Midnight Princess

by Cam Johns

  Midnight Princess

  Modern Princess Collection, 7

  Cam Johns

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. You’re Getting Fat

  2. Rendezvous

  3. Play it Cool

  4. Nice Moves

  5. Feel It

  6. This Isn’t Over

  7. Did That Happen

  8. You Haven’t Heard the Last of Me

  9. Making Plans

  10. People Are Watching

  11. The Ball

  12. When the Clock Strikes Midnight

  13. In the End

  Also by Cam Johns

  About Cam Johns

  Copyright © 2020 by Cam Johns

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from copyright owner.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  thecamjohns.com

  thecamjohns@gmail.com

  Developmental Edits by: Dr. Plot Twist

  Edits by Cam Johns

  Cover Design: Touch Creations

  Prologue

  16 Years Old

  I’ve always had nightmares. Nightmares that would sometimes bring tears to my eyes from the frustration of sleepless nights. But this time it’s different. It feels real. Too real. As if brought back to a time in my life when I was a young child. Although my eyes are completely open, I refuse to move. Or at least my body refuses. My heart races as my eyes roam the darkness of my bedroom, which I still share with my two little sisters. A paralyzing need to protect them overwhelms me as the intense quiet stills my body. The piercing sounds of my heart panging against my chest are the only things I hear as I try to listen for unfamiliar sounds. I glare at the clock, seeing it’s the usual time of three a.m., and I get pissed.

  I just want to get some freakin’ sleep.

  I close my eyes, trying to shut out pretend fears that have festered in me for many years. Since I could remember, it’s always the same—the nightmare. I feel like I’m being watched… not by the mothering eyes of the woman I wish raised me, but by the angry, tormented eyes of vengeance. A vengeance I should know nothing about at the age of five. But I’ve felt that presence within me, and it has never left my side since. It looms over me like a ton of heartbreaks I hope I will never feel. Even now, ten years later, that overpowering fear has bound me in chains that keeps me to myself, taking care of my younger sisters and hiding from my mother.

  My mother.

  A term I use loosely, to say the least. She’s more like the woman who decided I was only good enough to carry in her womb for seven months and then hoped that I died from being born prematurely. But I didn’t. So I’ve been stuck with her ever since. My mother is a liar and sometimes conniving. However, one thing has always been certain: she absolutely hates me.

  My mother has always engrained within me that she wished I had died. In her eyes, being premature meant I wasn’t going to be the perfect child she thought I would be. Neither were my sisters, apparently, because they pretty much received the same torment. Torment that worsened with each drink she took.

  Until five years ago. Things changed when my grandmother convinced my alcoholic mother to come live with us in my grandparents’ home. It was then I learned what love and dedication should feel like. Could be like. They shielded us from our mother’s torturous binges and allowed us to be who we were supposed to be: kids.

  Regardless of how at ease I become, the fear never leaves my side.

  The same fear jolts me awake once again an hour later. This time, my body seems to have a mind of its own, compelling me to sit up in bed. The piercing hallway light peeks in my room through my slightly open bedroom door. I listen for noises as I stare at my sisters, who remain fast asleep in the bunk beds directly across from me on the other side of our bedroom. I slide my feet to the floor, keeping my eyes glued to my bedroom door, but there’s still no movement. Just a sense of dread and loss. Goosebumps trickle through my body. I don’t know what comes over me, but an unbelievable urge to check on my grandparents brings me to my feet, and I run out of my room. Without a second thought, I run up the stairs and straight for their room, pausing at the door. My breathing is heavy, but my movements are slow as I grab their bedroom’s doorknob. I close my eyes, turn the knob, and slightly open the door, hoping it’s just my irrational fears controlling my every move as usual.

  But it isn’t.

  My grandmother’s striking light-blue eyes stare back at me through the darkness. Tears fill my eyes as I slowly step further into the room, noticing the little teacup my grandmother drinks from every evening has tipped over.

  “Grandma,” I whisper, finally reaching her bedside, not even wanting to glance at my grandfather’s motionless body. I grab at her cold hand, dangling at the side of the bed, and drop to my knees. A loud sound pierces through my eardrums.

  The sound is coming from me. A wail burns through my soul, crumbling me to nothingness right there.

  Because I know.

  My safety … my angel … my protectors are gone. Now, I will die at the hands of my mother.

  1

  You’re Getting Fat

  Cynthia

  It’s always the same thing every night. Nothing changes. I finally fall asleep after long hours of being completely restless and feeling out of place. My head hits the pillow. Rambling thoughts subside long enough to let my eyelids become heavier than I can handle… and they finally shut. Normally, I fall asleep within minutes, but then it happens. The dream.

  A dark figure climbs into my window. But I can’t move. I’m stuck in place. Frozen. I hear the footsteps getting louder and closer as I stare at my unfamiliar surroundings. The intensity of the sound, echoing through the silence and darkness, pegs against the floor like the beat of my erratic heart, pumping against my chest. Through my chest. All I can do is stare at my tiny feet, not being able to move any of my little limbs.

