by April Lust
It's not a good idea. Victoria is a princess, and that means she's going to be held to a higher standard. No matter what she does here, in Georgia, it's going to make no difference. Victoria is still going to have to get on that plane. She's going to have to finish her tour through the States. And then, when she returns home, she's going to have to get married.
Slowly, she sits up. She's careful not to move around too much, lest she wake up the slumbering biker beside her. The dress is a mess. The skirt still bears the mark of the night before, and her purse is nowhere to be seen.
It takes almost three minutes to find her high heels and the purse turns out to be sitting on the coffee table. A quick search through it reveals that everything is right where it's supposed to be.
This is for the best, thinks Victoria. I have to make choices, and they have to be good ones. Last night...was not a good choice.
She debates, for a moment, about leaving a note.
In the end, she decides that the best thing to do is just leave. This isn't right. She cannot do this to Matt. She cannot do this to her parents. More importantly, she cannot do this to herself.
All of her life, Victoria has craved freedom. More than that, though, she's craved love. That's what she's fighting her mother for, after all: love, not a cheap fling from a bar.
Victoria takes a deep breath. She smooths down the front of her ruined skirt and steps out into the flickering, fading light of the apartment hallway.
There's a dog sitting outside of one of the nearby doors. It's a large thing, with wide eyes and gray fur around his eyes. Victoria smiles at the thing; she's not allowed to have a pet due to her father's rather severe allergies.
As such, she resists the urge to pet it.
Again, another sacrifice made for her parents. Victoria wonders aloud, “Do they even know how much they ask of me?”
Of course, no one answers her, and she has no choice but to make her way down the stairs on her own. A gray-haired man has settled in behind the front desk. He glances up at her when she walks into the lobby and gives her a nod. “Morning. Need anything before you go?”
“Directions would be nice,” admits Victoria. “I had a friend drive me here last night, and I'm not entirely sure how to get back to my hotel.”
“Where are you staying?”
Victoria gives the man her address. He types a few things into the computer, keyboard clack clacking beneath arthritis twisted fingers.
Finally, he nods. “All right. You good with your memory, or do you need me to write it down?”
“No,” says Victoria. “I'm good at remembering.”
# # #
The walk back to the hotel seems more like a walk through a battlefield. It's longer than she expected. By the time she gets to the front lobby, there's going to be no way to avoid her parents, partly because the sun is up in the sky by now and partly because her father is standing there.
His face is red with anger. One fist slams down onto the front counter, successfully terrorizing the poor woman working on the other side. Her hair is hanging out of her bun. The name tag on the front of her gray shirt reads Marta.
“Father,” gasps Victoria. “What are you doing?”
Her father, Daniel, spins around. He looks livid. “Victoria? Victoria! Where have you been? No, I don't want to know! Not right now. Come here.”
Victoria pauses. Her lips draw into a thin line. “Father, quit bothering that poor woman. Why would she know anything about where I've been?”
Daniel sputters for a moment. He points one shaking finger at the hallway. “Go. Go to your room and wait there while I find your mother.”
“Father—”
“Now,” he hisses.
Victoria finds she has no choice but to listen. The hallway is empty. Her bedroom door is sitting partially open. She steps inside, eager for a few minutes to get herself together before the unavoidable meeting with her mother.
She slips out of her dress and changes into something more presentable. The cream and pale pink gown she chooses is her mother's favorite. Victoria hopes it might help sway her mother's mood.
“Victoria,” screeches Gabriella as she floats into the room. Her hair is a mess. She's still wearing her dressing gown from the night before. “Heavens, girl! What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking I didn't want to spend all night here,” says Victoria, firmly. Then, in a softer voice, she adds, “But I should have left a note so you didn't worry.”
“Worry? Worry? Victoria, we thought you'd been taken!”
“I went out for a drink, Mother! That's it!”
Gabriella gasps, recoiling as if she's been slapped. “Drinking? Victoria!”
“It's the truth, Mother. That's what happened,” says Victoria firmly. “I'm not a child anymore. I'm not here to just be your little dress-up doll and do whatever you and Father say. I wanted to go out, so that's what I did.”
“I've had enough of this,” says Gabriella in a low voice. “Victoria, I've had enough of your disobedience. You say you aren't a child, but that's exactly how you act! To think running off like that is okay, that endangering yourself is okay, that's how a child behaves!”
Victoria bites her tongue. There's so much more she wants to say, but it's pointless. Her mother isn't listening.
Her mother never listens.
# # #
They leave first thing the next morning. Victoria is kept at her mother's side the entire trip. She is given no privacy, not even when they land on the ground and head to their next hotel. This one is a scheduled affair, the sort with a chauffeur and room service and marble floors.
