An avid reader of love stories and watcher of romantic comedies would understand why I’m having a bad day. Because they’re the ones who know where love is usually found and how it usually develops. I know. Because I’m an avid reader of love stories, and watcher of romantic comedies. And that’s how I’m sure I’m having a bad day. What I’d really like to find out, is why.

I woke up to the sound of a commercial for a fabric softener. See, my alarm clock is the radio beside my bed. It turns on every time it’s time for me to wake up. In the movies, it always starts to play when the set station is in the middle of playing a cool song that’s usually related to the story of the movie. But in my life? It activates in the middle of a commercial break, which, no matter how I look at it, isn’t likely to have any connection with my life and isn’t sending any kind of signals whatsoever.

Nevertheless, I got out of bed and found myself facing my bookshelf—filled with romance novels of all kinds. My eyes drifted to one particular book entitled “The Boy Next Door”. I remembered right away what my parents told me yesterday after school—that new neighbors were moving in the house next door and that this family had 2 sons. Our other neighbor was already an old married couple whose middle-aged daughter lived in New York. So new neighbors with sons were supposed to be real interesting, right?

Right. If the 2 sons didn’t happen to both be under the age of 10, which, in this case, they were. Their mother, Mrs. Walker, had even already told me how happy she was that she didn’t need to hire a baby sitter whenever she and her husband were at the office.

I sighed. So much for the boy-next-door. And since I would never baby-sit either, any chances of meeting any cute, over 16 year guy-cousin of theirs were either too slim or non-existent.

But that didn’t really dampen my mood much. After all, I had just passed my driver’s license exam yesterday and my parents allowed me to drive the car to school that day.

I apparently needed more practice with it though because as I turned one corner, a dark-tinted Porsche swished by and scratched our small white Toyota on the bumper.

I got out. Great, I thought. “This would definitely make me late for school,” I muttered under my breath as I eyed the Porsche that stopped when I did.

It was one of the coolest cars I’d ever seen. It was almost exactly like Lex Luthor’s in Smallville, except for the tinted windows, and the spoiled little rich girl in the driver’s seat who didn’t look anything at all like Lex.

“I can’t believe you ruined my car! Ugh! I mean are you blind or something?” she said in a high-pitched voice.

“I’m sorry, it’s just that you were going too fast and—“

“Whatever,” she interrupted, holding her hand up to shut me up. She took out a cellphone and dialed a number. “Daddy’s lawyer’s gonna deal with you,” she said haughtily. “Hello? It’s me. Somebody put a dent in my car!”

“Excuse me? The damage to my car is bigger!” I told her.

She just rolled her eyes at me. “Yeah, put him through,” she said, and then handed me her cellphone. “Daddy’s lawyer wants to talk to you.”

“What?” I asked, not taking the phone. “You’ve got to be kidding me. There’s hardly any damage on your car.”

“Tell that to Daddy’s lawyer, okay?” she said, practically shoving the cellphone into my face. “But don’t take too long. You’ll get germs on my phone.”

I gave her a suffering look as I took the phone and rubbed it as if to get it dirty, before talking to ‘Daddy’s lawyer’.

Thirty minutes and many insults later, I was running in the hall of my school to catch at least the last few minutes of homeroom. Tardiness wasn’t something my teacher liked to tolerate, but it was better than being accused of cutting class.

“Shit,” I cursed as I looked at the clock on the wall and realized just how late I was. It was a good thing I convinced Mr. Parker (‘Daddy’s lawyer’) to eventually just get my number and call me later to bill me for the charges, which although a Porsche was expensive, I knew really wouldn’t be that much because there really was barely any damage to the brat’s car. I knew it’d still come from my allowance, though and so would the money needed to repair our car, which had a lot more damage than the brat’s Porsche. “Shit,” I cursed again. “Why, out of everyone in the world did I have to hit a—Ouch!” I screamed, bumping into someone and dropping my books. I rubbed my forehead. “Watch where you’re going you—“I paused. I just bumped into my lit professor, Mr. Pearson. “I’m very sorry sir. I really should be more careful.”

“Yes, you should,” he said curtly and then continued walking without making any effort to avoid stepping on one of my books that was on his way.

“Bastard,” I muttered as I picked up my book and wiped it on my jeans. Luckily, my homeroom was already just around the corner.

“Ah, Ms. Cameron, how nice of you to decide to attend the last 5 minutes of class,” my homeroom teacher, Mr. Davis, said as soon as I entered the room.

“I’m really sorry, sir, but it’s just that—“

He raised his hand to stop me from talking. “I don’t want to hear about it Grace. It might take up the 4 minutes we have left. Now sit down.”

“Yes sir,” I replied as I walked to the only seat left empty in the classroom—beside a really cute guy I’d never seen before. I smiled. It seemed my luck was about to change. “Hi,” I greeted as I sat down. “Are you a new student?” I asked.

He looked at me with a blank expression on his face.

“How stupid of me,” I said. “Of course you are. That’s why I’ve never seen you before. Where are you from anyway?”

Still no reaction. What was up with this guy?

“For my last announcement,” Mr. Davis said loudly. “I’d like to introduce you to our new exchange student from France, Jean Leger,” he said, pointing to the guy beside me. Then, he said something in French that made Jean stand up and walk towards the aisle. “Since Jean can’t really understand English, from now on he’ll be sitting with Ms. Stafford, who speaks French fluently. I trust all of you to help him out, though, not just Penny,” he said, and that’s when the girl beside Penny Stafford, Marge, stood up and sat on the then empty seat next to me.

“I swear, if I’d known the next exchange student was gonna be that hot, I’d have taken my French seriously last year,” Marge whispered to me as she sat down. “Penny’s got all the luck in the world.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. Maybe that was why I lost all of mine.

Author’s Note: Right. So here’s the first chapter of the first piece of fiction I’m uploading to the net that is not a fanfic. I hope you like it. Please don’t forget to review! I know it seems as if nothing’s happening, but explanations will be made later. Although, if you’re an avid fan of romance novels and love stories, I guess, if I wrote these scenes correctly, you’d understand my point. I really hope you do. Thanks for reading!