She grew up in the clutches of poverty; He was raised in the lap of luxury.
She hated nobles; He couldn't be bothered with commoners.
Her heart hidden deep in thorny vines; His one burning in his sleeves.
She was the recently orphaned flower seller;...
A sigh of relief escaped my mouth at the announcement. Even though I said I don't care if I get punished, getting proved innocent still made me happy.
It felt good, for the first time in my life, I thought maybe life wasn't so unfair after all.
Maybe I had gotten too used to the injustice towards myself that I forgot to fight back. Life had been so harsh to me, I had forgotten what hope was.
Just when I was about to wipe the tears that had unknowingly rolled down my cheeks, I felt a pair of hands wrapping around my shoulders.
Dhara. I looked up to see her head buried in my shoulders; shaking.
"I was so worried. I thought they would punish you. You are my first friend here. I'm sorry I couldn't do anything to help you,"she somehow managed to say in between her sobs.
It felt nice, to be cared for. I had almost forgotten how it felt too.
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People were looking. They were gaping, whispering, and pointing. At us. Specifically at Esme who was sitting at our table.
"I know I am worth looking but please do be discreet," Esme suddenly spoke out loudly at no one in particular. A group of onlookers at the next table looked ashamed and went back to their food.
Other than that, she didn't look particularly bothered. Leisurely munching on her salad and sneaking food off of Arthur's plate, Esmeralda Garcia was the epitome of unbothered.
She looked nothing like the so-called "Fallen Queen" the Academy gossip mongers have named her.
In fact, she read the article, "Lord save the Queen" out loud in front of us and had a blast while she did it. She pointed out all the real and fake things they wrote about her and exposed a lot about the person who wrote the piece of garbage.
"So now that people are done making us feel like zoo attractions, we can commence onto more important topics," Esme caught our attention with her words and also with the loud clapping that followed.
"Topics such as?" Arthur asked. He looked to be very accepting of the person whose fashion sense he never seemed to like.
"Such as lovers, admirers, stalkers, where you've hidden dead bodies of them etc," Esme answered as she tried to open a particularly stubborn bottle of nail paint.
Is that what friends talk usually talk about?
"You want us to talk about who we fancy or who fancy us?" Dhara asked, helping Esme open her nail polish. Esme beamed at her.
" Let's talk about who you have fancy. I'll go first, I like Omar Abbas in the third year, the dashing brother of that little twit, Naeem Abbas, and like dozens of hormonal fools seem ready to die for me," Esme said, trying not to mess up her nail paint.
