It started out slow and advanced to a quick blow. The wind whipped the loose hair into my face. I watched as the sunset over a blanket of blue. As I watched I heard the most dreaded sound in my world. The sound of the alarm clock rang from my bedside table, alerting me that it was seven in the morning. I groaned in response as I turned over to shut it off. In the process I rolled over and fell off of the bed.
"AH!" my scream was quick, but loud. I landed with a thud and another groan. I pushed off of the ground and grimaced at the pain shooting through my left arm. It was covered with a cast from a dancing accident.
"What now, Em?" I heard my sister yawn as she walked through our rooms conjoining door and rubbed her eyes. I realized the alarm was still going off and she pushed the snooze button. "Yeah Stacie's gonna be so proud of you for falling off your bed…again." She laughed and pulled me up.
"Don't even start with her right now." I told her. Erica knew that I didn't get along very well with our new to be mother.
"She's not that bad." She told me as we made our way to my bedrooms door. She put emphasis on the word that. She didn't love her either, but she was way more tolerate of her than I was. I pushed open my door to the corridor outside as a maid walked by.
"Good morning your Majesties." She said as she curtsied and kept walking. I sighed at the name. In full my name was Her Majesty the Princess Emma Elizabeth Phoebe Tutor, daughter to the throne. Yeah throne you heard right. I am the princess of a tiny little country on the Mediterranean coast of Europe called Greshva. Weird name yeah I know.
"Ugh. Do they have to call us that?" Erica asked. She couldn't stand being called that either. We're twins and think a like, but are completely different. While she's good at most school related things and some sports, I'm a dancer who loves music, and not just listening to it, but playing it. I'm also a writer, I decided that if I was a princess I would become a journalist when I grew up.
"Anyways…what's this big surprise that Stacie just couldn't wait to tell us about?" I asked her she shrugged and slid down the stair case banister. I laughed slightly and skipped down the stairs after her. We linked arms and skipped through the kitchen where the cook just shook her head and continued to set a fire a blaze on the duck she was roasting. We skipped through the door into the dinning room and stopped dead in our tracks. The whole room was silent as soon as we entered. My father and Stacie looked up from a chart they were examining. My little brother, Max, looked up at the silence and smiled at us. He could be clueless at times, but cute and sensitive at others. I smiled warmly back at him as Erica and I sat down across from him. At the other end of the table Stacie and my father had gone back to conversing, but quietly.
"Good morning father," I said and after a longish pause "Stacie." She threw me a reproachful look and greeted me coldly. I grinned at her a mocking smile. Max and Erica stifled a giggle and I returned to my toast.
"Children, we need to talk." My father stated in a serious tone. I glanced up at him and saw that Stacie was standing behind him smirking at the three of us. She placed her hands on his shoulders and he continued forward. "We have…um…found suitors for you. You will be flown over to them and in two weeks times you'll be married." My mouth had dropped at the word suitor.
"I'm seventeen!" Max exclaimed as we nodded in unison.
"And we're only eighteen!" Erica said motioning to herself and me. I nodded again speechless. I shook my head and we all three threw back our chairs. I stormed out of there with them right behind me. I ran up the back stairs and fell onto my bed crying. My phone rang from next to me and I looked at the screen. It was my big sister, I mean from the big sister little sister program, Denise.
"Sweety what's up?!" she basically yelled into the phone. She was forty something, but acted like a teen. I sniffed loudly before trying to reply. She heard the sniff and stopped me midsentence. "What happened?" she was all serious now which made me feel safe talking to her.
"They found me a suitor." I said through the phone. "I'm getting married in three weeks. I don't even know who he is!" I yelled into the phone.
"Okay sweetheart just call it off at the alter, just say I don't." she told me. We discussed it for a little while longer until Erica came knocking at my door. "Love you sweety. We'll figure something out." She said and we hung up.
"Come on, Max and I are letting off steam on the four wheelers." She told me and dragged me outside. "So how's Denise?" she yelled over the engines.
"Fine. She says hi." I told them both. My parents didn't know about Denise and none of us planned on telling them.
