CHAPTER 11
"Shusshhhhhhh!!!!!" I say a placing a finger on my lips.
"Your Highness, how are you?" says a deep voice
"Uncle Jeff how many times have I told you? It's either Avery or Ava for you. No Princess, no your Royal Highness. You get that?" I look into his black eyes.
Mr. Jefferson comes and sits next to me.
"Honestly not good. I don't know how everything is going to turn out over there. What if someone recognizes me? and things again go downhill and matters worsen even more. I had taken that step for a reason and what if it all goes in vain? I haven't gone through all of that for no good. I could have gone to jail for god's sake if would have got caught with a fake identity, I don't understand how in the world could I have managed it without you," I feel the plane tilt a bit. We might have taken a turn.
It feels good letting out things that you have been keeping to yourself for what feels like an eternity.
"Avery, listen to me," he pats my head in an effort to calm me down. "When I am with you no one can lay a hand on you, going to jail is not on the table. Okay child?" I nod wiping my eyes with the back of my hands.
He continues, "If you are thinking about people there recognizing you, rest assured you have been fooling people around you since past two years you have changed yourself completely. There will be no chance of them recognizing you." I keep on nodding like a small puppy.
"Have you been removing your contacts from time to time?" He asks looking at my eyes.
"Yes, I take them off most of the nights and also when Jen's not at home." I pause, touching my hair I say, "Although... my hair has gone wild I hope someday I could get them repaired." He laughs and his eyes crinkle at the sides.
This man has been my father's shadow from ever since I remember. He wasn't ready at first to take such a risk. But he did it for my father; he took me under his wing.
"I miss them terribly." I say finally.
"I know you do. They miss you too. I have seen it. Every time they ask me if I was able to track you somewhere I have to lie to them. They were miserable when you left..." Tears roll down my eyes but along with them also my longing for my parents come rolling down my cheeks.
"I know you feel bad." His face falls I think he is fighting his tears so that I have someone to lean on, remain strong.
"Did you find out who could have done this?" he asks me.
"NO. Not yet." I answer
I know. It was Nicholas.
Or so you think. My heart says. He couldn't have done this. Shut it! I think to myself.
"I think you have had enough of my melodrama for today." I say and try to smile.
"I can never ever get enough of your melodrama."
"Thank you." My laugh comes out more like a snort.
"When I sent you the message previously I thought you won't be able to make it." I tell him standing up.
"I could never disappoint the Princess. Now go to sleep you only have a few hours time with you."
"Good Night," I wish him as he leaves, feeling a bit relieved now.
As I tip toe to the bedroom I see the door is left ajar, but I had closed it. I think. Also the lights are on. There is definitely something wrong. As I enter I see Jen sitting on the bed with her arms and legs crossed, hair open looking directly at me. Is she alright? It's only 4:30 a.m. and we still have six hours of the journey left.
"Hey you need something?" I ask trying to gauge the situation.
"NO. I don't need anything," something is weird. Her tone almost scary. Is she possessed? "...but can I get you something Your Royal Highness."
"I am okay, I..."
Realization dawns upon me like someone dropped an entire bucket of ice water on my head. Your Royal Highness. She knows.
I gulp, "Jen, I can explain. Listen to me please."
Her eyes flash poison ivy.
"Why should I listen to you? When everything that came out of your mouth was a lie. I thought we were best friends but turns out the person I knew was just an illusion. The entire two years you have been pretending to be someone else. Max talked about the great Princess Avery. Nicholas mentioned her too and what did you do to them and your family? Standing there like a stone pretending you are completely clueless who they are talking about," her jaw clenches.
Ouch. That really hurt. She didn't hit me physically but her words hit me in the gut.
"You don't know what has happened and the Nicholas dynamic is completely different from this one."
"Of course I don't know coz you never told me." She stands up on the bed. "You expect me to share every detail of my life with you and what did you do hide perhaps the biggest truth of your life or maybe faked your entire reality!"
"You don't know what happened. You have no right to accuse me of being a liar. It was never my wish to leave behind my family and hide from them." I say lowering my voice, "It was never a choice."
"I have the right to accuse you, be angry with you and shout and yell at you." She says and throws a pillow at me but I catch it in time.
