When the egg finally did hatch, out popped the ugliest duckling anyone had ever seen! As the ugly duckling got older, the situation just got worse. For starters, her mother made her get these railroad track braces all over her teeth. With rubber bands connecting her bottom and top jaws that would snap open at the least opportune time, like when she was talking to a cute duck in her class. And her hair was this mousy (ducky?) brown color, and was so ridiculously frizzy that the duckling had to fight it into a ponytail every day to keep it from getting in her face and blinding her.
And if all that wasn’t bad enough, while anxiously studying for the SATs, the duckling managed to pack on another ten pounds to the thirty extra pounds she had been carrying—none of which was flattering to her five foot three inch duckling frame. (Stupid Cheetos—why do they have to be so cheesy and delicious?)
Okay, fine. You got me. The duckling was me. And I wasn’t so much poultry as a seventeen-year-old girl. And I wasn’t so much born on a farm as in the town of Syracuse. But all the rest is true.
And of course, like in every fairy tale, there was a handsome prince. His name was Prince Caleb Martin. Yes, I know that isn’t as regal a name as Prince Charming, but trust me, he was the handsomest of all boys in the Kingdom of Syracuse. Seriously, that prince had it going on. Aside from being a star quarterback at our tiny high school, he was all lean muscles rippling throughout his six-foot frame. And above the neck, he wasn’t too hard on the eyes either—sparkling blue eyes, dimples when he smiled, and thick sandy hair that was always slightly wind-tousled, even during fifth period English.
At this point, maybe you’re confused. What does an ugly duckling have to do with a handsome prince? I must be getting my fairy tales mixed up. Except in this fairy tale, the ugly duckling and the handsome prince actually do meet. At the local dog park.
You know how in all those Disney cartoons, the heroes always have a sidekick? The Little Mermaid had that Jamaican crab, Aladdin had his talking monkey, and Pocahontas had some sort of rodent that used to follow her around, I think. My sidekicks were my two dogs, Freckles and Misty.
Both of them were rescues from the local pound. Misty was a large dog, nearly half my size, all black with these flecks of white, while Freckles was smaller, gray-white, with little brown speckles on her nose that reminded me of (you guessed it) freckles. Freckles was a crazy ball of energy. When she was home, she was always bouncing off the walls. Literally—she actually slammed into our wall once in her unbridled enthusiasm. The only way to wear her down was to spend an hour or two tossing a stick as far as I could and letting her retrieve it. Whereas elderly Misty would just sit around and watch, lazing in a sleepy lump on the grass.
God, I miss those dogs. Misty died only a year later, and Freckles lasted another eight years, but they’re both long gone. Honestly, I’d go back to being an ugly duckling again if it meant I could get them back.
Okay. Enough being sentimental. This bedtime story isn’t going to tell itself.
Prince Caleb had a sidekick too—one perhaps better suited to a handsome prince. She was a beautiful golden retriever named (uncreatively) Goldy. She had thick yellow fur covering her sleek, aerodynamic body, and she swiftly intercepted a stick I had thrown for Freckles to catch.
Isn’t that what you call a “Meet Cute”? My parents met for the first time when my mom was throwing a stick at her dog and my dad’s dog grabbed it instead. Aww. Kind of makes you want to throw up a little in your mouth, doesn’t it?
It wasn’t like that anyway. When Goldy trotted back to me to return the stick, Freckles flew into a furious rage, then started barking her head off at Goldy. Then she peed angrily on the grass. I thought there was going to be some serious fighting at the point that Prince Caleb trotted over on his Great White Nikes and said, “Shit, I’m so sorry about that!”
I had never seen Prince Caleb really close up before. Usually I’d just see him on the football field, waving to us peasants in the stands, or maybe across a classroom. When he looked at me, his eyes were so startlingly blue that it almost made me blush. His eyes were like the untouched water of the Pacific Ocean. I could have spent hours writing bad poetry about Caleb’s eyes.
