A/N: This chapter is dedicated to @ks_dreamer, you should check out her story, Tangled--super intriguing and well done! http://www.wattpad.com/story/27196699-tangled
Thanks for reading, voting, and commenting!!
I was wrong. For the next few weeks, every time I went anywhere, to the store, to get my hair cut, whatever, by the time I emerged, there were at least a couple of reporters or even just normal people with their cell phone cameras, hoping to get a shot of me they could sell to the tabloids. I took to wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses every day, to more easily avoid making any sort of eye contact that would encourage them.
I persisted in keeping my normal routine, however, determined that all this wouldn’t keep me from living my normal life. Perhaps Maggie and I got takeout more than we’d ever done previously, but I could pretend that was just for convenience -- we could get back to studying quicker if we didn’t actually leave the apartment.
Finally, one day there was no one there -- no photographers, no people with video cameras -- when I emerged from the grocery store. I figured they must have just got tired of my boring routine and was thanking my lucky stars, until I got home.
As I entered the apartment, I heard Maggie call, “Charlie?” from the living room
“Yeah, be right there.” I put the groceries that required refrigeration away quickly, then went into talk to my roommate, who was sitting on the couch with her laptop open on her legs.
“What’s up?”
“So...it’s probably no big deal, but Alex went out with somebody else.”
Although I tried to keep my face calm, I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. “You haunting the celebrity sites again, Mags?”
“Yeah, well, I still have the Google alerts set for both of you and mostly it’s nothing, but today...today he took some old girlfriend or classmate or something to this event with him and I got about a billion notifications about it so I checked it out.”
“Jeez, Maggie, I didn’t know you were still doing that! God, as if you don’t have enough going on, you have to get an email notifying you every time some site talks about my ugly shoes or the crappy food I buy at the store.” Both of those things were real stories that popped up the last time I looked myself up. And those were some of the nicer ones, which is why I no longer looked at any site that might ever have anything about either one of us. Particularly hurtful were the British sites that slammed Alex for having anything to do with an American, that it was an insult to all English women that he found them so lacking that he had to find a girl from another country.
“It’s no big deal, like I said, mostly it’s nothing and I just ignore it, but I just thought you might want to know about it.”
“Well, that explains why no one was outside the grocery store today, they’ve moved on to a fresher story.”
“Are you ok?” she asked, clearly concerned about me.
“Yeah, it’ll be amazing to get my life back. I didn’t expect him to never go out with anyone ever again, Maggie, it’s seriously fine. I have to go put away the rest of the groceries, but thanks again for telling me.”
I returned to the kitchen and put everything away, or at least I think I did, I was in a trance and wasn’t really paying any attention to what I was doing. I ran up to my bedroom as soon as I was done and curled up in the rocking chair in the corner. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to look at the pictures or not. Not was the smart choice, right?
What I’d told Maggie was true and it really would be nice to not have the cameras around as glaring reminders of what I’d had with Alex. And I wasn’t mad at Alex for going out with someone. Obviously after any break up, someone has to be the first one to move on. But it’d only been a month and I hadn’t even thought about anyone else, let alone dated...of course, I had no social life, and he was one of the most eligible bachelors in the world, so not exactly the same thing.
And it wasn’t even like we were in a real relationship, it was just a vacation thing, we were only together for a few weeks. Sure, it felt magical and important and deep, but that was probably just my inexperience showing. I’m sure to someone like Alex, it was nothing. He may have acted like it was something more, but he was probably just being nice. I’d almost thought he was going to cry when we said goodbye that day but I might have projecting because I clearly was completely overwrought.
My thoughts returned to Alex and his mystery date. I decided that maybe looking online would be ok if I didn’t really read anything about his date and kept it very superficial.
I’ve been a saint, I told myself, I deserve this. The thing about having a passionate love affair with one of the most famous men in the world is, when you’re having a rough day and feel like taking a trip down memory lane, you don’t have to stalk his Facebook page to get your fix. No, the whole of the internet is there at your disposal. I typed “Prince Alexander” into the Google search, then clicked on the images tab.
The most recent pictures were clearly of him and his date, both formally dressed for some event. The woman he was with was beautiful -- a petite brunette that only reached his chest and probably didn’t even weigh a hundred pounds. She was lovely though and seemed besotted in the pictures where she was looking up at Alex, his hand on the small of her back. While he looked incredible in his tux, I couldn’t help but think his smile didn’t reach his eyes, that he looked tired and sad if you looked closely. I wasn’t sure if that was real or just wishful thinking on my part; not that I wanted him to be truly miserable, but I thought it would only be fair if he was feeling some of the pain I was going through.
