Diary of a Reluctant Ruler

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The next day the full weight of everything I had done fell onto my head. I had made an idiot of myself in public, several times; run away without a thought to my own safety or anybody else’s feelings; and probably damned my chances with James forever. Again, I felt like I’d reverted to my childhood years and stolen from the cookie jar. Although that was never quite a problem in my childhood, as Madeleine simply gave them to me… I was a little chubby at three.

I think we need to call home.

Ditto.

They yelled. A lot. First my mother. Then my father. I prepared myself for my grandma to yell the same thing for a third time, but it never came.

“Meredith,” she whispered, leaving the room where my parents were, “Take your time love. I know how you feel.”

“What?” I gulped, trying to stifle my nose which was running like a tap at twice the speed of my eyes, which were leaking in a miserable fashion.

“I know how you feel Meredith,” she repeated.

“You had an arranged marriage,” I choked out.

“Well, yes, exactly!” She said, still speaking in a lowered voice, “Meredith, an arranged marriage is about obeying the public’s expectations. I had terrible trouble coming to grips with marrying your grandfather. Then when I finally figured out that I could love him I felt like that was treacherous and he might not return the feeling. I was lucky that he did. You’re under a tremendous amount of pressure to live up to the public’s ideal of a Queen, and yet you haven’t got the comfort of having everything arranged for you. If anything you’ve got it worse than me. But I understand that pressure, and I know you need time to work this out for yourself. I’ll bring your mother round.”

“But Grandma, I don’t know how to work this out,” I moaned, “I’ve been trying to work it out for nearly a month now, and it still doesn’t make any sense.”

“When in doubt, make a pie chart and-”

“-list pros and cons,” I chimed in.

“Your grandfather knew what he was talking about,” Grandma replied, “Talk it out with Jade. She’s got a sensible head on her shoulders.”

“Okay,” I sniffed, “Thanks Gran.”

“Please, just because I’m being sympathetic doesn’t mean you can call me Gran. Makes me sound a hundred,” Grandma grumbled on the other end, “Oh, your mother’s coming out. Do you want to talk to her again?”

“I’d rather not,” I replied, thinking back on the last ten minutes of shouting which she’d seen fit to bring upon me.

“I’ll pretend you’ve gone. Bye Meredith dear.”

The line clicked and went dead.

I gulped and grabbed some tissues. With two stuffed up my nose I looked a little quizzical so I simply quenched the flow as much as I could and then began to set up on the hotel room’s small desk. The back of a menu and ‘do not disturb’ hanger served for paper, and a quick search of the drawers turned up an old broken biro.

“Jade?” I called softly, afraid she was still asleep. She was, so I left her there.

Right… pie chart.

What type of pie?

Not that sort of pie, idiot head.

Fine, but I vote apple.

A few hours later, room service knocked on the door with fresh towels, and Jade stumbled out of the bed to find me immersed to the neck in paper. Having quickly wasted my menu and door hanger, I’d popped down to reception and returned with a whole back of A4 and several sheets of A3, plus three board pens and a pack of blue tac.

A little OTT…

The resulting overflow of paper allowed me to brainstorm in such a ferocious fashion that my thoughts were left in a completely random albeit external manner. Jade came in just in time to find me crumpling the one hundred and seventy-something sheet.

“Yā!” she exclaimed, tripping over the deluge of paper.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, beginning to scribble on another sheet.

“Meredith Caramont, what are you doing now?” she asked, having accepted the towels from the maid at the door.

“Making a pros and cons list, of every option for my future life,” I sniffed, reaching for another tissue.

“Right…” she replied, “Because it sure looks like that.”

“I just, I just need to get my thoughts out straight,” I gulped, “Can, do you think, could you…? I mean, if you don’t want to…”

“Urgh, come on then,” she smiled wryly, kicking clear a space of floor to sit down on, “Give me that.”

She took the pen and paper out of my loose grip.

“Pros and cons?” she asked, “Of what?”

“My future,” I replied, pulling out another tissue.

“Ok,” she said, “So list all your options and I’ll write them down.”

“Erm, right,” I said, and with a deep breath began to list, “I could go to university, I could shadow Dad, I could give up on life entirely…”

“Be serious, Meredith,” Jade prompted.

“Sorry. I could keep going out with Francis…”

So many minutes later and each option was tacked up on the wall under various categories: occupation, romantic etc. There were several silly ones – I’d decide to brainstorm my health as well. And I’d taken to drawing tiny illustrations in my need for something to do whilst Jade wrote. So the wardrobe was a little blue-tacked-up. My options, under the romantic category, were as follows:

a) Give up on men entirely.
b) Keep pretending with Francis.
c) Dump Francis and continue life as normally as possible.
d) Attempt to talk to James again.

The pros and cons were numerous. I didn’t know what to do. After a while Jade gave up on me, so I changed back into my pajamas and climbed into bed, staring at the ceiling. What I wanted most in the world was to be reconciled with James, for him to admit to loving me back and for us to continue to work towards a future together. In the world of the impossibly perfect, I wanted him to come, find me and ask me to marry him. I was willing to settle with him simply coming to find me. Hell, I was willing to settle with him just acknowledging my existence instead of ignoring me forever!

I was sick of lists. I was sick of attempting to work out my options. Whichever one I went with things went wrong. So, instead I was going to stay here in France, until something posed itself. I was going to let it walk by, instead of trying to search it out. And if it didn’t come, well, screw it. I didn’t want it. Whatever it was…

The pros and cons of being alive…

I like being alive!

Yes, but if you weren’t alive, you wouldn’t be able to feel unhappy.

I’m not unhappy.

You do have an insane ability for happiness.

Yay for happiness.

Ahem. James.

*bursts into tears* Shut up!