I know I should have told her everything long ago but right now I am feeling angry. I throw the pillow back at her and it hits her square in the face. "Goal..." I stomp out of the suite and go back to where I was sitting with Mr. Jefferson. I slump on the sofa and close my eyes. My life is becoming a horror movie. Where I have only started driving alone through a dark alley to a haunted house and things have already started taking a horrible turn.
After a while when the weight on the couch shifts, I open my eyes. Jen is sitting next to me with a bowl of ice cream. She does not speak but just stares at the blank T.V screen. I don't speak either.
Her first words are..."Tell me everything, all the details that I need or need not know. I want to hear everything."
"So you want to talk now?"
"Don't try to mock me or Nicholas will know about it."
"I do not fear Nicholas."
My words contradict my thoughts. I do fear him knowing my truth. Not because I fear him or anything but because if he gets to know everything will be ruined. He cannot know anything until my sister gets crowned as the heiress.
"Fine then, Nicholas will know tonight's happenings first thing tomorrow morning."
She stands up and starts to leave.
"You won't do no such thing." I warn her.
"Then tell me," she turns around, "I thought we were best friends, but I don't know now." Her eyes glisten as she turns around.
"We are still best friends," I try to explain her, "Nothing has changed. I still am the same person."
"NO. You are not. You are a Princess which doesn't bother me but..." I can see her fight her tears, "you hid the truth from me."
"It's all too complicated. I never thought all this could happen. That is why I was also staying away from the Wellington Inc."
She looks on...
"Can we go inside and talk?" Feeling defeated I ask her looking around to check if anyone is there around.
She nods and as soon as we get into our room I shut the door behind me. We sit across each other on the bed.
I take two deep breaths and choke on one and then start speaking, "Jen, whatever I told you about me having fallout with my parents before leaving the house is true."
"You said it was something about the inheritance," she tries to recall my words, "that you did not want but your father was adamant and said that you deserved it..."
"...but then it would have ruined everything, if had accepted it." I complete for her.
"Yes, that. I thought it must be like money or company but you never said what the inheritance was."
"It was the crown of Astéria. I was to be the crown Princess."
Her eyes widen.
"You were supposed to be what!??!!"
"Yeah," I say chewing on my lower lip.
"Then why would you run away?"
"Because... if I would have accepted the title my father would have to renounce the throne."
"Why would he have to renounce his title while all he wants to do is declare his child his legal heir?"
"I am adopted."
This is the ultimate truth. I am and will be a no one which is how I want my life to be.
"So? How does it matter?" It's difficult to talk about but I do eventually answer her. "It matters because there are some rules, some protocols which need to be followed."
"But your father must surely know them he must have thought through everything."
"Yes. He thought of everything, but my grandpa wanted me to take the role after my father it...it was his last wish."
"My father thought that it would be easy because my truth of being adopted was hidden from everyone but..."
"...it came out, didn't it?" Jen asks
I nod.
"My father... King Edward adopted me when I was merely ten days into this world and they, my mother Queen Vienna and my father got me home after a year so that everyone believed I was their own first born."
"When did you come to know about your adoption?"
"I overheard them talking when I was twelve or something."
"So they never told you and you never told them that you knew?" She asks me bewildered.
"Yeah. When all this happened two years ago they thought that I must have been shattered but the reaction was quite opposite."
"Do you know anything about your real parents?"
"Yeah I was born here in the states and my birth mother died immediately after I was born and because from what I have heard is that my biological father died in a car crash and my mother couldn't survive the shock."
I can see Jen trying to process all that I am telling her. Her ice cream now more like a chocolate shake sits on the bedside table.
"You said that your grandfather wanted you to become the crowned Princess and he knew about you being adopted?"
Where is she going with all of this?
"Yes he knew."
"Then don't you think that it is possible that he might have done something about it?"
"I don't know. Also it does not matter anymore we are going for Grace's coronation remember?" she nods absent mindedly.
"You managed to conceal yourself really well. I did not recognize you even though I had seen you almost a month before we met on the news." I laugh at this.
"Mr. Jefferson's makeover, with that blue bob and brown eyes, spectacles no one would have." I explain, "Although with my hair now black people keep on asking me if we have met but they don't exactly remember so it is easy to push that aside."
"Do you know who could have done this?" she asks me again.
"I-I think Nicholas did it." But even as I say it I don't want to believe that it is him who could have done this.
When I left two years ago I was sure it was him and all the things still point in his direction the company being transferred in his name and him being so upset these days about the coronation. He had the motive. I don't understand what to believe because my mind and heart always have two different things to say.
