The Arrangement

〄1.Kapitel ett〄

     When I was two years old, I was obsessed with princesses. It went so far that I even wanted to personally be one. It was so appealing to me the role that princesses played. Yet, I was two and didn't understand much of anything about the world besides that processes were pretty and that chocolate was really good but bad for your teeth.

     If I'm being honest, my younger self wanting to be a princess never changed until I turned nine years old. The reason it had changed, I find to be fairly selfish when I reflect back on it now. The day I turned nine, the princess passed away. Nobody told me how or why. They didn't expect a nine-year-old to grasp the reality of the situation. They just told me she had passed away suddenly.

     Our whole country mourned the loss of her greatness as soon as the depressing news had spread. Services to acknowledge her loss were held everywhere for the first three days after. I was too busy mourning the loss of a dream being crushed to powder and then abruptly being blown away by an unexpected windstorm to properly acknowledge and understand what was going on around me. 

     Nobody talked about the princess after that first full week of mourning, though. That is what settled my little, undeveloped brain into not wanting to become a princess. Even though the princess was the nicest, sweetest, and most generous person this land had seen in a long time... Everyone seemingly forgot about her quickly. Not being celebrated or remembered-- that's not what my child self wanted. Child me wanted all the attention, all the glory, all the love, and all of the adoration. All without having to do anything but smile, wave, and look pretty while being dressed in stunning gowns.

     That is what I now find to be one of the most selfish moments of my life. Someone had quite literally died, and I was too immature to understand that just because she had passed away, my dream still could've lived on. But my little child's mind decided that wasn't the case. That the princess had passed on, so my dream had to as well.

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     Excitement fills me as I roll out of bed and jump in the shower. Tomorrow will be my twentieth birthday. This means it will finally be legal for me to drink in public. Which most importantly also means my friends and I can finally go party together in their new favorite club. We have all been waiting a full year for this time to come.     

     With it only being three days since I graduated university, I do believe that I deserve to have a good time for once. My friends and I especially deserve to go out and have fun, because after all, we've barely had time to hang out with each other while we were focusing hard on our studies. Having fun and de-stressing is what I have been waiting for. 

     My wet hair drips down my back while I step out of the shower. After tossing my hair up into a soft, mint green towel, I apply a face mask that supposedly helps reduce puffiness and redness. I have no idea if it actually works, but I love the smell of it. It almost smells exactly like warm sugar cookies. The small, baby blue jar opens easily between my hands and I use the little spatula that it came with to scoop some out onto the back of my hand. With my other hand, I stare intently at myself in the mirror and apply it carefully so as to avoid my eyebrows this time. 

     The last thing I want right at this moment is to have a repeat of the last time I used the peel-off mask. So much pain and so many little eyebrow hairs sacrificed. I shudder as a ghost burn feeling spreads across my eyebrows as I go through a mini flashback. After a few minutes, it's time to peel it off. Bracing myself, I start gently tugging it off. Thankfully, the eyebrow gods sensed my distressed and blessed me with a safe removal.