Rather than enjoy the luxury of the building, Victoria finds it almost stifling. The young princess really hadn't been lying when she called Matt's apartment quaint—it was cute, real in a way this sort of place isn't.
When she was a child, Victoria loved trips like this. She would race through the halls like each new hotel was a fairytale castle of her own creation. There was wonder in every new crevice, in every new room.
Now, she finds it sterile.
With a sigh, she sits a little less than straight in the soft cushioned chair. Beside her, Gabriella scowls. “Don't slouch.”
“I'm not slouching.”
“Victoria, don't argue with me. You've already done enough damage by running off. So, please, try to act like a proper lady for once.”
Indignant, Victoria sits up, spine snapping straight. “Excuse me, for once?”
“For once,” repeats Gabriella. “Raising your voice, by the by, is far from proper. Keep it at room level.”
“I'm not going to whisper,” says Victoria, painted red lips twisting into a scowl. “You're being ridiculous!”
Daniel clears his throat. He holds up the key ring from his spot at the counter. There are two silver keys dangling from it, each one labeled with white numbers. As always, they're right next to each other.
Victoria stands up with a huff and smooths down the front of her skirt. “Great. Which room is mine?”
“We're sharing a room,” says Gabriella, taking one of the keys. “Your father will have a room to himself.”
Victoria spins around and stares at her mother with wide, uncomprehending eyes. “What?”
“You heard me,” says Gabriella. “I gave you my trust, Victoria, and you broke it. You not only went out on your own, in the middle of the night, but you went drinking. Do you know what could have happened to you? What could have happened to our country?”
“The country? Be honest, Mother, that's all you care about!”
“It's not all I care about,” snaps Gabriella. “But we are the rulers there. I am the queen, Victoria, and you are the princess. Our next in line! You have to set an example for the rest of country!”
“They don't care about us! We're a washed up title,” spits Victoria. The words won't quit coming once she starts to talk. “We're nothing more than a faceplate. They do whatever they want. They do whatever the rest o
f the world wants, too! We're nothing but a laughing stock! Oh, there they go again. There go the royal family with their high-collared gowns and their last century—”
Gabriella sighs. “Is this about the dresses, Victoria? Darling, we've been over this!”
“You've been over it,” spits Victoria. She raises a hand, about to jab a finger in her mother's direction, but Daniel clears his throat again.
“Ladies,” says the King. “I feel this is best a conversation that we continue in private.”
“I feel,” says Gabriella firmly, “this is best a conversation we don't continue at all.”
Chapter 8
They don't continue the conversation, and Victoria doesn't get her own room. Not at that hotel or the next one or any of the others. She is kept under an invisible lock and key. The chain around her neck has finally been pulled taut, until there's barely room to breathe.
Victoria blames her constant nausea on the stress of suddenly being watched twenty-four/seven. The clock hands move too slowly. The trip through the States seems to stretch on forever.
Each day that passes is worse than the last. Victoria's bones feel like they don't fit inside of her body. She scrubs at her face, constantly trying to reapply concealer so the shadows under her eyes don't show.
“Hurry up,” urges her mother. “We have to be there in ten minutes.”
“I'm almost done,” assures Victoria. “Just give me another moment.”
“Victoria,” says Gabriella. “Let's go. We cannot afford to be late again.”
Victoria snorts. “You say that like I'm the reason we were late last time. That was Father's fault.”
“Yes,” Daniel says amiably. “But it's going to be your fault this time if you don't hurry. And you know how much your mother detests being late.”
With a frustrated sigh, Victoria drops the makeup into the sink. She pats her pulled-up curls one last time, turns around, and nearly falls over when a wave of dizziness hits her. Victoria stumbles sideways, grabbing onto the sink in an effort to stop herself from falling.
It works but only just barely.
Gabriella finally pulls open the bathroom door. Ignoring her daughter's indignant squawk, she says, “We're leaving now.”
“Fine,” snaps Victoria. “Let's just go get this over with.”
Daniel takes his daughter by the arm and tells her, “Just remember to smile, darling. Things will be over before you know it, and then we'll all be right back at home.”
Victoria doubts it, but she doesn't argue. Instead, she settles in for a night of miserable conversations with other dignitaries, governors, and military officers.
What a fun way to spend her early twenties. She wishes she could be like other women her age. It sounds stupid even in her own mind because she only knows other dignitaries, like herself. The only thing she knows of normal girls are the hijinks shown in the media. Obviously, neither one is a good example of how a twenty-year-old leads her life.