"You are crazy. Nicholas can't do this, he did not even know," she says confidently.
I told him. Perhaps the biggest mistake of my life.
"You don't know him the way I do."
"Really now, do you?"
"There is a huge history behind all of this."
"Of course there is," she presses her lips trying not to laugh.
"Think whatever you want. I need some sleep; things are not going to be even more crazy for me once we land." I switch off the bed side lamp and pull over the covers.
"How did you run away though?" I hear her voice in the darkness.
"I'll tell you this in a nutshell."
"Okay."
"My father was ready to go against the law made by the ministers. At first I tried to convince him to do no such thing, but he did not budge once. I had huge fight with him too. I didn't work. Therefore I changed the tact. I made him believe that I was with him in his decision and then one night I escaped. Because I thought that if were gone, there wouldn't be any crowning ceremony and hence no law breaking, no title renouncement or wars at the parliament."
I pause.
"This was the only way I could protect everyone."
She doesn't say anything but I know that she is awake.
--------------------------------
I wake up with a headache. When I turn to see outside the window the sun is up or maybe going down. Jen is nowhere in the room. I quickly get up a get dressed. When I walk out to the sitting area everyone is already there.
"Why did you not wake me up?" I whisper into Jen's ear.
"...because the princess was not ready to wake up."
"Don't do that or else... "
"Will you have me sent to the dungeons," we giggle silently.
"Care to share the joke?" Adam asks.
Our whispered conversation has gained some attention. Nicholas raises an eyebrow at us and Max looks at us dubiously.
"Girl talk, wanna hear?"
"No"
"Nah"
"Never" the guys say together as we laugh even more.
"Nicholas, can I ask you a question?"
What is she trying to do?
"What if I said a no?"
"I would still ask." Jen says shrugging.
"Then, no."
"How are you connected with the Wellington family?"
"Besides our business relations? My father and King Edward are best friends of childhood."
Yeah. That is why I had to bear with his non sense since my childhood too.
"Wow..." she says wondering. "That is something, otherwise most of the kingdoms are at silent tiffs," Jen says.
"Like them their children that is me, Max, Grace and..." he stops
"...and?" Jen prompts. She very well knows what the answer is. "No one." He says.
Max looks at his brother and shakes his head as if in defeat.
I am a no one. Yeah he is right. Then why does it sting so much? Max thinks that my absence bothers him but his words convey the opposite. Just for once before I left when I thought we could like each other but no we never did. So why does his presence or absence matters so much to me? I am not supposed to like him.
"Tell me about Grace, how is she?"
"Oh you'll know when you meet her." Max says biting into his sandwich.
My sister Grace is just like her name graceful, delicate, gentle and soft spoken and all that a proper princess ought to be. She is going to do great. I think.
"It's going to be an hour long drive to the royal palace..." Nicholas says.
"The what?" I ask horrified.
"Yeah the Royal Palace."
"W-Why are we going to the Royal Palace? Aren't we supposed to check in at the inn?"
"Who said you are going to be staying at an inn?"
"Isn't it obvious I mean... I mean won't we be causing inconvenience to the Royal Family?" I ask trying to avoid the situation.
"You don't have to worry about it."
I look at Jen but she is busy with Max and Adam talking about God knows what. Mr. Jefferson is with Will on the other side unaware of what I just heard.
I thought I wouldn't have to see them every day. But this is a whole another level. We will be staying at the palace with them for twenty four hours almost for a month a half. It's really a horror movie with the perfect setting. The plane starts shaking a little bit and the flight attendant's vice breaks through the speakers, "Dear passengers, we apologize for the inconvenience but there might be turbulence ahead due to weather conditions. We therefore request you to remain in your seats and keep your seat belts tied. We will be landing in fifteen minutes time. Thank you." The voice dies away.
Yep. The journey is indeed going to be turbulent ahead.
"You are going to be okay while the landing right?" Nicholas asks looking at me and from the corner of my eye I can see Jen looking at me.
"Yeah I guess I will be." I say not meaning my words at all. He nods and goes back to his phone.
"Stop giving those looks. You look creepy," I whisper to her.
"He cannot be the bad one. Just look at him," she tells me referring to last night when I told her that Nicholas might be the one who told the truth to everyone.
"He is and he can be." I hiss.
"We will see. I am going to find out who did this," she says decidedly.
"Good luck with that."