PROLOGUE

I stared at the girl before me. Her nervous eyes behind those black-rimmed glasses were also set on me. Tentatively, I tucked a strayed strand behind my ear and bit my lip. She mimicked.

I blinked. So did she.

“You done with your staredown match with yourself, Em?” A huff came from behind me. “For God’s sake! You’re doing this for the last five minutes. You’re creeping me out now!”

I glanced at my best friend through the mirror. With folded arms on her chest, sitting at the edge of my bed, she scowled at me.

My gaze went back to my reflection. “I don’t know, Beth. Do you think he—he’ll like my look?”

“After we spent two hours to doll you up? Yes, we think he’ll like your look. And won’t reject you when you announce your undying love for him,” Cassie said, my other best friend, standing beside Beth.

Reject. The same word has been haunting my dreams for years now. I’ve been waiting for this day for six years. The day he said those words to me. I’ve been waiting since.

And if he rejects me today… I don’t know what I would do.

“Will you be my prince, Ace? I want to be your princess.”

I asked my brother’s best friend after he gave me a Cinderella dress on my ninth birthday.

He laughed at my silly question, almost breaking my heart. But seeing my crestfallen face, he crouched down before me, looking at me with his stormy gray eyes. “You’re my princess.”

“Really?” I lit up like a Christmas tree. “That means you will marry me?”

He bit his lip, his eyes lit up with amusement. “I’m sorry, Rosebud. But I can’t.”

“Why not?” I pouted.

“Because it’s not the right time. You’re still so young.”

“Then when will be the right time?” I gazed up at him with so much hope.

“When you turn into a blooming rose from a rosebud.”

I waited for the day to bloom into a rose. I didn’t know what it meant at the time. But to remember and understand, I had written those words in my diary.

And Cassie said at this age we were big enough to have a lover. Well, she already had one at the age of fourteen, and was on her fourth at fifteen now.

I knew whatever Ace had said that day was because he didn’t want to break a nine-year-old’s naïve heart. But I didn’t care. I was ready to confess my feelings to him today. For real this time.

“Em, you’re looking stunning. Though I preferred your long wavy hair. But it’s all right, this suits you too,” Beth commented.