Princess

…the date of their what?

“Why would he do something like that?” Though Luke seemed pretty calm, there were some telltale signs that he, too, was suffering from shock (albeit, a more subdued one than mine). He blinked rapidly and he kept shifting his weight from one foot to the other, as though he was trying to find his bearings again. And for some strange reason, he seemed to be eyeing Tia in a somewhat accusing way.

She frowned although her cheeks looked slightly redder, giving away…well, I wasn’t certain what it was giving away. The situation was a little baffling and I couldn’t quite analyze their behaviour. “Don’t look at me. I have nothing to do with it.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Honest. I had nothing to do with it.” Her tone grew angry; frustrated.

Luke didn’t say anything else but looked away from her, as though recalling something that he would rather not.

The flush faded from her cheeks and she stared intently on the floor instead, as though addressing it, “Well. I thought that I should give you some warning before…never mind. I’ll just…leave, I suppose.”

I half expected Luke to say something to stop her but he didn’t. I probably shouldn’t so but that was rather interesting. Why would Luke make it seem as though any of this was Tia’s fault?* It seemed to me, though I didn’t even know about this ‘engagement’ until a few moments ago, that it was all her godfather’s fault.

“Just to make things clear…I never wanted any of this.”

He stiffened, turned to stare at Tia and looked like he was going to say something. But then he caught her sad brown eyes and shook his head, as if choosing to let whatever he was going to say go. Instead, he turned towards me, like he suddenly remembering my presence.

Conjuring up a real, friendly smile, Luke said, “Let’s go get something to eat.”

Then he ambled off, as though Tia was never there.

I glanced at Tia’s face, her eyes still trained on the floor. But I could see her flinch. Did Luke really expect me to follow him after witnessing that strange scene?

But did I really have a choice? After all, I hardly knew Tia. There was little I could say after she was so thoroughly dismissed. I shot her a small smile which I wasn’t sure if she noticed but I caught her words, a delayed reply to his dismissal, uttered so softly that Luke couldn’t have heard but I did.

“I didn’t want this.”
***
I stumbled back to my room in total exhaustion. As I’d mentioned before, I’d had to wake up really early and endure a difficult day.

But I doubted that my day was any worse than Tia’s.

She’d fired off an email to her godfather on the drive back to wherever she lived, telling him that both Luke and her were not happy (an understatement) with the new arrangement. He instantly replied, told her that he ‘would not budge from a decision made’ and that (surprise!) he’d transferred her to SITT so that Tia and Luke would have ‘quality time’.
So she had to turn the car around and speak to Luke (who swore so loudly upon receiving the news he was reprimanded and placed in detention) again.

In short: the happy couple was screwed.

And here I thought Dylan and I were dysfunctional.

Letting myself into the room, I didn’t bother with a shower (since I’d grabbed one in the afternoon during one of the free periods…anything to avoid Dylan) and fell into my bed, slowly slipping from consciousness.
***
He really was gone.

My father’s various lawyers had repeatedly assured me that I would have enough to last me until I graduated from college, when I would have to figure something out for myself. And that, according to Uncle Ted, Dad’s closest confidante and the one who had broken the news of his death, was ‘all anyone can ask for’.

I would’ve rather asked for my father to be alive again.

And I would’ve given anything just so it can happen.

Uncle Ted awkwardly patted me on the shoulder and moved towards Father’s other lawyers, holding a discussion in low tones.

I’d always been good at reading people and eavesdropping on adults’ conversations so it was no surprise to me that Uncle Ted was trying to hide his nerves because it appeared, that despite all the financial arrangements Father had busied himself with, he had not considered that I would be a minor when he passed on.

It meant that I was, essentially, homeless.

Faced with this prospect, I did the only thing that made sense in my 10 year old brain.

I ran away.
***
My eyes snapped open, my breathing ragged and my heart racing. I struggled to even my breathing while locking up the memories my subconscious had dragged up…telling me that although I could deny my past while I was awake I could never truly be rid of them. Recalling those memories was like ignorantly opening Pandora’s Box, except that I didn’t even have anything like hope.

I ran a few fingers through my short, chin length blonde hair, calming myself as I did so. It was a little awkward doing the same thing I had done with my previously longer, darker hair but changing my hair cut was something that had to be done if I wanted to stay alive and away from the Mafia.

