Caviar & Diamonds for Breakfast {Introduction}

Every story begins with Once upon a time, and ends with Happily ever after. This story, however, somehow does have the same beginning but may lead us down the path to a different ending. 99.0% of every romance story, has a Romeo that marries off a Juliette in a sensationally magical way that makes every girl dream of. Well maybe not 99.0% of the stories, that’s way too large, let’s reduce it to 96%? Before we delve into the details, let’s just compare and contrast the differences between this story and the other stories – just to make us feel a tad bit better.

Main character falls in love? þ

Main character is beautiful? That’s for you to decide

Prince charming is extraordinarily handsome? Maybe

They live happily ever after? Uncertain

There’s an evil witch or evil character that poisons the main character? Umm… That’s just too much 

Well, I can’t think of anything else to add, but if you have any suggestions please do comment down below.

So what really is this story about? Well, we just spoon fed you the introduction, maybe it doesn’t have a lot of flavor to it, that’s because we want you to savor every tang, every smell, every everything! We just want to spice things up and add excitement!

So, here it goes.

            Once upon a time, there was a girl called Shamsa. An Emirati, living in Dubai, in one of the most exquisite wealthiest districts, the Beverly hills of Dubai known as Jumeirah. Now you may link the title to Shamsa’s residence and say oh yeah, she must be some rich snob and the story revolves around her spending millions on a whim. Wrong. You just got an X, for making a wrong judgment. Shamsa comes from a very middle-class type family; she looks like the ‘typical Emirati’ but is not so typical. In fact, the only typical thing that her and the rest of the Emirati female population share is the Arabic name. Perhaps her features would give her that extra oomph for being an Emirati. You know, the jet-black hair thats long and thick, the strong arched bold eyebrows that don’t need to be filled in. Her nose is strangely small and feminine, not so Arab like long and thin. But she has those abnormally full quite large pouty lips, the kind that makes boys crazy and girls jealous.

            Shamsa being an only daughter, not an only child, made her somehow different from the rest of the girls. She did enjoy girly stuff, a lot, but not as much as cars. You might say yeah, well there are some girls out there who are car gurus well she’s one of them. But there was something in Shamsa that made her so rare, it was her eyes… She has heterochromia. One eye that’s brown and blue- a clash of earthy colours, and the other one had quite a large spec of brown/hazel. Her eyes literally changed colour, which made her stand out amongst the rest of the girls.

            Some of you may find this extremely odd. But there’s so much beauty to it that not everyone seems to understand. Unfortunately, the majority of the students that were in Shamsa’s school bullied her for it. Calling her names like alien or weirdo. She stuck out so much that everyone was pushing her away, like she was some kind of infectious disease or so… The more she tried to hide it with contact lenses the more they bullied her; she didn’t know what to do. Especially when she was in primary school, the children couldn’t completely accept her for who she was. Plus she was that ugly duckling as a child, which made rejection so much easier for everyone. But as the years passed, her mother taught her a set of skills. No one really got to Shamsa to a human level, you know, being personally close to her, other than her family and an Emirati family that lived in their neighborhood. Her mother took extra care of her looks; this long thick hair she had couldn’t go to waste so she did all kinds of treatment that made them lushly big and thick. She took so much care of her skin and body that it naturally glowed. Shamsa grew into that swan that every girl feared of, and got bitterly jealous of. She was so organized that you might mistakably judge her with OCD. She was athletic too but her favorite sport was swimming. Every lunch break she would spend 45 minutes in the pool, swimming her heart out. The boys enjoyed watching her whenever they got a glimpse. From all that constant swimming, she became tanned.

By the tenth grade, Shamsa became the ‘it’ girl. Her group was the elite group in school. Her parents worked so hard for her to enter the best school in Dubai, and she did. She was smart. Very smart.

You think Shamsa is almost perfect. Almost, but not quiet. Being labeled as a child for her discoloration in her eyes, she grew up with some issues. And the girls would always tell her, boys didn’t like tanned girls. They preferred girls with milky white smooth skin. You would never even think she was instable. But she was, and it never showed.

The years passed by and by the time she was in her last year of school, the girls eventually got fed up from listening to all the compliments Shamsa got. Revenge was their only justice. But how could you break someone who was so naturally confident? She wasn’t plastic, nor fake which made it so hard for them to dig deep within to find out something about her. The more they tried to destroy her, the more they failed. You can’t overpower her, not when you don’t know anything about her. A little secret her mother taught her was to give people enough information to keep them curious, and when is it enough? When they beg for more. Her mother taught her to read people and to understand them, and she did so fluently. So the girls pretty much crushed her reputation by marking her as ‘Easy access’ which only made the boys yearn for her even more.

            Coming from Shamsa’s household, you could pretty much tell that Shamsa’s parents were not even close to being strict with her. They knew her inside out. The more rumors they heard about her, the more they trusted their daughter, which was strange because parents tend to do the opposite. But with Shamsa they know exactly what she does, about her whereabouts about everything. Shamsa barely goes out, the only outings she ever has is going to school and coming back home. She knew that the outside world was no good for her, that all people ever enjoyed doing is gossiping. So she was wise enough to spend her time studying, working out, or with her brothers (she had 2 of them).

            As it was getting closer to her graduation day, Shamsa got all kinds of scholarships. To study abroad or to study in the top universities in Dubai for free! She explained the fact that studying abroad was one of the best options, where people would judge her for who she is and not what she looks like could accept her. After a long course of thinking, arguing, discussing and crying, they agreed. But they couldn’t agree to send their daughter to the States because 1. It was too expensive for them to fly out to her whenever they could and 2. It was so far away that in case of any emergency they’d have to travel 14+ hours to reach her and another 14+ hours to come back, which was a lot. So they agreed that she could study somewhere in Europe, specializing in fine arts. She wanted to go to London so badly, after all it is her dream city, knowing that that option was the best option. But her parents knew no one in London. She had the option of going to Germany or Italy. And surely, she picked the latter.

            The first time Shamsa has ever been outside Dubai, outside her usual parameter that she restricted herself to. The first time she’s ever been on a plane, was to Italy. And as she sat nervously down on her seat, she quietly gave a toast to herself, on the bottle of water she held so tight. ‘To new beginnings’ she whispered. So Italia, are you ready to welcome Shamsa? Because this is going to be one hell of a ride! Cabin crew, please fasten your seatbelts. Be prepared for takeoff.