The Wild Heir(12)

Maybe they went out and they’re late coming back, I think to myself, trying to stay positive. I go over to the fridge and take out the gouda and sopressa plate I had made earlier, surprised to see all their cheese plates are gone. They were there this morning.

I don’t know the girls that well. I’ve been trying to for the last month but making friends doesn’t come easy to me, especially when they discover who I really am and that ship sailed the moment they found out that Jane was living down the hall.

I lean against the kitchen counter and peel back the plastic wrap I’d put over the cheese, sneaking a slice and munching on it with a defeated sigh. I’d really been looking forward to tonight. I’d been studying so much lately and just throwing myself into all my classes, and my social life has come at a cost. Now I’m trying to catch up, as is what seems to happen every school year. I just thought maybe this year, my third year, would be different.

I gather my courage and text Audrey since she’s the one who is usually the nicest to me: Hey Audrey it’s your flatmate Ella! Just wondering where you are. I thought the wine and cheese party was tonight and I fell asleep so I think I missed you.

Thankfully she doesn’t take too long to get back to me. I’m in the middle of a second piece of gouda when I get her text: Party is already happening. It’s over at Zelda’s at Hawthorne Hall. Didn’t want to wake you.

I swallow hard as I stare at the text. Ouch. The party was moved. I wasn’t told. They didn’t want to wake me up. I don’t know who Zelda is and I think I’ve been told to bugger off.

With shaking hands, I text back: Okay, thanks! I’ll see you when you get home. And then add a bunch of wine and cheese emojis.

Shit. I know I shouldn’t feel upset by all of this, but I’m always the one tagging along, never feeling welcome. There’s a reason I’ve been a loner for most of my life.

Most of it has to do with the fact that as hard as I try to be average, I’m not your average girl. My father is the Prince of Liechtenstein, which makes me a princess. Princess Isabella, to be more precise.

It's more in title than anything else. There are no kings and queens in my country and it's not a monarchy. Prince is just another word for leader and my father is the head of state, having full power along with the government. Nonetheless, I grew up as the sole daughter of the leader of a tiny European country, which means I was raised in a world that was exclusively for the powerful and wealthy.

I wasn't alone in it, not at the beginning anyway. I have three older brothers who are mirror images of my father. Our mother died when I was just three years old. Cancer. Apparently it took a long time for her to succumb to the disease, barely hanging on while the world's best doctors couldn't do a thing for her. They say my father was a different person after she died, which makes me wish I knew him before.

If my brothers take after him, I take after my mother. That's probably why, when I turned thirteen, my father sent me as far away as possible and hasn't had much to do with me ever since. I look too much like her.

Not that I haven't tried to forge a relationship with him, or my brothers. When I was all alone in boarding school in the south of England, I called and wrote all the time, telling him how well I was doing in my classes, practically begging for him to be proud of me, to acknowledge what I was doing. Here I was, a teenager with only her lady-in-waiting, Jane, as her guardian, adapting to life on her own and getting nothing from him in return except a birthday card and the annual trip back home at Christmas time.

I look at my phone, my heart feeling heavier than normal, and wish there was someone else I could call. But there isn't. There’s only Jane.

I text her: Do you want to come over? I have wine and cheese.

Jane has been my lady-in-waiting for nine years now, and the two of us are pretty close. Well, she's the closest person to me but that's to be expected. I know it's ridiculous to even have a lady-in-waiting since I'm not really a princess and the term sounds like it's been ripped straight from medieval times, but it's the rules and I guess it's more for security purposes than anything else.

Jane texts back: What kind of wine?

Any wine you want, I text her, knowing I went above and beyond for this stupid wine and cheese night and got both red and white.

Two minutes later there's a knock at the door.

"It's open," I call out to her.

The door opens and there's Jane in her fluffy leopard-print bathrobe, her dark hair pulled tight off her face except for her blunt bangs which nearly hang in her eyes. Jane is nearly sixty years old, with a round face, a big smile, and an outgoing attitude which usually makes her the life of the party in most places. With this being my third year of schooling, I know that she's the happiest here in this hall of residence than she's ever been, and I think she's living out the college days she missed out on, if only just in her head.

"You're lucky. I was moments away from putting my hair up in curlers," she says to me, shutting the door behind her. She claps her hands together and grins maniacally as soon as she spots the cheese. "Oh, what have we here?"

She shuffles on over to the kitchen counter and I step out of the way to give her full access to the cheese.

"It's just gouda," I tell her.

"Just gouda?" she repeats, looking me dead in the eye, as if I've insulted her cheese sensibilities, a slice dangling from her fingers.