Closing my eyes, I tried to fall back asleep, listening to the unusually peaceful sounds of my surroundings…

….and that was how I’d managed to hear the next thing that happened before anyone else which was both good and bad.
***
Something was hitting my window. I sat up, wondering if they had finally managed to find. I shook my head, realizing how ridiculous it would be for the Mafia to throw things at my window. With all their experience, they would definitely know that doing something like that would just wake me up, meaning that they wanted me to notice them.

I opened the window and gazed down.

Dylan stood there, rubbing a pebble. He smiled brilliantly when he saw me and my heart lurched, in an awful way. Whatever that was going to happen next could not be pretty. He dropped the pebble, sat on the chair and some kind of guitar (how did he get that?) next to him.

Oh and he’d somehow managed to get a microphone as well.

“Hey, Christina.” Speaking into the mike, his voice carried up to the fourth floor, where I was, and above. Covering my face with my hands, I prayed that this could be over as quickly and as painlessly as possible. “Um. I’m sorry but I didn’t really get to practice the next part…hope you like it though. It’s our song.”

Oh God. We had a song? Dylan started strumming his guitar.

“Do you ever think when you’re all alone
All that we could be-”

He frowned, stopped and said, “Crap. I forgot this part…uh…

‘Am I crazy or falling in love
Is it really just another crush?
Do you catch a breath when I look at you?
Are you holding back, like the way you do?
Cause I try and try to walk away
But I know this crush ain’t going away…”

A few windows away from my room, some guy pulled open the window and threw something at Dylan. He dodged, unfazed, and I heard titters from people who had opened their windows and watched his (terrible) performance.

This was really getting out of hand.

I crossed my fingers and said, loud enough so that my voice would carry down to Dylan, “Maybe…uh…you can stop, Dylan? I mean, it’s a nice gesture and all…uh… But it’s really late and I’m super tired.”

He smiled widely. “Not until you agree to go out on a date with me!”

For a moment I thought I heard him wrongly before I realized that this was Dylan Fuller I was speaking to. Then I tried to hold back a scream.

Another guy swung his window open and yelled a few choice swear words before ending with, “Dude, if you can’t sing, don’t sing. It’s the middle of the night, for Pete’s sake! Don’t make me go down there and-” He suggested something that I thought was physically impossible.

I winced slightly. It was true that Dylan didn’t have the best singing voice but it wasn’t as though he’d had the worst either. Although I felt slightly apprehension for the ass whipping, Dylan didn’t even react. What was with this guy? Annoying as hell and with skin so thick that everything just bounced off him…

Sighing, I opened the door and walked down to where the idiot was.

Stupid, stupid Fuller. Nobody named Fuller was good. And if he didn’t stop doing this kind of attention seeking stunts soon, I would be in more trouble with Calloway and Dylan, despite all his stupidity, would end up in a wheelchair...if he was lucky. Thinking this, I slowed down and studied him.

Nothing about him really stood out though his physical appearance could have been considered appealing to most girls. If it wasn’t for his personality, I would go as far as to say that he’d be kind of cute but not someone I would associate with, for the obvious reasons.

With the way Dylan Fuller had been relentlessly pursuing me, it was as though I was some sort of novelty he was eager to dabble in, a different type of girl who’d not only been uninterested in him but appeared to dislike him. Perhaps I’d only been fanning the flames with the way I’d purposely tried to avoid him. Maybe doing the opposite would turn him off?
It was a risky move but it was all I had, despite all my training.

Pursing my lips, I continued on my way down. When I reached him, he smiled lazily and asked, “What do you say?”

I couldn’t bring myself to smile at him as I replied but I tried anyway. “Sure, why not?”

Dylan didn’t seem as surprised as I thought he would be. In fact, his smile didn’t even falter. This surprised me. He had been more calculating than I thought he could be during the Jane episode but I didn’t expect that he would’ve expected me to give in to him. Either his ego was so inflated that he expected all girls to fall for his ‘charms’ (and that seemed possible) or that he knew me so well that he knew about how I didn’t like the limelight (I hated to admit this, but it seemed likely as well).

A shiver ran down my spine.

“I’ll see you soon then.” Dylan took a few steps, bent down (when did he become so tall?) and smiled. I backed away, unable to shake the feeling that he knew more about me than I cared for him to. Then I tried to grin back, to appear like a girl that would like him and agree on a date rather than one that was starting to think that she was out of her depth. As though enjoying the turmoil within me, his smile morphed into a smirk.

My voice shook slightly as I replied, “That’d be nice.”