  The dark, hooded figure comes close enough for me to see the bright grey eyes looming over me, glaring down at me as if to contemplate what harm can be done to a defenseless shell that can’t fight against him. Our eyes lock on each other as a smile slowly appears on the figure’s face, excited to accomplish his goal.

  My mouth seems glued shut as my muffled screams go unheard…or unnoticed. Now, suddenly aged in the dream, my eyes peer over at both my sisters, who are sound asleep in their bunk beds. I pray this intruder is only here to torture me. Take me. Do whatever to me.

  Just not them.

  They’re so young and fragile, and although I’m not much older, I’m their protector—no one else. So, I stop my muffled screams, accepting whatever turmoil I’m about to endure. The torturer’s smile widens as his hands get closer to my head as if to strangle me… getting closer. My heart pulsates rapidly, but then, I wake up startled.

  I sit up abruptly in bed, my eyes blinking in the darkness of the room. I immediately look at the window my imagined intruder entered our home through, but it’s still closed. My head slowly rotates around the room, assuring there isn’t any unwanted presence. There isn’t.

  I peer over to my sisters, who are still sound asleep. Penelope snores loud, as usual, and Charmaine snuggles with her favorite teddy bear. We’re alone.

  As I stare at the clock, which glares three a.m., I plop back on the bed, my arms sprawled wide. I hate this. I can’t sleep. I’m always uneasy, not understanding
why I consistently have this stupid dream. My best friend claims it’s because we’re always alone. With no father and our mother always out living it up, I’m left here in this small house, taking care of what my mother should be.

  My friend is possibly right. What do I know? All I know is it’s three in the morning, and I have to wake up early to get my sisters up for school, then make breakfast and lunch for them to take with them—all before I have to get myself to class.

  It’s hard to believe school has become my place of solace. A place where I get to breathe, smile, even laugh sometimes. I really only have one friend, but she’s my life and away at college, and I try not to bother her. The person that helps me to remember I’m only human and a young adult that shouldn’t be parenting at this stage in my life. But I am, and not to my own children. My sisters. Who without me, would barely have a bite to eat.

  As I lie in bed, I hear the front door of our home swing open, hitting the wooden entry table that sits behind it. My mother stumbles in, loud as usual, which automatically angers me. Her drunken stupors rarely awaken my hard-sleeping sisters, but it’s not for her lack of trying. It’s because I generally run to the door to keep the woman quiet.

  But I’m just too tired. Too done to lift a finger tonight. Besides, that shouldn’t be the job of a twenty-year-old. She’s a grown-ass woman who insists on partying until the bars close. I just hope she paid for a cab instead of driving. Bailing Mother out of jail is not fun, especially at the age of seventeen.

  I roll over in my bed, facing away from the door as her dragging feet make their way to her bedroom across the hall. But they suddenly stop. I turn my head to see the shadow of her feet under the bedroom door, as the hallway light shines through the bottom of it.

  She’s motionless as if listening to make sure we’re asleep. I watch the doorknob jiggle as her groggy mind tries to figure out how to turn the knob. She’s so damn drunk, she can’t even figure out how to open a damn door.

  The sounds of her struggle cause the girls to stir in their sleep. I immediately swing the blankets off of me, jog lightly to the door, and quickly pull it open. The light from the hall shines in our dark room as I see my disheveled, pointless mother. Her black, long trench coat is hanging, half-dangling off her body; she barely holds her purse, which drags on the floor, while her body sways back in forth, struggling to hold up her tiny weight. I step in front of her to make enough room for me to close the door quietly.

  Once I turn to face her again, she barely glares back as her glassy eyes become heavy and blink slowly. I grab her before she hits the floor, pull her arm around my neck, and walk her into her bedroom. At the bed, I place her on the mattress by turning and lying us both down.

  She sits up suddenly. She has a blank, meaningless stare as I pull the rest of her coat off. Swinging her legs on the bed, I pull her only shoe off. Because she’s lying on the cover and I’m too tired to try and pull it, I place her coat over her, and she curls up beneath it.

  “Cyn-cyndie…,” she garbles as I turn off her bedside lamp. “Cyn-thi-a.” She laughs as she tries to enunciate my very simple name, which only annoys me further.

  “What, Mom?” I huff.

  “Hew-know-why-i-drink?” she jumbles as if it were the words to an annoying song.

  I sigh. “Because you have no self-control.”

  She sobers up enough to give me that motherly death stare for getting smart, then rolls over. “I drink ‘cause-I-hate-you… all-you.”

  I stand there stunned, not because of what she said but because she admitted it. Something I suspected for a long while. She never tells any of us she loves us or does things to show she does. She doesn’t even treat us like her children. More like we’re her step-children. Never a good feeling.

  “I love you anyway, Mom.” I turn off the light and go back to bed. I lie there, thinking about her admission. Of course, like any child, I want to know why. Why doesn’t she love us or like us? What could we have possibly done as children that made her regret having us?

