(Prompt photo by Charlotte Coneybeer on Unsplash.com)

The intoxicating smell of sugar as I walk through the streets. The characters I grew up watching on TV, basically standing in front of me. The feeling of the warm, Floridian, summer breeze against my skin as I soaked up each moment for what it is meant to be. Total, utter, relaxation.

I had never been to Disney before, as the oldest of three children with enough problems to fill an entire novel. So, when my parents surprised us after the last day of school with a packed car and the promise of a long drive, I couldn't help but woefully wonder if the city of Orlando was going to be our destination.

Instead, what I got was a crowded, vomit-filled car ride from our comfortable, New Jersey home, to relatives I never even knew existed in the heart of South Dakota's corn country. A two and a half day trip.

And what's the first thing I do when I get to their farm, just wanting to lay in an actual bed? Trip over the first rock I see, scrape up my knee, and meet my "Prince Charming".

Don't worry, he hates the title too.

"For Pete's sake are you kidding me?" I reached down for my knee, not caring much for my volume, or the fact that my jeans were now ripped. I was more focusing on not cursing the first moment I meet my long lost relatives, since my parents had begged the three of us to act like "normal, proper children for once". I tried to get up from my sprawled position, but I had been too bold and decided to try and carry fifty pounds of luggage out of the car, those fifty pounds stopping me from being able to get up while not looking like an alien.

"Oh holy fucki- I mean, uh--" Those were the first words that I heard from the boy, whose arms I felt pulling me up before I even got to see him. He dragged me to my feet as best as he possibly could, making me drop some of my extra weight in the process. It was after I was on my own two feet that I could actually get a glimpse of him, though it was hard to focus on anything as blood was flowing between my jeans and my skin.

The first thing I noticed was his hair. It was dirty blond, with an emphasis on the dirty. It was half-plastered onto his forehead for the moment, the glue likely being the amount of sweat that was pouring off of him from the mid-summer heat. The second thing I noticed was the smell.

"So you sme- I mean, thank you." I gave the most forced smile I could to the boy before turning back to the now scattered luggage, making sure I got a couple of steps away from the stench before I took a full breath.

"Oh, Isabelle, dear!" I heard the voice of the person who was apparently a distant aunt of my come up from behind me, taking me by the shoulders and making a huge fuss over my scraped knee. "Leave the luggage here, Oliver will take care of it. First, we need to patch up that knee of yours." She forced the rest of whatever luggage I still had out of my hands, before pulling me up to the house.

Inside of the very stereotypical farmhouse, things only seemed to get worse for me. Apparently, the "Oliver" boy that my aunt had mentioned happened to be the very same stink bomb that helped me get up after my fall, a summer worker on the farm that one of my cousins went to school with. My aunt and eldest cousin both swore it was true love. I swore that it was, in fact, not.

And, my muscles decided that they wanted to join the party of misery, and begin to harmoniously scream.

"Can I just please lay down? My knee is fine, I just need to sleep for years right now." I was sprawled out between five chairs next to the kitchen table, my cousin pouring chemical after home remedy after chemical onto the scrape.

"Well, if you sleep for years, then you won't get to see Oliver," My cousin said, finishing off the "Oliver" in a singsong tone. She then went back to work on my knee. "Can't let it get infected" was all that she said when I questioned her about it.

"Well, if I hang out with Oliver, I'll probably pass out from the stench!" I mocked my cousin's tone, wishing that I wasn't having this conversation. But, I knew that my excuse to get out of it could end up in much worse conversations.

"It's called being on a farm, sweetie, everything smells here to you city folk." My aunt placed her hand on my shoulder, scaring me. I had no clue she was standing behind me.

"Yeah, that's fine. That makes sense. But I still don't see why I shouldn't assume the fetal position in a bed right now and hope I'm not dying." I threw my hands up in the air as I spoke, but then I realized my fault in my argument. These people don't know about the issues of the McClain trio of children, and especially not my Fibromyalgia. So, they actually thought I was trying to avoid Oliver. Not that it actually felt like my hair was hurting.

"Just get ready for dinner, okay?" My aunt and cousin, the latter finally being done with her chemical experiment on my knee, walked over to the kitchen, leaving me to get up and awkwardly hobble over to the bedroom I was sharing with my two siblings.

In the bedroom, my brother and sister had already claimed their beds. My brother, Joseph, was reading some large book (likely poetry), and was sprawled out quite ungracefully across his bed. My sister Diana's bed had all of her belongings laid out on it, though Diana herself was standing in front of the lone mirror in the center of the wall, creepily facing the last unoccupied bed.

I took the bed with gratitude.

"Seriously, what were mom and dad thinking?" Diana yelled out after I had assumed my fetal position. "If my braces break during this stupid vacation, I'm going to be stuck with bleeding gums for weeks! And they didn't even pack my goddamn Waterpik." She leaned towards the mirror, examining some of the extensive hardware in her mouth.