He didn’t look as though he believed me but he didn’t say anything. Then he went back to pack up his things, shot one last sunny smile at me and then went back to our dorms.
I stayed rooted, trying to convince myself that I had nothing to worry about, least of all our date because unbeknownst to Dylan Fuller, we at SITT had very few days off. If we didn’t, how would I be able to go out with him?

Yet, I couldn’t quite comfort myself with that knowledge because I’d seen his confidence behind his smirk that he knew that he had got me…

…and there was nothing I could about it.
***
A few days passed by without any drama (Dylan hadn’t sought me out as frequently as before. I wondered if this was a sign that he was cooling off because I was no longer that fascinating or because he knew that he had got me) and just when I thought things had calmed down, Tia approached me at dinner.

“Is it okay if I speak to you for a bit…um…Christina, is it?”

I nodded and carefully chewed on my fries (the food had been getting better here…). I didn’t know why she wanted to speak to me but I might as well grab the opportunity to find out more about her weird relationship with Luke and Dylan’s father, who turned out to be her godfather.

She took a seat opposite me and her eyes darted nervously around the cafeteria, afraid to be caught sitting here with me. “You’re a good friend of Luke’s?”

I shrugged, taking a big bite out of my burger so I could avoid answering her question. I wasn’t sure if I honestly had a friendship with Luke Ouverson because there was still something about both Luke and Dylan (they were like a package deal) that struck me off as out of the ordinary. It drove me crazy, of course, to be unable to figure out the puzzle and seemed to me that if we were truly good friends, I wouldn’t have so many doubts about their origins.

In any case, I didn’t think Tia needed to know so much.

“I guess I should be…blunt then.” Tia leaned forward, looking at me earnestly in the eye. “Are you dating Luke?”

I stared at her. Then I said, “No. I’m not.”

“Oh.” She turned very red, embarrassed at her mistake. “I’m sorry. I just assumed…you guys seemed really close that day.”

“No… We’re not.”

Tia smiled, her whole face lighting up. Without meaning to, I smiled back at her, unable to stop myself. She seemed to be a pretty genuine and open person; her expressions were easy to read and her motivations even easier.

The girl loved Luke.

“If you don’t mind me asking…how did you two get engaged?”

It was as though an eclipse occurred, blanketing the sun and its warmth—the unwillingness she approached this was obvious. “It was a stupid wish of mine.”

I waited for her to elaborate but she didn’t. Feeling as though it would be cruel of me to press her (and this was a first for me), I didn’t say anything else and continued to eating.

“I was 5 years old when Luke was first adopted. We were good friends first and I guess…it was the natural order of things for me to have a pathetic, childish crush on him by the time I was eight. For my birthday that year, the day I turned nine, I threw a birthday party for myself and wished for something I really shouldn’t have… I wished, like the dumb little girl I was, to be married to Luke. Needless to say, once my lovely godfather got that idea in his mind, he refused to let it go and here we are today, the fantastic couple.”

I had stopped eating half way and now that Tia was done speaking, I didn’t know what to do. The best reaction for any normal girl to have was probably horror but I couldn’t quite fake it. It was true that the situation seemed a little bleak but I’d seen girls in worse situations before. So, instead, I asked, “Is that why Luke seemed so pissed off that day, when you told us about the engagement being brought forward?”

“You could tell that he was pissed? I mean…usually, he hides it pretty well. That day was actually pretty mild.”

Pretty mild? Having never seen Luke truly angered before, maybe it was mild for him. But to me, it definitely wasn’t. “It seems to me that he’s just blaming you for something that was out of your control.”

Tia had been taking a sip out of her juice but then she spat half of it out. Luckily, none of the juice landed on me. Her cheeks stained red, from embarrassment (how…cute), she grabbed a few serviettes and furiously wiped the table. When she was done, she lifted her brown-eyed gaze and asked me, in a tone that conveyed wonder, “How is any of this not my fault?”

“Firstly, it’s kind of typical to want a Prince Charming when you’re kid and it appears that you got the idea that Luke was kind of yours. Hence, you wanted to marry him. It was perfectly acceptable kid behavior though…uh…you were a little more serious about it than most kids, I guess.”

Her entire face heated up until it resembled a giant bowl of strawberries but she didn’t interrupt me. So I continued, “Secondly, I’d think that it was mostly Dylan’s jackass of a father’s fault because you were the kid. You clearly didn’t know what you were getting yourself into when you made that wish and he, as the adult, had full control of the situation. What did he do? He made you two get promised to each other like you’re some sort of native tribe with mating rituals.”

