Once you know me By: Anne E. Sirrod *placeholder cover picture* Prologue Hi! My name is Alyssa Herkins, and I’m a 16-year-old girl from Jefferson City, Missouri. I’ve always been pretty—and I don’t mean that to sound like I’m bragging. People have always told me I was, but honestly, I didn’t believe them until I was 8 years old. You see, because I’ve always been “pretty,” I’ve also always been kind of a boy magnet. It all started in third grade, when Timmy walked up to me and asked if I wanted to sit with him at lunch. That day, we planned a wedding at recess. The next day, he told me he didn’t like me anymore and that we shouldn’t get married. Yeah. I got dumped by my 8-year-old fiancé next to the swings. When I was ten, a boy I really liked asked me to be his girlfriend, and I said yes. Later, he asked me a few questions about myself. When I answered, he scrunched up his face and said, “Uhm… maybe we should break up. I’m too busy with basketball.” This happens every year—sometimes multiple times a year—without fail, like some kind of weird, yearly curse. A boy sees me, asks me out, and then, once he actually gets to know me—the art-loving, bookworm, actress side of me—he immediately loses interest. But everything changed when I was 13 years old… …and Carlos walked into my life. Chapter 1 Carlos Rodriguez had actually been in my class for three years but I never really noticed him. He was this shy, quiet, Puerto Rican kid who sat in the back of class and stayed with his tight knit group of friends. Nobody knew much about him except that he loved to draw. He had notebooks full of doodles and every margin filled with dragons and aliens and characters nobody recognized. Except for me. To everyone else, they seemed like random doodles but to me, they were all stories. He had drawn rayla from the dragon prince as a hunter of artemis from percy jackson, and hermione from harry potter talking to maddie from what you always wanted, and the crossovers were genius! They had strong, meaningful storylines that mixed the stories perfectly, using quotes that only true fans would know. You might be asking “well alyssa why didn’t you just ask him out? He would like you for you and you already like him, right?” and the answer is….. I don’t know. I was so fed up with guys treating me like trash, that I shut the entire male population out of my life, which was no easy feat seeing as i have three brothers. He may have liked me or maybe not, Back then, I had basically sworn off guys entirely and never paid Carlos much attention. Who would have thought back then what I would think about him a mere 3 years later.
so scratch wouldn't let me put my whole 43 page book lol so here's the prologue and chapter 1. maybe if I have more time this summer, I'll post the whole story bit by bit.