  I always thought it was about our fathers. Since none of us look alike, I assumed we had different fathers. Which, if I’m honest, would make perfect sense. She’s always drunk. Or at least that’s all I’ve ever remembered. If it weren’t for my grandparents, who raised me until their death four years ago, I wouldn’t be who I am now or then at sixteen: a mother with two young, teenage daughters, who also happen to be my sisters.

  I miss my grandparents terribly. They were the only two people in this world that made it a point to let me know I’m not worthless, but they’re gone now. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about them. Wish they were here with us instead of that woman. Sometimes I find myself wondering why good people always leave too early while horrible, soulless people live too long— sometimes finding ways to torture others because they hate themselves so much. And why my mother is here to do as she pleases, forgetting the three girls she gave birth to.

  But, we at least have a roof over our heads that’s paid for. A home. And that’s all that someone like me can ever ask for.

  If only I could sleep through the night. If only I could have a regular life with a regular mother. If only this weren’t my life. But it is.

  All I can do is take it day-by-day and live for my sisters, who are all I have, with the memory of a shrine upstairs and a dark figure that invades my life while I sleep.

  It’s not long before my alarm sounds, and I barely feel like I’ve blinked. Without even opening my eyes, I grab for my phone on the nightstand, ready to toss it across the room. Even my sleepy brain doesn’t let me waste so much money. I toss the covers off, swinging my feet to the floor. The sun beams through the window, blinding me as I glance over toward the sleeping girls. I swear, they’re like bricks when they sleep.

  I slip my worn, pink, furry slippers on and drag my feet out of the bedroom for a quick shower. But first, I poke my head across the hall to my mother’s room, noticing her sprawled across the bed, her hair strewn across her face and snoring louder than Penelope, if that’s even possible.

  After the horrible admission of her drunken brain last night, I don’t know why that makes me smile. In a way, it humanizes her. The hall walls are still lined with the family photos my grandmother began putting up when I was fifteen. She said she wanted me to remember this house brought more than torment. Laughter has lived within these walls even beyond the anger and resentment.

  I try to remember that every time I’m reminded my grandparents also died within these same walls.

  After running the shower, my mind flips through everything that needs to be accomplished today. Beyond my two morning classes, my part-time job at Jumping Joe’s, the coffee shop at Camelot University, I have to be back home in time to make the girls dinner.

  Ugh! I’m so tired of this. I need a break. I stand under the waterfall of the hot shower, letting my thoughts wonder about what my life could have been. Granted, I love my sisters and would die for them—I even came close once—but sometimes, I just want to be a troublesome young adult, partying and having predictable fun in college. Is that too much to ask?

  “Would you hurry up?” My mother yanks the shower curtain back, startling me, as I use my hands to cover what I can. “You still have to get the girls ready for school and out of my house so I can have some peace.”

  My lips twist as anger builds within me. She needs peace. Really? I want to snap, but I’ve never been able to stand up to my mother, not like my grandmother would. She constantly yelled at my mother for how she treated us. She was even thrown out of the house once. My mother didn’t like that very much, and she was sure to show us just how angry she was… without my grandmother knowing, of course.

  She furrows her brow, daring me to say something back to her, while I cower in hopes she doesn’t hit me. Her eyes roam up and down my body, making me uncomfortable. “You need to lose some weight. You’re getting fat.” With that, she leaves the bathroom, leaving the curtain open. Leaving
me standing there, ashamed of how I look.

  I look down at my body, feeling on the pouch-like part of my stomach as I regret the pizza I ordered for dinner last night. Did I get bigger? I lift my arms, dangling the little bit of fat giggling as I wave.

  Okay, maybe I put on a little weight… but am I fat?

  Why I let her get to me like this all the time drives me crazy, but I let her in my head every time. For some reason, I’ve always wanted her approval. Something I doubt I’ll ever really get. She always looks at my sisters and me with a slight hinge of regret, and no matter how much she tries to hide it, she can’t.

  After staring at my tiny pouch in my belly for far too long, I run into the bedroom to wake up my sisters, who are still sprawled out on their beds. I’m always so jealous of how easily they sleep. Even when I was their age, I never felt safe enough to close my eyes and just... well… rest.

  “Penny,” I whisper, swiping her long brunette hair that hides her face aside, as she sleeps on the top bunk.

  She begins to blink in the sunlight of the room, slowly stretching her long limbs. “Is it time to get up already?” She whines and slowly turns her back toward me.

  “Oh, no you don’t.” I grab her shoulder and pull her back to face me. “Get up.”

  “Okay, Mom!” she growls, knowing I hate being called that.

  I scrunch my face up. “You remember I’m your only source of nourishment.” I roll my eyes and bend down to see if Charmaine has woken up. She hides her face beneath the covers, as usual, hoping I forget to wake her. “Charlie, I really don’t have time for these shenanigans this morning. I’m running late for class as it is.” I snap the covers back to a wide-awake, bright-eyed girl with the sweetest grin.