I

Brooke used to love reading fairy tales. She thought the idea of a man rescuing a damsel in distress was the most romantic thing she'd ever heard. She told her mother this once, and her mother replied that that was fine as long as the man had a nice large trust fund to keep her satisfied. The maid found all the fairy tale books in the trash the next morning.

II

The first time Peyton and Nathan broke up, Brooke slipped some laxatives in his drink right before a big game and laughed about it with Peyton all night. The last time Peyton and Nathan broke up they talked about girl power, and how she was better off without him anyway. Somewhere in the middle when Peyton and Nathan broke up she slept with him, and couldn't quite bring herself to feel bad about it.

III

Her first impression of Lucas was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed angel. Sometimes she wonders if the devil is blonde.

IV

Brooke's parents once got into a huge fight when she was in middle school. A couple of hours later she found her mom lying on the couch with a bottle of wine and laughing. Brooke thought then that drinking looked like fun.

V

Brooke first met Peyton when she was six and thought she resembled her favorite Barbie doll. Ten years later to the day a headless Barbie was thrown at a wall.

VI

Ironically, she was drunk when she thought up the idea of Drinking while Not Intoxicated.

VII

Brooke's favorite character in the Harry Potter books is Hermione because she's smart and never needs to be saved. She also had a bit of a thing for Draco. She's always been a sucker for blondes.

VIII

When she got straight A's in the 6th grade, Brooke ran to show her parents. Her father nodded dismissively and went back to reading the paper and her mother asked her if she was dating anyone, and isn't that Nathan boy handsome?

IX

The next day Brooke didn't study for the math test and made out with a boy in the hallway for the first time.

X

When she told Lucas to go to Peyton the night of the championship game she never once thought that he would actually go.

XI

Every time her father came home from a business trip she would put up a Welcome Home banner and bake a cake. Every time he walked right by her and went straight to bed. When she was fourteen she made the banner and the cake and put on a huge smile even as he walked away from her to go to his bed. Of course, he didn't know she had put itching powder all over his bed, and for good measure, his pajama bottoms.

XII

Her first reaction when she heard that Peyton's mom had died was a smile, because finally Barbie's perfect life wasn't so perfect. When she heard her best friends hiccupping sobs on the phone asking her to come over, she immediately regretted ever feeling even momentarily happy. But still.

XIII

After she and Lucas broke up the first time Brooke spent months improving herself. She became more independent, and refused to ever be the damsel in distress again. A strong woman would obviously be what a guy wanted. A year later, when she was watching her boyfriend run back into a dangerous school that she, the strong independent girl she was, had managed to get out of, she realized that some guys, her guy, seemed to like damsels in distress. Well screw him, because she no longer needed to be saved. And he should be so lucky to have such a strong great woman in his life.

XIV

Of course, she still wanted to be saved every once in a while.

XV

Chase was a sweet guy, who was too naïve to really understand her. But she thought he probably loved her. And she hadn't been loved since Lucas, and she had to admit, even though she was independent, she missed it. Plus, this way it looked like she was moving on too, that she was totally over her ex. It didn't really matter that she didn't love Chase, did it?

XVI

The Princess Bride was, is, and always will be her favorite movie. Whenever she is sad she stays up at night watching it thinking how Wesley is the perfect guy. It doesn't escape her that he is also blonde

XVII

She stopped hanging around Nathan and Haley during college because it was getting too painful to listen to their sickeningly sick talk. They were the dream couple, with the perfect marriage and perfect kids, and always talked like they were still high-schoolers in love. But they weren't; they weren't happy and they weren't in love. They were just both too stubborn to admit it, and it was too big a dose of reality to watch, because if they couldn't make it work, who could?

XVIII

The night when she called Lucas to help rescue Peyton and they talked all night she knew for sure that she was leaving behind her party girl and becoming someone new. And she let it happen. She still wonders if that was the right choice.

XIX

She told Lucas that she liked the way he grew out his hair in the end of their senior year. That it made him look older, like a rock star. She thought it makes him look like a washed out hobo and when he and Peyton stood next to each other they look so much alike she thinks its sisters groping each other. But if that isn't a conversation stopper, what is?

XX

Peyton's hair started to get brown as she got older, so when she turned twelve she went to get it dyed for the very first time. Brooke came with because she thought it would be fun to be a blonde and look like a Barbie, just like Peyton. Of course, it looked hideous, a fact that was pointed out multiple times by guys, friends, and her mother. The next day she got it dyed back, bought a brunette American girl doll and tossed her Barbie in the closet. After all, brunettes do have more fun.

XXI

She tells everyone that she lost her virginity with a handsome 20-year old college boy on the football team. She says it was the most perfect night of her life and she wouldn't trade it with anything.

Honestly, she can't remember anything about that night, or the person, but knows she woke up in an oddly pink dorm room, with a major hangover. When she's bored she sometimes considers the fact that she only saw girls as she rushed out of the building, but for the most part tries to keep that out of her mind.

XXII

When her father died she spent days planning the funeral for a man she barely knew and writing a eulogy because no one else wanted to. She threw the reception and politely excused herself to cry in a closet, but she was never quite sure why.

XXIII

At twenty-four she heard through Peyton that Haley and Nathan were divorcing. Peyton and Lucas had broken up way back in college. The fab five was broken apart forever, and Brooke realized that it wasn't even a little surprising.

XXIV

Years later she sees him. He tells her that it's okay to need people sometimes, and she smiles and lets him hold her close. She's lost in those hypnotic blue eyes, and allows herself to be taken away by her prince, her angel, her devil. Another few years after that she finds out she's pregnant, and tells him with a huge smile on her face. He picks her up and spins her around laughing uncontrollably. The first thing she buys for her child is a book of fairy tales….

XXV

And then she wakes up. She shakes her head in disgust, because everyone knows that fairy tales don't exist.