A Kingdom of lies.

Chapter 16: Choices.

It had been almost three weeks since Natalie came tolive with us.. me, mostly. She would lock herself up in her room and do whatever it is she did in there and would only open the door for meals. Meals with her were silent. She would eat starting down at her plate, fast. Even if you tried speaking with her, she would simply nod, shake her had or shrug her shoulders a little. No words were ever spoken from her mouth and naturally, I was worried.  This was not normal, no matter what the case was. The more shocking part, which I simply could not erase was the fact that she wanted to leave. Why would anyone want to do that? I still did not understand but knew the importance of paitence and space. If I smouthered her now, she would regard me as someone wanting to take advantage of her and I just could not have that. She had gone from becoming my cousin to my last piece connecting me to Craoline Fiala and I simply could not let that go.

Nevertheless, things for me wre slowly begining to heat up. Questions as to who exactly Natalie was began to rise and people claiming to be her friends began to surface. From personal experience, I knew that most of these people were fake and it disgusted me. What all people would do just to be noticed. It was sickening. So sickening that she was glad not to tell anyone what happened to Caroline Andryine. For the first time in years, she was glad.

Appart from that, her life was taking a turn for the worse. Once again, she had recived the familiar message from her aunts in Austria. They wanted her to come back. Or rather, they wanted her to come. She had never actually spent any time with them, save a few minutes of politeness. But from what she coudl tell, they were faker than rhinestones. The same high picthed laughter and the same amount of eye popping make up with the same style of outfits, often in the same colour. It was as if they followed an uniform. A really bad one.

They also spoke about serious matters in such flippant terms. Whether it was revolutions in Egypt or the global recession, it was all just a big joke to them. They did not understand it and when someone did try to explain it to them, it was social suicide for the generous person. They were selfish and did not care unless it affected them. The way they treated their servents was the worst. They would bark orders, critize them in the most horrid fashion in front of them, pretending as if they could not hear and would treat them as furtinure. To them, it was their right to be served. It was disgusting. Servents were people choosing to perform manual labour for them, whether it was because of lack of sufficient education or sometrhing else, it was their choice. What my aunts did was expoit them and made me actually feel ashamed to be related to them.

The other thing was, they expected girls to be stupid. Yes, they did. They did not like them knowing too much and preffered if they would simply accpet male superiority. When I told them that I was contemplating joining the UN, they disappoved instantly and said,

"working is a man's world,"

This was such a 19th century ideal. No one could survive like that today, whether it was a princess or a pauper. Those who chose to be housewifes, choose to do that instead of work. But that too was hard and those who wnated to work, did so.  I was one of the voulnatry employed not volantary unemployed. Yet, they had the power to make me feel ashamed of the fact that I was working. This was the part that annoyed me the most. Why should I have to give up my dreams just because I was a woman? No rule said I had to do so. So why should I? Especially when a drum of old, disoriented laddies wanted me to?

And then there were the men who were no better. They too seemed to actually believe that they were superior to women because they were male. I had read some of their domestic and forgien policies and when I tried to suggest something to them, they simply cleared their throats, nodded and forced a smile. I knew they expected me to simply sit there and not understand what they spoke about yet, smile out of politenes. Most of them were simply too stupid to understand that there was a class of people other than them, a whole country to be exact. That ignorance was going to cost them one day but as of now, I would do anything not to move there. Anything especially because of Natalie. I was not going to let her grow up in that stiflying atmosphere.

However, the chances and choices for me were getting slimmer and bleaker. I knew that going there was going to cost me my freedom but staying here was not going to improve anything either. My parents had fought for me long enough and now, I knew what I had to do. They had spent years fighting for me, begging the other members of my family to reconsider my mairrage but now, I had to give in. Robert was.. he was nice enough I suppose. I hardly saw him and spoke to him even lesser. I had not seen him in the last three months and had completly forgotton about his existance in totalty. If I married him, I would almost never see him. His business was predominantly based in New York, thousands of miles away from Vienna. So, I could not move as I had to be the 'good wife'. Therefore, I would still retain my freedom and I could still remain here. I could do whatever I wanted to and there would be no one to tell me other wise. The only problem was Robert. Both of us were reluctant about this engagement. I knew he loved someone else, the way I used to love Luke. For him to completly give her up would be impossible so he might.. no! He would never cheat on me would he?

But a decicion had been taken. I would marry Robert and not Luke. I was saying goodbye to him forever. I would never see him again.. ever. And with that, I stood up, left the appartment and was on my way to see Luke. I had to see him! I had to tell him everything. It was now or never for me and I chose now.

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ok guys, this is it!

hope you all enjoyed this chapter and please, feel free to comment/ vote/ suggest.

thanks for reading! :)