Her Royal Pen Pal

Chapter 20 [Confessions]

Elise could see where her friend was coming from, and it didn’t make it any easier to accept, but she’ll have to live with it. She was in love, and it scared the living day lights out of her.

“So I moved from almost like, to like, to ‘serious’ like, to maybe love, and finally to love in a matter of a week?” Elise queried.

“Yup,” Tatiana agreed, “It may sound messed up, but that’s love for ya! It doesn’t exactly follow a timetable. Besides, this new development is cool. Every single aspect of your life has always been so planned out, I’m glad this whole relationship came and knocked a little chaos into your world, you seriously needed it.”

“Gee, thanks. I’m glad my ‘chaos’ amuses you,” Elise thanked, sarcastically.

“You’re welcome, love,” she smiled at Elise and winked, and Elise smiled back.

But she’d had enough of talking about her life, so she decided it was time for a topic change.

“Enough about my troubles, let’s hear yours. What was up with you and Stefanos at the ball? Are you ever going to tell me?”

Tatiana’s smile moved to a frown so fast, Elise was surprised she didn’t hurt her jaw muscles.

“He’s a jerk, a royal jerk,” was the answer.

“Yes, we’ve established that. But can you at least tell me why he’s a jerk? As your best friend it is my job to dislike the same jerks you do, but seeing as he’s Leonidas’ brother, can you at least tell me why I dislike him?” She probed.

“Can’t you just not like him because I don’t and just take my word for it,” she countered in a hopeful tone.

Tilting her head to one side and raising her eyebrows, Elise shot her a ‘Really?’ look.

Huffing Tatiana turned and dropped back onto the bed like a dead weight, leaving Elise staring at her.

“Don’t look at me like that!” she chided, and patted the space beside to indicate that Elise should lie down also.

When she complied, her friend began to talk in a rushed voice.

“He was a really nice person at first, then we started dancing, and we were talking some more, and he just said something I took the wrong way, and when he cleared it up, he made it sound like I was being overly sensitive. Which, I admit, I was, but he didn’t have to point it out that way, and we started arguing and then you saved me,” She rushed out in a single breath, then added, “Thank you for that by the way.”

“Okay,” Elise said, drawing out the two syllables in the way Tatiana would usually do, “Care to share with the club what he said?”

“Not really,” was the answer to which Elise responded with a hit to her side.

“Ouch, that hurt!”

“Sshh, you’ll wake the whole house,” Elise chided.

“Well you hit me,” she countered, “really hard.”

“Because you’re being stubborn… tell me! Or I’ll tickle it out of you.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

When Elise made to do just that, Tatiana held up her hands in defeat, “Okay, okay. Jeez. But let me warn you, it’s really petty, and you might think I’m nuts,” she explained, “He  was talking about something, I can’t really remember what, but then said something along the lines of when there’s two friends and one friend lands the ‘prince charming’, the other would get jealous, and make her life a living hell. I took it as if he was implying that I was jealous of you, and that I’d turn against you, when I told him I wasn’t and that I wouldn’t, he said that he was just talking in general, and wasn’t implying that I was like that. I was fine with that, until he said that I was being too defensive, and that maybe I was going to become the best friend from hell. He was teasing before, but I don’t know. It just rubbed me the wrong way, so I went all ‘psycho’ on him, and that’s how the argument entailed, and you showed up.”