But Matt—she cannot get him out of her mind. The man had been free, simply put. He had been free to make his own choices, no matter how rash or ignorant they might have seemed. He had been free, and she isn't, and it's horrible.
# # #
The bitter thoughts last long into the night, right up until she's introduced to Senator Banks’ wife, Cassandra. The woman is practically glowing, and she looks to be almost five months into her pregnancy.
Cassandra holds out one gloved hand. “It's a true pleasure to meet you. My, in the presence of a true princess!”
Victoria gives the woman a small smile. Her gaze keeps going back to the bulge of Cassandra's stomach.
The woman follows her gaze and her smile becomes that much wider. “I'm hoping she grows up to be just like you.”
“She?”
“I couldn't wait,” says Cassandra with a tittering laugh. “We had the doctors tell us, soon as they could. No, this little bugger is going to be a princess, just like you.”
A princess.
The word sinks claws into Victoria's mind. She closes her eyes, draws in a deep breath, and tries not to be sick.
Just like you.
It's impossible to get a moment to sneak away. In the end, Victoria ends up paying the teenage daughter of one of the other party attendees to run out to a nearby store and pick up a package of pregnancy testers.
As soon as the girl comes back, Victoria excuses herself to the bathroom with as much decorum as she can muster. It's hard because she feels a little bit like she's about to fall apart.
It's already been a week and a half since she last saw Matt, and there has been no one before him, and there has been no one since him.
The little pink line just confirms her fears.
She's pregnant with the child of a Georgia biker. The world spins around her. Victoria slumps down onto the toilet, her gown falling around her legs like some sort of broken shield.
Broken—that's a good word to describe her right now. Victoria feels like she's shattered, like a porcelain doll that's been pushed off a high shelf, too broken apart to actually be fixed. Each breath is harder than the last, until she's hyperventilating into her own hands, and the tears won't stop falling.
Music from the main room filters into the bathroom.
The sad lyrics make Victoria's heart twist up that much more, until the tears blur her vision and her hands smear her makeup. She is not sure how long she spends in there, curled up on herself, still clutching the positive pregnancy strip.
Eventually, she pushes herself up, steeling herself, but there's no one else in the bathroom. The young princess goes over to the mirror and stares at her reflection.
It's strange, seeing that ruddy-faced girl looking back at her. She has nowhere to go and no one to turn to. But the feeling isn't unusual. She never has anyone to turn to. It's obvious, to her at least, that this is a problem she's going to have to face on her own. It's obvious there will be no fixing this with other people's help.
“It's okay,” says Victoria to her reflection. “You can take care of yourself. You can take care of this.”
She doesn't know how, but in that moment, the only thing that really matters is getting herself presentable once more. She washes her face and uses the remover in her purse to get rid of the mascara smeared under her eyes. After that, it's almost easy. There's makeup in her purse, always, and Victoria can make herself look beautiful no matter what.
She resolves, in that moment, that no one will know.
No one will ever know.
Chapter 9
At first, it's easy to hide. The dizzy spells start to fade away until only her upset stomach remains. And that has been a constant these last months.
“It's just stress,” she assures her father whenever he asks about her strange food cravings or her lack of appetite. “I'm sure things will be fine once we return home.”
“I'm sure you're right,” he says. “I'm just sorry to see my little princess feel so blue.”
“Sorry enough to give me my own room?”
“That's not my say. I'm sorry, Victoria, but what you did simply wasn't acceptable. To have you run off like that…anything could have happened! What if someone recognized you?”
“They didn't,” assures Victoria. “I'm certain.”
“But they could have,” says Daniel. “And there's just no way that your mother is going to trust you. I'm sorry. We just have to ease on like we have been until we get home.”
They're standing in the hall, ready to turn in after a night of speeches and well-wishes. Victoria's dress has a lace back. It makes her skin itch in all of the worst ways. “I cannot stay in the same room as her any longer, Father. I cannot!”
“One more week,” promises Daniel. “Just one more week, and I'll try talking to her.”
# # #
Unfortunately, that last week proves to be the worst thing that could happen to Victoria. During that week, the morning sickness kicks in. On Tuesday morning, she lurches up onto her feet
and races towards the bathroom.
Startled, Gabriella sits up. “Darling, what's wrong?”
Victoria cannot answer. Bile burns at her throat. She hits the floor of the bathroom. Her knees sting from the impact. Her throat becomes raw when she curls over the so-called porcelain throne and dry-heaves.
“Victoria?” Gabriella gets up, padding into the bathroom after her. “Are you all right?”
Victoria vomits again. She didn't have anything to eat the night before, in an effort to curb this. It's the third time this week Gabriella's caught her throwing up.
