The Prince or the Crown

chapter four

Amelie was gone by the time I woke up. I had no idea where she was, but I suspected she wouldn’t be back for a while.

As much as I wanted to rejoice in the fact that I no longer had an annoying helicopter friend trying to control my every move, a part of me missed my persistent alarm clock and premade breakfast.

I walked over to the kitchen and stared at the empty table. Even when we had gotten into heated arguments before, she would always leave some coffee in the pot and a piece of toast in the toaster.

I peered into the sink to see a thin layer of brown liquid sitting near the drain. The coffee pot sat across the counter in the coffee machine, empty.

She had dumped out the leftover coffee.

I scoffed. Petty. She could’ve just as easily left the coffee in the pot.

In theory, it wasn’t that big of a deal. Coffee and toast weren’t hard to make. But something about the lack of that coffee smell when I woke up made the air around me feel cold and uninviting.

I opened my phone and switched it off silent mode, scrolling through my notifications as I toasted my toast.

12 missed calls from my mom.

Oh, shit.

I had completely forgotten the ‘your family will be notified’ part of the courier’s spiel. I hadn’t even started reading the little packet in the envelope yet, either; the envelope’s contents were sitting on my desk, untouched.

The last thing I wanted to do was talk to my mom about my decision to become a foreign queen before I had my coffee.

I set my phone down on the counter, hoping that if she called again, it would be after my toast and coffee were fully digested.

Unfortunately, I had no suck luck. At that moment, my phone began to ring, my mom’s name floating above the green and red buttons.

I stared at it for a few seconds, debating whether I should answer, but then finally decided to just get it over with.

I picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Bella,” my mom’s voice sounded across the line. “Where have you been? I’ve been calling you all morning.”

“Uh, asleep?” I murmured.

“Right… I forgot. You don’t need to study anymore,” my mom said bitterly.

Shame doused my senses like a bucket of ice water. She knew about my expulsion, then.

“Bella, it’s like I hardly know you anymore. First, you’re cheating, and then-”

“I didn’t cheat,” I snapped through gritted teeth.

“I don’t like the tone you’re using with me, Bella,” my mom responded. “And if you claim you didn’t cheat, then how do you explain the answer keys in your dorm room? You can’t deny the proof.”

“I left my room unlocked on Saturday. Somebody must’ve stashed them in my room and then tipped off the staff. Someone wanted me gone,” I argued.

“Hmm,” my mom murmured, “Sounds like a likely story.”

I sighed in exasperation.

“So, I’m guessing the man that came to my house and told me you were going off to compete for some man in another country was fake, too?” she asked.

I took a deep breath. “No. That was real.”

There was a moment as she processed this.

“I don’t know what to say,” she mused.