“Lastly, it’s not within your control who you like. And for you, I’d say you love Luke.”
She stared at me. “Wow. I don’t think I’d met anyone that could psychoanalyze people as well as you.”

I shrugged it off and picked up my burger to continue eating. I let Tia digest what I’d said before adding more, the part which I knew she wouldn’t like but I still had to say, “Look, I get that you have all that misplaced guilt and stuff for landing Luke into this mess but you shouldn’t let him treat you like dirt. I get that some girls like to play the submissive, secondary role around guys they like but I don’t think you’re one of them. Letting him step all over you and dismiss you like that day is plainly and simply wrong. You can’t just let him do that to you, even if you love him; you’ve got to stand up for yourself.”

“It’s not that I let him step all over me.” I arched my eyebrows at her but she refused to back down this time. “I just get uber shy around him, so much that I don’t know how to act so I become my stupid nine year old self again…getting all embarrassed and hurt around him.”

I had nothing to say to this so I kept quiet instead.
***
If I had been thinking clearly at that point of time, I never would have conseulled Tia like that. I didn’t even think that I had that kind of advice (emotional type, I mean) in me.

And I can’t believe that I’m still thinking about that while I’m bugging the Principal’s office. Not that I actually wanted to be doing this. It was more like a practice session for me, to see how fast I could get in and out of the place. Most of the conversations I’d hear in the office would be boring, in any case, but this was the only place I could think of that was remotely challenging.

As I continued to berate myself, I heard the door click open.

Immediately, my eyes darted to the only safe spot in the office and went to the supplies closet, which Principal Lee never used. I evened my breathing until it was barely noticeable and waited.

“-and I wouldn’t be in this pathetic excuse of a school if I could’ve helped it.”

How curious. Although the Agency hadn’t let any of the authorities know that I was there, I’d managed to read up on most of the administration’s files and from what I knew, Lee was a bit of an egomaniac and craved respect. Who was allowed to speak to Lee in such a manner?

“I’m sorry, Mr. Fuller.”
“You’d better be.”

Fuller…as in Dylan Fuller speaking to Lee in that tone? Somehow, I couldn’t quite picture it myself. Cracking the door open as silently as I could, I peered at the office. True enough, Dylan sat casually opposite Lee, who was moping his forehead with a handkerchief.

“I know my father expected me to be…disciplined here but I don’t think he’d envisioned boot camp.”
“Are you sure, Mr. Fuller? I mean, he checked our curriculum before deciding-”
“I’m certain.”
“Oh. Uh. What would…you like me to do to appease you then?”
“I’m not sure that is nothing you can do.”

There was a slight pause as that sunk in. I couldn’t see what expression Dylan wore as he said this but I supposed it had to be something sinister for Lee began to sweat profusely and he stammered, “Oh…But…I’m certain that…there has to be something…. Isn’t there?”
“Come to think of it, there might be.”
“What is it? We at SITT would do anything.”
“I know. You guys did a good job with improving the food.”

Dylan did that?

A small, proud grin developed on Lee’s face. “Thank you. That is high praise.”
“Oh, you’re welcomed.”
“Well, what is it that you like us to accomplish, Mr. Fuller?”
“I would like us to have more days off actually.”
What? Did this have something to do our ‘date’?
“I’m afraid..that wouldn’t be a..it wouldn’t be possible.”
“Why?”
“You see, most parents do have an idea what they’re sending their children-”
“Oh cut that out, Lee. You should know that I’m not here to hear that load of shit.”

I don’t know why I was stunned to hear that Dylan was swearing in front of the principal. After all, he was meeting Lee in secret to discuss about his demands, which if I wasn’t delusional, Lee had met already. And he was doing so because he wanted a date with me.

Holy freaking crap.

“I’m certain you know what my father’s capable of when angered.”
Lee turned pale and he stood up. “You wouldn’t…”
“I will if I’m pushed.”
“Fine, I will see what I can do about that.”
“Thank you and please make it as soon as possible.”

Just as Dylan got up and was about to leave, Lee added, “Please send my regards to the Maf-”

“Yes, I will.”

Then the pair of them got up and left.

I stayed in the supply closet. I knew what Lee had just been about to say and now I knew why he was so frightened. As a matter of fact, my own heart was hammering in my chest. I was only able to be so logical because my brain was slightly cut off, too stunned to actually absorb anything. (Let alone the fact that now I knew that Dylan’s father, Tia’s godfather, Luke’s uncle was in fact the man I was running away from.)

The word Lee was about to say?

Mafia.