Chapter 56: Resolving to Return
Sarah reached her room and burst into tears. It had all been too much, she thought. In addition to the academic pressures of getting all of her senior projects in and studying for finals, there was Jareth flying in (literally) and sweeping her off her feet with his declarations of love, the grandeur of his lifestyle, and dangling her childhood dreams in front of her eyes. All she had to do was reach out and take them, and she had.
…Only to find that her childhood dreams still had grownup responsibilities attached. Now her final exams, which had loomed monstrously in her future, had faded into near-insignificance compared with her wedding and her learning to be a queen. She shook her head. "What am I doing?" she asked herself aloud.
"Are you asking me?" asked her bathtub from the next room.
Startled, Sarah laughed in spite of her misery. "No, I wasn't. I was just talking to myself. Sorry to have bothered you."
"They say that's the first sign of cracking up," the tub supplied helpfully. "Talking to yourself, that is."
Sarah chuckled. "In my world, it's when you talk to a bathtub. When they know it's really bad is when you hear the bathtub answer back!"
"Well! I guess I don't think much of your world, then!" the tub huffed at her.
Sarah smiled sadly, her mind wandering back to the problem of Jareth. She should have known it was too good to last. He hadn't been "Jareth" for days on end, now; he was so wrapped up in preparing her for the role of queen that he hadn't once left aside his own role as king for what seemed like a very long time. It was his formal role, too—there hadn't been any more searing kisses or dual entendres or anything more than a fleeting touch, a quick brush of his lips on her hand, ever since they returned from Daxon's wedding.
Perhaps now that he'd won her, he didn't have to put his energies toward wooing her anymore, she thought bitterly. Maybe they'd better call it off so she could get back to her "real" life Above. It would be good to get back into the swing of things, she told herself with a false cheer. Gearing up towards graduation, looking for a "real" job (never mind that she would have been a queen; she pushed that thought out of her mind)… and she'd see her father and Toby again. That part was good.
The light faded as she brooded, and when the candle on her dressing table lighted itself with a spark, she jumped in surprise. Right, then. Time to go find Jareth and ask him to send her back.
Never mind that leaving him would tear her heart out.