As I clicked through more pictures, I wondered, on a scale of 1 to 10, just how pathetic it would be to save some of my favorites to my computer. Although I mentally ranked it at least an 11, it was truly only the fear of the pictures being discovered at some point that stopped me. But a part of me would be sad when I could no longer find the pictures of Alex and me, when they disappeared -- although maybe they never would, as I’d always heard that in the age of the internet, nothing ever truly goes away.
A flash of brilliance struck as I looked at more pictures--if ever there were an occasion for a secret Pinterest board! I had friends that had been planning their weddings (oftentimes, to boyfriends that didn’t even exist) on such boards forever, so this seemed like a reasonable way to ensure I could keep these photos forever. And no one would ever need to know, which was the best part.
With a smile bigger than I’d sported in recent memory, I created the board, titled simply “Alex” and started pinning all my favorites of him: a few of us together, some from before we met, pictures of him with his parents, him laughing with his brother and sister, Alex playing polo (which made me laugh out loud, thinking about how embarrassed he was telling me about his polo injury). I could have gone on forever as there was no shortage of pictures but I cut myself off at 30. Satisfied, at least momentarily, I closed down Pinterest and pulled up my Corporations outline. Back to reality.
As each week passed, I slowly got better and better. I hurt less and I smiled more. I started to feel more confident that everything I was learning in my bar review course was sinking in, that I might actually be able to pass after all.
Jack came down and stayed about every other weekend which was awesome for all of us. Maggie and Jack never made me feel like a third wheel and being around Jack oddly made me feel like I was almost with Alex, as before coming home, almost all of the time I’d spent with Jack, I’d also been with Alex. I was also so happy to see Maggie so happy and was super impressed that he made the effort to come all that way for her so often, especially as she never wanted to waste the study time to travel to see him. To make up for it, Maggie had promised him she’d come down for a week after we’d taken the bar.
My almost-happy, completely bearable life soon came crashing back down again. Maggie arrived home to find me in tears at the kitchen table.
“What’s wrong? Who is he dating now? What did he do?”
“It’s not Alex,” I sniffed. “Well, I guess it kind of is. You know how I’ve been sending out some resumes and cover letters to senators and representatives in D.C., explaining that I’ll be moving out there in a few months and asking them to keep me in mind if they have any openings? Well, I had a message from one office from when we were in class today -- I was so excited and called them back the minute I got home. Apparently they had Googled me and really just called to ask if I was the same Charlotte Maxwell that had dated the prince.”
“Shit, Charlie, I’m sorry. That really sucks. But maybe they’ll still keep you in mind?” she said hopefully.
“She said they’d keep my resume on file, but the woman was all but laughing at me once she confirmed who I was. I’m a joke, Maggie, a complete and total joke. Who’s going to hire a late night talk show punch line? As if a broken heart wasn’t enough to deal with, now I’m apparently unemployable? What the hell am I going to do?” I laid my head on my hands on the table, sobbing.
“Charlie, you’re not unemployable, you’ll find something. You just need one person to take a chance on you -- maybe some non-profit will want to take advantage of your quasi-celebrity status for the free publicity they’ll get for hiring you? I know that’s not the way you’d want to get a job, but you’ll earn it through your intelligence and hard work once you get your foot in the door.” Maggie rubbed my back. “But for now, why don’t you take a break from sending out resumes and just focus on passing the bar in a few weeks? You have enough on your plate right now without dealing with shit like this.”
“You’re right, thanks, Mags.” I pulled myself upright and wiped my eyes.
“Of course,” she hesitated, then said, “I couldn’t help but notice your use of the phrase ‘broken heart,’ does this mean you’ve finally owned up to being in love with Alex?”
“Yeah, I’m way past denying that I love him at this point. Not that it matters. To quote Drew Barrymore, ‘a fish may love a bird, but where would they live?’ Oh my God, that quote is from a movie that’s a Cinderella retelling, isn’t it? I’m literally quoting Cinderella now, despite everything that happened, I’m still somehow holding out hope that this is all a fairytale. I’m so fucking far gone. Seriously, Maggie, kill me now and put me out of my misery.”
“What you really need is to get rip roaring drunk, but that’s going to have to wait until we’re done with this damn test. Just hold on for a few more weeks, Charlie, then I promise that we’ll drink all your problems away.”