Alternate Cinderella

You know the story of Cinderella, right? Well, I discovered some time near the end of grade school (let's say. . . grade 8), that my life highly resembled the popular fairy tale.

In the worst ways.

I not only had two stepsisters, I had four.

I not only lived in the attic, I was locked in there whenever there were guests over, unless I was serving them that is, (which didn't happen often).

Angelina, Jessica, Hilary and Monica loved to provoke me and use me as a slave. They also bragged about their "oh-so-intelligent" sounding names, which were "oh-so-much" better than mine.

By the way, my name is Molly. It does sound a bit lame to my steps, but my mom named me it just before she died after giving birth to me. She lived long enough to hold me once.

My father (supposedly) heartbroken and (supposedly) looking for someone to help take care of me, married my step mother, Louise. She was an alright stepmother, but she was wrapped around each of her daughters' fingers, and was the woman my dad had an affair with in the past (thankfully none of her children were actually related to me).

My grandmother was still alive when dad remarried, and I often snuck out as a young girl to go see her (this was when I still lived on the ground floor). She always said I was a perfect little doll, with my big dark blue eyes and short black hair. Grandma died when I was twelve.

As for my father, he was placed in an institute for the mentally ill (my step sisters think he just died, because that was what Louise said, but I found a bunch of files about his placement). He had developed chronic something or other and I had no further contact with him thanks to the "nice doctors in white coats".

My best friend, Donny, was a bit of a freak, but then, so was I. I was what you would call a goth, or maybe punk, but my personal opinion of my clothing was "I found it this morning so I put it on". Most of my clothing was black, with every sort of bright colour you can think of and some forest green thrown in for fun. My hair had streaks of neon green in it, and all four steps freaked out. I probably got grounded more on the basis of "mental scarring" than I did for actually doing it. Which was quite humourous.

Back to Donny. As I said, he was a freak too, but while I laughed in the face of my tormentors, Donny didn't take the teasing as well. His wardrobe also consisted of mostly black, but he was also known for his preppy (straight A) older brother, whom every girl in town dropped dead for. As you can see, comparing the two was a common occurrence. Most people would say "Why can't you be like your brother? He's so smart and good looking!" to which his response was a stutter and a blush, on a good day. You could say I was his defender.

Aside from Donny's timidness and blunders, he was my buddy through everything; when my grandma died, when my dad was sent to the institute, and he was always up for a late-night walk to the 24/7 Tim Horton's up town. He was usually the brains for most of the "accidents" my steps had over the course of grade 7-12. Angelina, Jessica, and Hilary were all older than me by consecutive years, and Monica was my age.

In grade eleven, I was sixteen, and had this "secret admirer" that I talked to often on the internet. The purpose of my story is to tell you how it all went down.