"Good. Now let's go before Stacie catches us." Stacie hated these things. They were loud and dirty. We sped off and went off road onto the field surrounding the castle. I turned around and went to the shop to grab my phone which I left there. When I got there Stacie was there waiting for one of us to return.
"What in hell do you think you're doing?! Huh!" she yelled as I turned off the thing and sat there staring at her with no emotion on my face. "Answer me you worthless child." I just sat there and let her go off on her rant. "You don't deserve the crown. Your not perfect enough for it." Yeah she believed in perfect.
"When are things gonna be good enough for you." I yelled as she started to walk away. She froze and turned back towards me.
"What?" she asked with a horrid look on her face.
"You heard me! When are things gonna be good enough for you?! Huh!" I yelled as she walked slowly back towards me. "When you've got my family's money? When you can officially order me around and I have to do it? When you're queen? When you can get the Botox I heard you setting up an appointment for? When you're the pretties person in the world?!" I yelled at her as she brought her hand down hard upon my cheek slapping across the face.
"You're worse than I thought. If anyone deserves that crown it's me and I'll be the best queen this countries ever had." She said looking at me with daggers in her eyes.
"You won't be even a finite of the queen my mom was." I stated lowly.
"Why, you insolent little brat! How dare you talk to you're mother like that." She said I clenched my jaw at her calling herself my mother.
"You're not my mother!" I yelled in her face. She slapped me across the face once more before storming out off towards the castle. I stepped down from the vehicle and grabbed my phone. She had gone towards the front of the castle so I ran towards the back door. The cook looked at my swollen cheek and gave me an icepack. I sat at the table and held an icepack to my face. The cook scolded me about getting into a fight, and asked who I had a fight with, but I wouldn't tell her. She just sighed and sent me up to my room to get ready for the ball. I walked up quickly and stripped off my clothes. I pulled the orange dress up and had Erica zip it up for me.
The dress was orange, with no straps. The bodice had orange rhinestones on it and the skirt was just plain. I pulled my black hair partway back and clipped it with a butterfly pin. I curled it and brushed eye shadow over my eyelid. It was orange and went well with the fair completion I happened to have. I watched as Erica straightened her hair and left it down.
As she finished and sat down in the chair across from mine the door opened. Max came in followed by Stacie. I rolled my eyes as Max sat down on my lap. He was only a year younger, but we still loved to sit on each other and do things you would do with a four year old.
"Well Erica you look fine, Emma…you just look like your self. I'm not impressed." She said I glared at her and so did Erica and Max. "Your suitors are here tonight. You're father and I will be leaving tomorrow for France for the next couple of week. We won't be at the weddings and we won't be seeing you for a while say bye to him tonight." She said and turned to leave. She purposely hit the dresser sending my picture of my mom, Max, Erica, and I to the ground where the glass shattered. I gasped as she turned around. "Oops, sorry did I do that?" she asked innocently, but with a wicked twist to it. "Oh I also had the portrait of your mother brought down and burned. It was old and dusty." She said laughing and exited the room.
I patted Max's leg and stood up. I walked over to the picture and took it out of the frame. I folded it up and placed it in my bra. It's a girl thing. I grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and started to write something. Erica and Max leaned over my shoulder as I wrote and Erica gasped. It read:
Dear Father,
I can not stand it here anymore so I'm going away. I might be abandoning the throne, but not for long just until I can think thing through. I love you, but Stacie is making you someone you're not. I hope you can see the truth in this letter, I'll miss you,
Love always,
Emma
"But we need you!" Max exclaimed. I shook my head no.
"No you don't. Max when I fell and tore my rotator cuff who carried me? You." I told him. "It would be nice to stick together, but I can't stay here." I told them throwing pants and underwear from a drawer in a suitcase. I moved on and pulled out my shirts and bras. Shoes came next then toiletries.
"Then we'll come with you." Erica said and I stopped my packing. They signed the letter and rushed off to their own rooms. I smiled at the thought of having such great siblings, who always stuck together. We were kind of the picture perfect siblings I guess you could put it.