Whoever Carter Thorne spends his time with is none of my business.
He is not mine.
He will never be mine.
With a sigh, I pick up the touch-screen tablet that controls all the settings in my suite, from lighting to housekeeping requests to thermostat to speaker volume. I adjust the temperature, bumping the heat up by a few degrees. There’s an undeniable chill in the air that hints at the coming winter. October is slipping away already, the ever-shortening days punctuated by breezy afternoons that kick up leaves into colorful vortexes. On warmer days, I sit out on my terrace watching them spin around the courtyard, but today I’m bundled in an ultra soft cashmere sweater with the doors and windows shut tight.
I press another button and the strains of a familiar song begin to drift though my overhead speakers:Everybody Wants to Rule the Worldby Lorde. It’s become somewhat of a personal anthem, these past two weeks — bolstering me even in my darkest moments, when the castle walls start closing in around me.
Welcome to your life, there’s no turning back…
I close my textbook with a bang and stretch my arms overhead with a low groan. Four straight hours of psychopharmacology definitely warrants a study break. My eyes are tired, but it feels good to be focused on real lessons again. Learning something that actually matters instead of the proper curtsey height or the steps to some tedious waltz.
Sorry Lady Morrell.
She still drops by each day, putting her best efforts into making me a proper princess. I force a smile on my face and go through the motions, but I think we both know my heart is no longer in it. Any incentive I had to please Linus with my progress went away the minute I learned that he’d already sealed my fate. Stolen my future. Seized even the illusion of free will from my grasp without an ounce of remorse.
It’s strange — you do not fully appreciate the freedom of choice until it is snatched away from you like breath from your lungs after a sharp fall. You take your future for granted as you do the presence of stars in the sky up above you each night. All those endless possibilities stretching out into infinity, each brighter than the last.
But when the clouds pull in and the galaxies fade from the view of your faulty mortal eyes... you find yourself alone in the prison of your own darkness, inconsequentially trapped by a circumstance far beyond your own conception.
A captive in moonless haze.
A shackled girl in a shining crown.
Recognizing the pessimistic spiral of my own thoughts, I force myself to leave my bedroom and seek out a distraction. Namely:Chloe. After an hour-long search that includes her private suite, the kitchens, the stables, the throne room, and the library, I finally locate her in the least likely location of all — inside the glass greenhouse at the center of the courtyard, sitting cross-legged on the slate floor amongst the many flowering pots, an electric yellow bong resting in her hands.
“Yo,” she says when I walk in, her voice scratchy from smoke.
I plunk myself down beside her. “What are you doing in the greenhouse? It took me forever to find you.”
She shrugs. “No one ever comes out here — especially not Octavia. She’d never risk getting dirt on her perfect designer wardrobe.”
I look pointedly at the Louboutin boots on Chloe’s feet, their cherry red soles on full display.
“Yeah, I know. Pot, meet kettle.” She smirks. “ButIdon’t mind getting a little dirty. That’s the difference.”
She takes a big hit from the bong before extending it my way.
I shake my head. “Can’t. I have more studying to do later.”
“You’ve spent the past two weeks with your head buried in those books.” She squints at me curiously. “Almost like you’re trying to avoid something.”
“What!? No, I’m not.” My heart pumps harder. “I’m just trying to catch up on everything I’ve missed these past few weeks. Thankfully, my professors were very understanding when I contacted them about make-up assignments.”
Chloe snorts. “Um,obviously. They’re not going to give a failing grade to their bloody Princess. You could probably blow off the rest of your semester and still graduate with honors.”
“That’s not the point.” I sigh tiredly. “I actuallylikepsychology. Ilikelearning. Ilikereading case studies and going over treatment options. And if my diploma says magna cum laude, I want it there because I earned it. Fair and square, not because of some nepotistic obligation or backwards show of patriotism.”
“Nerd.”
“Yes. I am. Unapologetically.”
“Not to be harsh, but I still don’t see why you’re bothering. You’ll be a bit busy running a country — I doubt you’ll find much occasion to use your degree. ” She pauses. “Unless it’s to confirm Octavia’s narcissistic personality disorder, but I’m not sure we really need a bonafide doctor’s diagnosis for that.”
I laugh, but it’s unconvincing. I know Chloe is right: I’ll never practice psychology. I’ll never help anyone. I’ll never have any career at all, except the one that comes with a crown attached.
I will become the tiara-wearing airhead I once mocked.