to put my chucks back on for traction.

After I showed off my amazingly awesome strength to whatever particles were in the air at the moment, I took off my chucks again and walked up to the only thing in the room:  a glass pair of heels in a glass case with an unlocked door that said DO NOT TOUCH.

‘Kay so, being goth and such, I’m prone to doing the wrong thing.  And despite how bad the heels would have looked with my awesome fishnets, I kinda had to try them on.

The weird thing was, they fit perfectly.  I was strutting my stuff around the room in them, doing all fancy turns and showy-offy things that are hard to do in heels.  As I was grabbing my chucks, prepared to walk back out, the rich kid came in.

He was all, “Hey, you’re not supposed to be in…oh my heavens, you fit the family shoe!  Let me kiss your feet!”  I’m paraphrasing.  But he did bow.

So while I was trying to figure out why the richest kid in school was worshiping my existence, I was sort of swept up into oddly muscular arms.  So I was all, “Ahem!”
And he was all, “Sorry.  You totally fit the family shoe!”

And I was all, “If you don’t explain yourself, I’ll snap the heels.”

So he kinda threw a small spazfit and I just watched him until he spit out the whole story.  Apparently, I was supposed to marry him.

So I was all, “You’re a creep.  I’m leaving.”

And he was all, “I’ll rat you out.”

Crap.

That was, like, about the time that my heartbeat quickened until it was just one constant thuuuuuuuuuuump, and my brain slowed down until, like, it took me a minute per second to process everything.  I thought totally unhealthily hard for a minute or so before deciding to go to jail.

But then, there was a knock on the door.

‘Kay so, I spun around really really fast and saw a guy dressed all in white sneak in through the ginormous door.  And omigod…he was hot.

So the rich kid was all, “Hey, give us a minute, will you?”

And I was all, “Who is that?!”

And he was all, “He is my servant.  And someday, he could be yours.”

And I knew I was being set up.  I really, truly did.  But he was soooooooooo hot.
“FINE!  I guess I’ll marry you.”

And he was all, “Yay!”

And hot boy was all, *ridiculously cute smile in my direction.*