Princess

Tia and I spent free period in her room.

I’d only realized how nice it had been for me when I didn’t have Owen around to bother me and so, I appreciated Tia’s room (the lucky girl didn’t have a guy suddenly upon her unlike me) much more than before. Looking around her room, with all the posters of bands and random shots of Luke, Dylan and her other friends, made me feel a little lonely.

Friends had never been my thing, even before I joined the Agency and before my father’s death. Something about me had always set me apart from the other kids, be it my different way of thinking or because of how I didn’t know how to act around them. I had never cared about it but now, suddenly, I felt like a freak...a lonely freak.

“Is there something wrong?” Tia gazed at me with concern, her dark hair tied up in a ponytail.

I touched my own short hair. It was still too short for me to tie in a ponytail, which was sometimes a little annoying when I had Physical Ed but I had gotten used to it. A person could get used to many things and a change in hairstyle ranked pretty low on my list. I tried to grin reassuringly at Tia (but unlike Luke, it didn’t appear as though she believed me) and said, “Nothing much. It’s probably PMS or something.”

She shook her head at me. “I don’t think so. There’ve been quite a few things you haven’t told me, you know? Is this going to be one of them?”

I nodded; there was no point trying to lie when I had no intention of telling her how I was truly beginning to realise how different life could be outside of the Agency. Doctors, friends...those were just the tip of the iceberg, things I could have after I left...if I could leave.

I still felt guilty for not confiding in her though because despite my instincts, I had allowed Tia and me to grow closer. I liked her honesty, how her emotions could be so easily read. I was sure that this friendship, if that was what it was, would be a simple one and I had relished the thought. I had enough of complicated relationships.

But I also knew that friendships required both parties to be willing to be honest with each other, much like a relationship and I couldn’t allow myself to do that. Not only because that would put my whole mission in jeopardy but also because of what Dylan had said the day we went on our disaster of a date. I was locked away from everyone else.

I was starting to think that I really didn’t know any other way of surviving.
***
Principal Lee had let us off for another day and Dylan asked me out.

I didn’t tell Owen that Dylan had (I had a feeling that he would claim that it was because of how jealous he was making Dylan feel) and took great pains to get Owen out of the school on that day by asking for his help to collect Dylan’s case file from the Agency.

And now that he’d finally left, I busied myself with dressing up. I didn’t feel the annoyance like I had before but instead, kind of had some monster butterflies in my stomach while preparing. Of course, it didn’t help that a voice in my head that sounded a lot like Tia’s kept urging me to change into something more date-like.

I gave in each time and eventually ended up with a white hairband, a white long sleeved shirt with a burnt orange hoodie over, a slightly shorter than I was used to cream, printed skirt, my favourite pair of boots and a silver necklace with a heart shaped pendant. For some reason, I didn’t bother much with weapons but only added a small transmitter in my pocket and a phone with a computer in it.

I tried not to think about why I would be wearing such a short skirt and why I would be wearing a heart on the outside (like someone wearing their heart on their sleeve) and focused on getting in and out of the date without freaking out, unlike last time.

When Dylan arrived, he didn’t hand me a sunflower this time. He brought another flower, a lilac. Handing it to me, he said, with a smile, “I hoped you haven’t let the other die.”

I fingered the flower gently. It really was rather beautiful. “I’ve kept it in pretty good condition.”

Dylan smiled. “You might not want to let this one die either.”
“Why?”
“The lady in the flower shop told me it means first love.”
My palms starting sweating (why was I so nervous?) but I maintained a smile. “Do you always believe what salespeople tell you?”
“No, not always. Only when I want to.”
He wanted to believe that this was first love? “So...what did the sunflower mean then?”
“Adoration.”
I laughed nervously. “Oh. Um...I guess I’d better put this away somewhere.”

I left the door open as I filled a bottle and Dylan entered the room. I tried not to look at him or wonder what he was thinking about as he surveyed the room because I knew that that would only lead to paranoia.

Once I was done ensuring that the lilac wouldn’t die, I turned around and looked at Dylan.
He met my eyes and asked, “So, are you ready to go?”

I swallowed once and nodded.
***
“I’m really bored!”

Once we had left SITT grounds, Dylan didn’t seem so intimidating anymore. He wasn’t the smooth operator that he was in my room (what with all that ‘adoration’ and ‘first love’ crap) but he wasn’t the annoying brat that I thought he had been. Instead, he was somewhat a balance between the two. I wondered if this was really who he was or just a more comfortable disguise.

I rolled my eyes at him and said, “Honestly. You refuse to tell me where we’re going, which is really irritating by the way, and you tell me that you’re bored. What am I supposed to do? Entertain you?”

“Yeah.” Dylan nodded. He thought for a moment.“Okay...What kind of games do girls play during slumber parties? I want to play one.”

