Writing Practice Part Six
The Princess and the Pizza Deliverer
- 1k words
My parents watch too many movies. Particularly princess movies. They feel those types are the closest similarity to our life right now, down to the epic love story, luxuries, and typical rebellious teenage daughter who refused to get married.
“Why do I need to get married?” I asked on one occasion when I was thirteen. “Isn't that illegal?”
My father only gave a hearty laugh, as if it was normal to talk to your freshly teenage daughter about her marriage plans in this day and age. “You don't have to get married now. Just date until you're eighteen, then get married.”
I looked at my mother for support, but she just beamed like a lovesick puppy, clasping her hands together. “ I can't wait to hold my grandbabies in my arms!”
“It's barely been that long since you've held your own babies!” I exclaimed. “If you want a baby to hold so badly, just have another one.”
She waved me off. “Oh dear no, Paige. It's not the same. As a grandparent, I only have to see the cuteness, not the ugly. You'll understand.”
“I'm thirteen!”
“You'll understand in forty years then.”
Hearing this, I simply put my headphones back on and stalked off.
So, yeah. Those were my parents. I knew they only meant well, but they were really weird. I was sixteen now, and they kept bringing random rich boys home to meet me. At first, they just took people from my school, but when they saw how… un-fairytale like they were, they began to fly all over the world on expeditions to get me the perfect groom. Unlike most people would expect, my parents didn't only pay attention to the princely looks. They carefully monitored every boy's attitude, hobbies, and habits in order to decide whether he was good enough for me or not. Usually, they weren't.
On the very rare times they brought someone back, I rejected them. Still, I had no interest in dating, and especially not marriage. Usually, at the very most, we became good friends.
One day, my parents stopped bringing them back and stopped leaving. They said it was in order to spend time with me and my idiot brothers, but I highly doubted that was the case.
“What's the deal?” I asked, accosting them in one of our many libraries. “You finally give up on wedding me off?”
My mother sighed and glanced at my father, who solemnly nodded. “You're… too hard to please. Your mother and I agree that we will let you find love in your own time—” here comes the loving look “—just as we found each other.”
It was almost too good to be true. And there's that saying that says that if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. And it was. Because now I had to deal with my parents trying to be cool and… as they said, hip.
Every single day they ordered pizza—more on that later—and watched whatever movies we wanted. They'd try to reference modern slang and fail in ways no one knew was possible. We'd go on shopping sprees where they'd practically everything they thought was in style, even if it wasn't. Heck, they took us rollerskating and ice-skating and skateboarding. To someone else, this might have been a dream. To me and my siblings, it was like they had been taken over by aliens.
“You should have just gotten married,” my oldest brother grumbled as we hid in his room. We, being me and my other three brothers.
“I'm sixteen!”
Grey, the only smart one—sometimes too smart—stated, “That is a legal age in many parts of the world, including here, with parental permission.”
“Hush!”
“Paige, honey! The pizza boy is here again! Go get it!” my mother called from who knew where.
My brothers shoved me out of the room whilst I grumbled. Why did I have to answer the door? Isn't that what we had servants for?
Still, I went. Yanking open one of the doors, I saw that it was the same boy who had been coming the past few weeks. Tall, muscular, with black hair and hooded blue eyes. He looked bored as usual, his single silver earring gleaming in the sunlight.
“Hey Paige,” he said. I had no idea how he knew my name.
“Hello…” I struggled to see his nametag.
“Leo.” He frowned. “You rich people.”
“Shush.” I signed the receipt, took the pizza from his hands, and began shutting the door. “Thank you.”
He blocked the doorway. “Uh-uh. Where's my tip?”
“You assume because I'm rich I'll tip you?” I asked, raising my eyebrows in slightly exaggerated bewilderment.
“No,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “Your mother always tips me.”
“Oh.” I fished in my pockets, coming up with a hundred dollar bill. Did I really want to give it to him? No worries. He had taken it from me already.
“Thanks, princess,” he said with a slight smile. “Have a good day.” His arm was no longer in the doorway.
I rolled my eyes as I closed the door. As if he actually cared.
This repeated over the next few weeks, until I started to get suspicious of why my mother kept making me open the door for him. Whenever I brought it up, she ignored my question, so I decided to do some research. It wasn't that hard.
My parents had been watching, reading, and listening to “Royalty X Commoner” movies, shows, books, podcasts, fanfiction—anything they could get their hands on.
They were trying to set me up with Leo. I knew they hadn’t given up.
Well, I wasn't giving up either. As I held the receipts of what they had been doing these past weeks, my head formulated a plan. Yes, a very good plan. A plan to end their scheming for good.
