No More Princes, Please

The first prince

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel. Let down your hair," I hear a man calling from the ground, fifty feet below me.

It's definitely not the voice of my mother, so I slowly peek my head out of the window. Staring proudly up at me is a man with flowy golden hair under a silver circlet standing beside a sad-looking horse. He notices me looking at him and straightens his posture.

"Hello, Princess. You look absolutely ravishing today," he shouts. I don't know what he wants, but considering his arrogance and the way he keeps running his hands through his hair, I don't trust him.

"Sir, I'm not sure what you need but I'm afraid I can't help you. If you don't mind, please leave my tower."

"I have travelled long and far. Let me up, so I can rest and get to know more about you, my lady" he says and ties his horse to a tree.

"I don't want to get to know you. I want you to leave. But I can tell that you aren't going to do so willingly, so I might as well let you up." I bunch my hair up in my arms and drop it out of the window to the ground. The end falls into a pile of mud and I shudder. That is going to make a huge mess and Mother will surely yell at me. The prince grips my honey colored hair and pulls on it. He is much heavier than Mother and I grip the windowsill and try not to think about how much it hurts to have someone climb your hair. 

He finally reaches the window to my room and hops in. I take a moment to gather the rest of my hair through the window and let it drape around me. I leave the muddy section of my hair just outside the window to clean later.  I move slowly to the couch and stare at the strange man in my tower, waiting for him to say something. At the moment, he just looks around my cramped little tower. Finally, he turns to me.

"My name is Henry and I wish to free you from this wretched place and offer my hand in marriage, my lady," he says and holds his hand out for me to take.

I push it away and respond, "Sorry but you aren't really my type and this tower isn't so bad."

He looked shocked at my statement. "What do you mean 'not your type?'"

"Well," I say reluctantly. "I do not find people of your nature, appealing."

"My... nature?" He looks utterly lost.

"I'm afraid, I do not like men, romantically." This is the first time I have told another person and I'm nervous. Especially when talking to a stranger in my tower. I shouldn't have let him in.

"What?" Henry shouts looking very confused.

"Well, I... prefer women," I say, bracing. "Look, sir, I'm really tired and I do not have what you are looking for, clearly. I hope you find a lovely woman to fall in love with, but that is not me. I would like for you to leave now."

Henry huffed and briskly walked to the window and tried to climb down. I offered to let him down, but he refused to even look at me. It took him half an hour to reach the ground and once he did, he hopped on his horse and tried to head away from the tower as fast as he could. Unfortunately for the horse, it was still tied to the tree and it took poor Henry a few minutes longer to run away.

Once Mother returned later that week, I told her about Henry. She grew incredibly angry and forced me to stay in my room for the next week. I decided that if this were to ever happen again, I wouldn't tell her. I don't like making Mother angry.