The Four Seasons of Michael (Princess Diaries Fanfic)

Autumn: September (1)

As optimistic as I have felt on the plane, that is how pessimistic I feel now.

Looks like she meant her words and that kiss, despite my trying to convince myself otherwise. And I want to believe her, still. I want to believe this is just a chaos and she doesn't really know what she's doing, but the evidence is making me think she is completely aware of her actions.

There was an email waiting on me when I turned on the phone after passing customs, and when I saw her name, that torn feeling was back – the love I feel for her, the anger, the fear and the urge to turn around and fly back, sort this thing out.

Michael, I am sorry, the words she has written echo in my mind as I get a taxi and drive to my place here in Tsukuba. I hear her voice in my head saying those words as I watch the streets, the people, the city that will be my home for the next year.

I might just buy it, I might just forgive her everything in a blink of an eye, if there wasn't something else waiting on me in my inbox.

Lilly had emailed me a link to an article in the New York Post.

'Heartbroken Princess Finds New Love'. Splitsville no longer. Michael Moscovitz, the commoner. John Paul Reynolds-Abernathy IV. Son of a wealthy producer. Seemed cozy.

Sorry, right.

I turned the phone off immediately. I had no idea what good Lilly thought would seeing the photographs do for me. Truthfully, I was too enraged to think about Lilly clearly. The words were echoing in my mind, the photograph seemed to be everywhere I looked, newsstands, display windows. The music coming from cars around the taxi somehow translated into the newspaper headlines. I was getting insane. I knew it was happening, but I could do nothing about it. I was mad, angrier than ever in my life. I never thought it was even possible to be this angry and still live. But then again, I had thought of many things as impossible.

It feels like I am driving in circles. I should be looking through the window, getting the first impression of a place I would call my home for a year. I should be happy, ecstatic. Just being here, having the opportunity to do what I was doing was a major, major thing, an amazing accomplishment. I had worked hard, extremely hard for it, and now here I was.

And I could not feel any excitement whatsoever. Everything I had so carefully been crafting in recent years, ever since learning of her royal status, everything I had thought would make me someone better than a random commoner, everything was now working against me, falling to pieces and burying me in debris.

We stopped at the traffic light and I stared at some billboards by the road. A woman was smiling, but I had no idea what for. I didn't understand a thing it said. I used to think of Japanese as a challenge; now I wanted to smash something, my fist, preferably, though the billboard. What the fuck was I doing here? I didn't speak the language. I had no idea where I was. I had read books, cashed in some serious online hours, got maps, but as much as I had prepared, I knew nothing now. I wanted to get away.

But where? I couldn't go back to New York. What would I even do there? Track down the bastard, break every bone in his body? What for? It wasn't like it was solely his fault. Sure, like a vulture he had waited for me to leave, but she was the one giving him the all-clear. As good as it would feel, flattening his face, it would do me no good. It wouldn't change the situation I was in, it would magically make everything better.

I could meet her. She would probably offer me a long, teary apology, another long speech in the line of many, many she had given me since we started dating. Every time I had forgiven her in a blink of an eye, but this time, this time I knew I wouldn't just swallow it down. I wouldn't trust myself not to scream at her, yell some terrible, hurtful things, some I didn't even truly mean, deep inside. As much as I wanted to yell at her, show her how much she had hurt me, I knew I couldn't.