Queens

You and I

Fauna's POV

It's the night. The night where I wear a blood red dress, dark makeup, hair in pitch black curls. The night when the kingdom lights up with lanterns. The night when beauty meets darkness.

The night where we all get drunk until we pass out on the floor. The night where songs of hardship and misery become distant memories in our minds.

The night I am crowned Queen. Queen of Hearts.

Heads turn as I nervously clamber up the stairs. I hate public places where I don't know masses of people. I look around searching for those round green eyes. Where is he?

"Mother, where is he?" I whispered harshly. "He's supposed to be here."

My best friend. Tall, with copper coloured hair and a dimple on his right cheek. His green orbs were made for soul searching and reading people like open books.

"Fauna, he's not here. He can't be." Mother said quietly.

"Why? Why can't my best friend come to my ceremony?"

"You know too much already, I'm not telling you more."

"Mother!"

"Fauna!" she taunts.

"Shit!"

"Language! A queen doesn't swe-"

I just flashed my middle finger and walked off.

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Something is off about him. Lately he's been distant, and his eyes were nearly always downcast. His spirits were low, like something dark is consuming him.

He doesn't speak. Or laugh. Or cry. Or sing his songs. He just sits and stares for hours at a time. I miss the way he would sit with his long, bambi - like legs on my bedroom carpet and teach me what 'vete a la mierda, tu pulta' means, when my cook Luna screams it to her ex husband Piedro, after he tried to beg for her forgiveness, after cheating on her. Or when he explains Plato's Cave to me.

Or when he kissed me every New Year's Eve on that same bedroom floor every year since we were 8.

This year he didn't kiss me. He didn't come to Christmas, or New Year's. He doesn't do that anymore. He just sits and watches the skyline until sundown, and I do nothing sit with him and sing to him softly, as he slips further and further from my grasp.

He's not my best friend. He's just a ghost of what he used to be. His hair and eyes are darkening. His hair is nearing my blue black shade. He's quiet, too quiet, and our silence is tense and I sing to keep it away. But every now and then I let a tear slip. I make sure he doesn't see me sniff. Make sure he doesn't see my heart breaking, and doesn't realise I'm giving up on him.

I'm not the Queen of Hearts. I'm the Queen of Heartbreak.

But I won't lose my best friend, even if it means I have to give up 17 years of luxury and royalty as a princess.

I just want my best friend back.