But here’s the thing: I was an ugly duckling. I understood that handsome princes don’t ordinarily (or ever) fall in love with ugly ducklings. At the very least, they stick to their own species. So even though Caleb was nice to look at, I didn’t harbor any delusions of a happily ever after involving the two of us.
“It’s okay,” I said with a shrug. “It’s good for Freckles to get thwarted every once in a while. Otherwise, she thinks she’s invincible.”
Caleb laughed. “Okay, well, as long as we’re teaching her a valuable life lesson.”
He pulled a rubber ball out of his pocket and threw it. It was a perfect throw, soaring through the air in an elegant arc across the entire dog park. Boy, Freckles would have been in heaven if Caleb owned her. Goldy retrieved the ball for Caleb, but then returned to my side, barking excitedly at the stick I was still holding. Caleb seemed amused.
“I think she likes the stick better,” he noted. “Could I borrow it from you, Libby? Or would it make Freckles too jealous?”
I stared at Caleb, slack-jawed. How did this handsome prince know my name? I mean, Prince Charming didn’t know Cinderella’s name when she showed up for that royal ball… and she was beautiful. Then again, Cinderella and Prince Charming never shared fifth period English. So it made sense.
I handed the stick over to Caleb, trying to keep my arm from shaking. “No problem. Freckles will get over it.”
Freckles yipped at me in protest.
Caleb grinned. “Dogs can be really emotional, huh?”
I rolled my eyes. “That’s for sure.”
“Did you know that dogs can read your emotions just from your facial expression?”
“I believe it,” I said. Misty had an uncanny ability to know when I was having a bad day and shower attention on me. Freckles wasn’t nearly as perceptive.
“I never knew this place existed,” Caleb said, looking around the grassy dog park with appreciation. “We only inherited Goldy a few months ago when my cousin moved to an apartment building that didn’t allow dogs.”
“It’s great,” I said, absently making a little hole in the dirt with my sneaker. “I come here at least a few days a week.”
Caleb raised his sand-colored eyebrows at me. “Which days do you usually come?”
At first, I couldn’t figure out why he was asking me. Then I realized—he wanted to come here on the days I was here. Prince Caleb Martin wanted to hang out with me, Ugly Duckling Extraordinaire.
Except over the next several months, he stopped being Prince Caleb, and just became my good friend Caleb. He and I met at the dog park several days a week, and we spent hours talking to each other. I found out that he was scared his parents were headed for a divorce, and that he really didn’t want to be a football player his whole life but he couldn’t figure out anything else he was good at. I told him that my dream ever since I was five years old was to be a vet and spend my life taking care of sick animals.
Some days we got so caught up in talking that we didn’t leave the dog park until the kingdom fell into blackness. If that happened, Caleb always gallantly insisted on escorting me home. When we walked, he’d stand so close to me.
And all the while, I would grit my teeth and chant to myself: Handsome princes don’t fall in love with Ugly Ducklings. Handsome princes don’t fall in love with Ugly Ducklings.
It worked. For a little while. Christ, I’m not made of stone.
The thing is, when Caleb listened, he got this little crease between his sandy eyebrows. It was that little crease that first made me fall in love with him. It made me feel like he was really listening to me—that he was the only person that had really listened to me and appreciated me in my whole life. So despite my best efforts, I found myself falling head over heels for Prince Caleb of Syracuse High. And there w
ere moments when we were alone together at the dog park, watching the sun go down, when I thought to myself: well, why can’t the handsome prince fall for the ugly duckling? Is it really so ridiculous?
Fairy tales always have happy endings. I wish I could say the same about this little bedtime story. The ugly duckling did evolve into an actually pretty hot-looking swan, if I do say so myself. But as for the blossoming romance between the ugly duckling and Prince Caleb, that had a very unhappy ending.
But that will be a story for another night. After all, I don’t want to give you nightmares.
Crazy in Love (Matt & Anna Book 1) Page 23