Page 118 of Prince Charmless
“Yes,” I say, cracking my knuckles. “Because everyone seems to have nothing better to do than ruminate over my love life.”
He snaps his neck towards me. “This is important, Taylor. Your whole life, I’ve let you play the field and...and experiment knowing you’re smart enough to be careful, but you’re thirty now. It’s time to settle down, don’t you think? Your grandmother is getting old. She would like to see you hitched, or, hell, an heir or two before she passes. Something to show her that this centuries-old institution she’s dedicated her life to is in safe hands after she’s gone.”
“Experiment?” I smirk because that’s a funny word for it. Like the way people figure out if they like dick or not is by having sex with a couple of guys first and then mulling over the decision afterward.
He lets out an indiscernible sigh. One I felt disdained by as a teenager, but have come to feel apathetic towards now.
“You’re on the right track,” he says before I leave. “Marry a girl who’s smart enough to know it isn’t all jewelry and dresses.”
I turn back around. “How could you ask someone to change their entire life for you and not feel like the most selfish man on the planet?”
My mother hated all that fame brought. Paparazzi, large crowds, pomp and circumstance. She never complained around Tom or me, of course, but it was obvious it drained her. She was probably living a peaceful and inconspicuous life before my father shoved her into the spotlight.
Dad’s brows furrow in offense. “It wasn’t a decision. She was the one God chose for me, and it wasn’t going to be anybody else.”
“God?” I whine agnostically.
“Yes, son,” he says. “God.”
No. Not happening. If I were to marry someone and throw them into my dysfunctionally functional family, it’d have to be for a good reason. Being compelled by my own enjoyment or theHoly Spirit would not be included. There would have to be some other particularly definitive logic.
“Why did Mom change her mind?”
He shrugs and answers my question with a single word. “Love.”
On any other day, I might’ve rolled my eyes at the predictable cheesiness from my hopeless romantic of a father, but for some reason, at this very moment, I find his response and my mother’s reasoning more than definitively logical.
What has she done to me?
38
Melina
My gaze into the empty, yet comforting white void gets interrupted when my fridge beeps at me. It doesn’t like it when it’s open for too long. Maybe I’ll have nothing for lunch. Food hasn’t tasted very flavorful for the past three days anyway.
I close the door and come face-to-face with the magnet Taylor gave me in Cape Cod.
You light up my life.
I straighten the plastic until it’s perfectly straight.
Popcorn weaves between my ankles, then meows at me as if to askWhy are you doing this to yourself? Just text him back and everything will be fixed. Look at you, fussing over the stupid magnet while your apartment is a mess, and my litter box needs emptying. You’re an absolute freak, Melina.
Admittedly, my hovel has been in a bit of disarray as I’ve spent most of these last three days horizontal. I haven’t found the energy to do something about the clutter. I can barely focus on work or sleep. My sketchbook is filled with incoherent pros and cons lists and abstract sketches Mateo proudly called ‘serial-killer art’. The one spot of life in my apartment is the peonies on my end table. I didn’t find a note when they were delivered yesterday, but I know they’re from him.
What Popcorn doesn’t understand is that everythingwon’tbe fixed. Probably because she’s a cat and her brain is small. While Taylor and I haven’t been together that long, something about him feels all too comfortable. I’ve been in love enough times to know what it feels like before it happens. I can tell when things are brewing, like when it’s about to storm, and you can smell itin the air. My entire life would change if we were serious. Even if we didn’t get a happily ever after, I’d be forever known as the prince’s former lover. And if we did work out, well, that would somehow be more terrifying.
I spent two months ignoring these anxieties. Two months of spontaneity! When a person tells you about their two-month relationship, it’s never that interesting. They tried something new, and it didn’t work out. Who cares? With three months, there’s more intrigue. You think,I wonder what happened there. That’s a whole one-fourth of a year to be spending together.Two months is casual. Three is something more. So now’s a good time for me to weigh the consequences. That and I’ll explode if I don’t.
When my apartment’s intercom buzzes, I blink a few times. It suddenly feels like I’ve been staring at the same tree across the street for the past hour.
I press the button beside my door. “Hello?”
“Ms. Ramirez?” The low and serious voice crackles through my speaker.
“Yes?”Is this more flowers?
“Your presence has been requested at the palace.”