“I don’t know. I was never invited to a slumber party.”

Dylan pouted (I couldn’t believe that he would actually pout, but there you go).“ I don’t know why I even asked... You kind of had a really boring childhood, you know?”

I smiled. That couldn’t be the furthest from the truth. I did have an exciting childhood, filled with physical training and combat work, just not one that was normal enough for me to divulge. “Fine. If you had such an exciting childhood, then you come up with something for us to play.”

We walked in silence for a few moments as he considered this.

We were heading off to the railway station this time but Dylan had yet again refused to let me know where we were going. I was a little comforted by the fact that it was unlikely that we would be going to his summer houses so my mistake of not having brought any weapons (really, what had I been thinking?) wasn’t that big a problem.

“I’ve got something.” He stopped and studied me. “This isn’t a very original game but it’ll have to do. Let’s play a game of Bullshit.”

“What on earth is that?”
“We get to ask each other a question and we have to answer it-”
“How do you win?”
“Competitive, aren’t you?” He smiled easily.
“I suppose.”
“Well, to win the other person either has to choose not to answer the question or if he doesn’t tell the truth but you didn’t call his bullshit.”
This game sounded flawed. “But how would you know if he’s really telling the truth?”
“You don’t. I guess you’d just have to trust me, won’t you, Princess?”

I gulped. Trusting people? I just knew that Dylan wouldn’t have given up on the whole Princess deal. He was still as determined to get me out of the tower I was in.

My logical side told me that it was too risky a move to trust Dylan but the other side of me argued that there were benefits to reap from it. In the end, I sided with the other side of me not only because of the benefits but also because I was interested. “Sure. It sounds like fun.”

“I’ll start then.” Dylan started walking. He scrutinised me for a few moments. “What’s your greatest fear?”

I should’ve known that he would never have began with an easy question but still, my breath caught in my throat. Trying to laugh it off, I said, “Clowns mostly.”

“Bullshit. Trying to bluff your way out of it already?”

Maybe I could’ve argued my way out of this but I knew that I had been caught so I replied, truthfully this time though it did hurt, “I’m scared of someone close to me dying again.”

He didn’t question me why and his face didn’t crumple in sympathy like how I suspected anyone else’s would. It could have been because he, too, had lost a family member and understood why I was afraid. Whatever the reason was, I was glad that he didn’t push me.

“My turn now,” I said, with a small smile on my face. “What’s the deal between your father and you?”

He didn’t ask me what I meant by that and I could not tell what he felt with this question though he was quiet for a while. When he finally spoke, I was surprised by how calm he was. “We never really got along, I suppose. Even when my mother had been alive, we’d had our...differences but it got worse after she died. He took on more business, starting taking more risks.” Dylan smiled without humour. “And I did the opposite. I sabotaged what I could, talked back when possible...basically made his life miserable.”

I felt a surge of sympathy for him. Sure, I knew that I should’ve paid more attention to signs, to see if he really was telling the truth but I had a gut feeling that he was. Nobody would ever want to make up a childhood like that, would they?
“So am I telling the truth?”

Staring at him, I let myself believe. “Yeah.”

His bitter smile morphed into one that was genuine. “I guess we continue then.”

I nodded, returning his smile.
***
We continued playing the game even after we boarded the train.

Bullshit really was an addictive game but a little strange too. We could jump from something serious (like phobias) to something silly (like our favourite colours) within the blink of an eye. But I supposed that was the way it operated, either you went along with it or you chose to lose.

And I knew that we were both similar in how competitive we were. Neither of us would ever give up so it really depended on whether we could tell if the other party was honest.

To my surprise, Dylan lied less than I thought he would. I was the one that did the lying most of the time, sometimes because I was uncomfortable with the depth of truthfulness he expected from me and sometimes for fun, just to see if Dylan could tell if I was lying or not. (And he could, almost every single damn time.)

Within an hour (which was basically the amount of time we took), I learnt a lot about Dylan Fuller. His favourite colour was green, he thought of Luke as a younger brother, he had cried over his pet goldfish that died when he was five and that he’d had 5 girlfriends in the past 2 years (I wasn’t surprised).

The more I learnt about him, the longer I found myself staring at him. I’d mentioned that he could’ve been cute but I didn’t really realise that he really was good-looking. He was lean but muscular, taller than I was (and at 5”8, I was no dwarf), hazel eyes that seemed to change along with his moods even when he tried to hide it, eyelashes that were really too long to be a boy’s and dark hair that suddenly seemed very appealing...like I wanted to run my hands through them.

I was confused.

Why did I keep staring at him? I’d seen my share of guys that were good-looking but I’d never stared at them like that or had such strange thoughts about them.

“Princess, we’re there.”

I snapped out of my thoughts and to my mortification, I found that I was still staring at him. God, what was wrong with me?
***