Princess Without Limits

Chapter Eleven

(Gina)

It was 11 in the night. The raindrops from the thunderstorm outside fell on the windows hard, like bullets in the chest might, mirroring my conflicting feelings. I sat on the sofa in the living room, listening to the loud pitter-patter the drops of water make, memorising each and every deafening splash that resonates through the dorm. I was instantly up on my feet. Something was wrong. I don't know whether it was the eerie silence of the hall or the sixth sense many talked about, but I found myself walking to Lena's room.

Lena was my best friend - we were practically sisters - and sometimes I felt as though I was not doing enough. I didn't know how to help her out of that hole she crawled into. A major incident happened three years ago, and no matter the damage, it shouldn't have led to this. The wide chasm between Leon and Lena was very disturbing, as if a force just pushed them apart. Besides, I know Leon, I know the boy who was accepting of his sister forever and forever, to whatever end. He just changed all of a sudden - Leon was such an incomplete puzzle that sometimes you felt as though you needed to remove your own pieces to fit in his puzzle because you thought he did not have enough pieces to complete his. His pieces were always there, just invisible to us, because in truth Leon was an unfinished puzzle. Something made his pieces vanish. I just didn't know whether he had enough willpower left to find them back.

Suddenly, my phone buzzed. I carefully pulled it out from my back pocket. Ciel. I answered the call with hesitant fingers.

"Hi, Ciel," I said softly. Ciel did not appear to be in smiles like he usually was, so I supposed something unfortunate had happened.

"Gina..." he started.

"Do you know what happened?" Albert finished, his face popping out behind Ciel's. I nearly dropped my phone from the sheer directness of that question.

"No," I replied firmly.

"No, as in 'I won't tell' or 'I don't know'?" Charles added from the side.

"Ask Lena yourselves, if you're so bold to ask me to spill a secret that is hers to tell," I snapped.

Ciel's eyes widened, and I knew why - I had never ever snapped at anyone before. But soft-hearted, gentle Gina was long gone, buried in the remnants of my past and that incident, replaced by a strong-willed, determined girl who only wanted to protect her friend from the demons of her past.

"Guess we have to ask Gion then," Felix stated, perhaps to unnerve me, but I wasn't sure if friendly, positive Felix would ever think so hard as to that. Maybe he had changed. Maybe along the line of right and wrong, friendship and alienation, family and strangers, he, like me, like Lena, like Leon, had changed too.

"Gion doesn't know; I only told him bits and pieces," I countered, holding the phone a good arm's length away, like it was a plague.

"But surely he'll know enough to tell us something," Alexis held his sturdy gaze meeting mine through the phone.

"I...he won't," I insisted weakly, my bravado wearing off. The rain was subsiding, but something was still wrong, and all I was doing was standing here having a conversation with a bunch of princes who knew nothing.

"I'm sorry I snapped and that I can't tell you anything...but please don't pry too much into it," I muttered. Miraculously, Ciel had heard it, and the goodbye in it too. "Rest well, mon amour," he sighs, "We'll try, but Leon's our good friend, you know. Just like you care about Lena, we, too, care a lot about Leon." I gave a feeble "bye" before ending the call.

I let a tear drip down silently. I sat down against the wall. A wave of helplessness engulfed me. I wasn't part of the German family, yet I was still involved in everything. It was selfish, and I swore never to be selfish since a long time ago when Gion took the burden of Nonno's words just so I would never be dragged down by the chains he was dragged down by, but I thought that maybe it would be better if I was not here, not Lena's friend, not anything in this mess so that I could be the happy teenage girl Gion wanted me to be.