The Four Seasons of Michael (Princess Diaries Fanfic)

May (1)

What to get Mia for her birthday was not at all a no-brainer this year. I usually knew right away what a perfect gift for her would be, and I surely could come up with something equally spectacular as in the past. However, I didn't think giving – or, rather, mailing – her a very thoughtful, attentive gift would be a good move this year, given we were broken up.

Honestly, I still wasn't completely sure how things stood between us. On one hand, we were writing long emails to each other, carefully constructed and detailed. However, we weren't writing about each other – excluding a line or two, such as responding to questions about our families or work – but strictly about a topic that was pretty much as impersonal as it could get. First we had talked about how climate changes affected weather in Somalia. Now we were writing about bamboo. Honestly, I don't know how we even got to that.

I always made sure my choice of words didn't resonate with the feelings I had for her, and I chose to believe she was similarly careful. If anyone happened to read our correspondence, they would never guess Mia and I used to be together. That's how emotionless our emails were, just long talks between two environmentally-conscious friends.

Still, they were my favorite emails to write. I wouldn't go through all that trouble to find information for anyone but her.

Finally, I decided against buying her anything. I also didn't make an animated birthday greeting, like a few times before. All I did this year was writing a paragraph of humorous wishes – at least I hoped they were humorous – and emailed it to her.

She responded with a very eloquent 'thank you', and then went straight back to writing about pandas.

***

After my short stint in New York, Lilly and I grew closer. I don't think we had been this close ever before and I'd lie if I said I didn't like it.

I called her every evening and we talked about my work, about her show, everything but – what a surprise - never about Mia. I wondered if she knew Boris was the one emailing me occasionally, telling me how Mia was doing.

"Well, I am glad you have fun living out your rocker dreams," Lilly sneered. Then she paused for a moment, as if carefully choosing the proceeding words. "I am sure the girl likes it."

The choice of singular didn't escape me.

"What girl?" I repeated.

"Girl? I said girls, the fans," she corrected herself, but something about it didn't feel right. As if she made a mistake on purpose. We grew up in the same family environment, so if she thought she took after our parents, I lived with them even longer.

"Why don't you just ask me what you want to hear?" I said to her.

"Why do think I want to hear anything specific?" she replied.

"Nothing, just the feeling I got," I swallowed the chuckles. "So you still going out with Kenny?"

"Don't be offended, Michael, but I don't feel like talking about my love life with my brother."

"Even with a brother on the other side of the world?"

"Why would that make any difference?" she sneered.

"Well, for one, I am too far away to embarrass you or anything," I laughed.

I expected her to laugh, but she remained serious.

"You really think I don't remember how there were a couple of months when all you wanted – and all you could think about – was how badly you wanted to cause a lot of pain either to Kenny or to his computer?" she said.