"Speaking of your braces, don't you have to tighten your expander-thingy in a couple of days?" I asked, gesturing my right arm wildly so I could convey what I meant with as little movement as possible.

"Don't remind me about that. I heard they were going to give us the "true farm experience" and make us work. There's no way I'm doing that when I can't even eat anything properly." Diana stormed to her bed, letting out a normal obnoxious, teenage groan as she did so. Even though she was only thirteen, she had picked up on the culture pretty quickly.

"So that's why mom and dad actually brought the three of us here. To kill us off, and then go to Disney without us," Joseph called from his poetry-reading position, acting as if he just discovered a great government cover-up.

"No, it's to try and get that kid Oliver a date." I sat up, unable to stop myself from laughing as I thought about the very, very slim chances that I would date the kid. Not that he was a horrible human being or anything. They were just, slim.

"Well, mom wants us to wear something nice to dinner tonight, so if farm people are fine with three year age gaps, I vote we dress like trash, fancy Joseph up, and sacrifice him." Diana grabbed a dress from her bed, which did actually have some of my clothing on it, and flung it at me. "It'll be easy for you, since they packed this hideous thing from your closet."

"Well, I might convince mom to, wait no," I took a good look at the dress, "they packed the one dress that's too small on me! That's it, I'm taking a nap."

And with that, I flopped down on my bed. And fell asleep. I never got to fully sleep on the way there, so my body was thankful to finally get some rest.

Until somebody had to ruin the peace for me. Somebody with dirty blond hair, who was apparently a desperate single, and smelled like rotten cheese.

You guess right, it was Mr. Prince Charming himself, Oliver.

"Hey." I heard his voice as I woke up, though he sounded a lot farther away than I knew he had to be, since his hand was on my shoulder. "Sorry to, um, wake you up, but I'm supposed to come and bring you food? And make sure you're not dead, I think?"

"Well, I wish," I mumbled under my breath, my eyes only half opening. I was bit surprised that I wasn't immediately hit by the stench, but when I actually looked at him, I realized that his hair was wet. He probably had taken a shower. "Why didn't they send one of the two fae children?"

"What? Oh wait, I'm guessing that's your siblings." He sat on the edge of my bed, leaning his elbow on his knee. "I don't know, your aunt sent me, then seemed to get weirdly excited over it."

"So they weren't annoying you like they annoyed me before?" I sat up, feeling my stomach growl as I shifted. My head was already screaming for me to lay back down, but my stomach was at a louder volume at the moment, both figuratively and literally.

"Um, first, here's your food." He cracked a smile, which meant that he had heard my stomach being obnoxious. "And, they weren't annoying me about anything, though Dylan kept saying that he worked harder than me today, which everyone already knew wasn't true."

"Well, might as well tell you this, they think the two of us were meant to be, or some shit like that. Like, you're my Prince Charming, since apparently helping somebody get their belongings together is just like murdering a dragon and saving that person from prison." I took a bite of the mashed potatoes, which took up half of the plate. Joseph totally made that plate for me.

"No, no, no, no. Not again." Oliver got up, starting to pace the room. "They always do this! Right before my crush happens to visit the farm, they suddenly go crazy and start playing matchmaker for me."

"They've done this before?" I tried to stifle my laughter, since it is seen as rude to laugh at other's misery.

"Yes. With a girl from a neighboring farm. And then again with the daughter of a family friend." Oliver kicked the wall, then grabbed his foot and looked like he regretted it. "And it's always before whatever girl I have a crush on shows up."

"Well, I could stop this before it begins, if you want."

"How?"

"You know I have a life in New Jersey, right?" I took another bite of mashed potatoes. "I also have a girlfriend."

"The clumsy Sleeping Beauty has a girlfriend?" Oliver burst out laughing, kneeling down where he was. "Okay okay, that is a good excuse, I guess. One problem, though. If they're so dense that they can't realize I don't need help getting a date, do you really think they know gay couples exist?"

"I think they know gay couples exist. After all, gay marriage was just legalized a couple of years ago, you'd have to bet they would hear it from there, at least." I leaned my head against the wall, raising my eyebrow at Oliver's laughter. Like, I know I may not look like much, but there are things about me that people can appreciate, and allow me to get a date. Better than he was doing.

"Here's one for you. There are, at least, three gay couples in town." Oliver scrambled back up, trying to suppress his laughter. "Every single one goes over their heads, trust me on it."

"Well, for that little predicament, maybe Prince Charming can figure it out, so Sleeping Beauty can go back to sleep after she finishes her mashed potatoes." I could feel my head still pounding, and I wanted to get some sleep in before I had to take my meds.

"Just, as long as you don't call me that in front of my crush."

"No promises, Prince Charming."