Her Royal Highness

VIII

I barely left my room for the next thirty or so hours. With the exception of making one hasty and slightly covert mission to the kitchens to forage for food, my only company had been the television and my cell phone.

Thankfully, and albeit surprisingly, my mother had not come to seek me out after my abrupt and probably rude departure from the library the day before. I wasn't sure if that was because she knew it would only result in a shouting match between us, since I had already made my feelings and thoughts on this sentencing quite clear; or if she, too, was having a difficult time coming to terms with it. She didn't seem to be completely on the side of the judges rule, and yet, did nothing to sway his decision.

I spent the rest of that day laying in my bed, thinking. I thought about everything. So much more thinking than I had done in I don't even know how long. I thought of how I had been before. Quiet, but always angry. I hated going to school, knowing all my 'friends' at the time could go home and do whatever they wanted. They could be normal. Get jobs. Their lives weren't planned for them. I had to come home and have etiquette classes, grooming, lessons on how to be who I was. Such a stupid fucking thing. Learning how to be in my family. That was actually part of my upbringing. No wonder I was so fucked up.

I would see some of my classmates after school, getting picked up by their fathers. They would go to them, hug them, tell them of their day. They had that figure in their lives, at least the majority of them. I wasn't stupid or blind, I knew that wasn't the case for everyone. Just as some of my classmates lost their mothers. But I was still angry at the fact I was missing that part of me. Never knowing who I belonged to.

My mother refused to speak of it. Any time I asked, when I was old enough to know, and brave enough to demand answers, she would simply say 'he was a good man, but it wasn't meant to be'. As if that was any consolation. As if him being 'a good man' made up for the fact he wasn't part of my life. She refused to tell me who he was, which made me wonder if she even knew. She had me young, I knew. Around the time when she was living out her own rebellious ways much like I was currently. Years later, when I asked if she even knew who he was, she blanched, but said nothing. She had no bloody idea, I realized. How many people could she possibly have been with to not even know who my father was? To not even care to find out, if for no other reason than to give me some sense of belonging.

I never forgave her for that. Omitting that part of my life that every girl needed. That I deserved, regardless of the circumstances.

I thought of when I turned sixteen, when everything started to change for me. I had always been 'the pretty one', or 'the popular one'. Mainly attributed to my family, I knew even then. But for some reason, when I turned sixteen, that popularity opened the doors to other side of things I never knew. The parties, the drinking, the drugs. I had to be discrete, I knew, much more so than my fellow classmates. My status made this new life even easier to access, something that my 'friends' at the time relished and exploited. It made me feel powerful, in control, and excited. It gave me something that was mine, something that they couldn't take from me, because they didn't know of it.

Then, when I turned eighteen, I didn't bother hiding it anymore. I was legally an adult, and I did as I pleased. I went to clubs, I drank, I partied. I wasn't overly experimental when it came to drugs. I never went to the hard stuff, knowing that it only took once to lose all control. A little weed here and there, however, I took eagerly. It was a relaxant, and if I needed anything, it was to relax.

And all this seemed to grow, to couple, to increase in magnitude, frequency and size. I didn't even realize it then, until this moment, laying on my bed staring at my ceiling until the light beyond had dimmed to night and my room was bathed in black. I could almost watch the progression of my downfall, my collapse, mainly over the last year.