Chapter 4 - The Last Straw
Pacifica smiles, still blushing, and holds her phone close to her chest for a moment before putting it back in her pocket. One of her friends, noticing her odd behavior, inquires "Who was that?"
"Oh," she realizes they might, in fact, have some clue what's going on, "No one, just a... an old friend. He uhh... needs to see me."
They both reply with an "oooohhhh" like there's somethin' goin' on.
"Come on, what's his name?"
Pacifica, in denial, replies, "Pssh! It's... It's not... No! I um... I gotta go!"
She runs out of her mansion to get away from her friends for a while, sits in the garden, and begins calmly picking flowers.
"Well, Pacifica," she thinks to herself, "you've finally found someone who wasn't hand-picked by your parents because he's the heir to some throne or something. This is real. I am real." Her thoughts suddenly become audible, as she shouts, "I AM REAL!"
Her father, sitting in a chair facing a mural depicting a large monocular triangle overlooking a burning city (modern art, perhaps?), calls to her, fuming.
"Pacifica, honey, what's gotten into you?! We use our indoor voices indoors and outdoors! You know that! You don't know who might be watching."
Pacifica turns around slowly, looking back through the window at her father, appearing to have finally snapped, and shouts, "I DON'T CARE WHAT PEOPLE THINK OF ME, DAD!" She calms down, "There's more to life than that". She brushes herself off, looks back and forth, and promptly runs off the premises.
Her father calls after her, ringing his bell. "No, honey, wait!" He gives up after a few moments as the butler offers him a drink, and sits back down.
"She'll be back. She has nowhere else to go."
The butler appears irritated, but changes expressions quickly as his employer looks back up at him.