Royal Disaster

prologue: the disastrous letter

It was safe to say that I was royally and truly pissed off at the world right about then. And I'm not kidding. I was so mad I could've punched a hole through my house's brick wall. I was so mad I could've thrown the ancient desktop in my room out the window. I was so mad I could've ripped the doors from their dead bolted hinges. I was so mad I could've finally cracked that stupid piece of plywood from that karate class I got kicked out of in third grade in half.

Okay, so I may have been exaggerating, but I was still mad enough to accomplish at least one of them because, like I said, I was mad.

Many could guess why since I was easily known for my extremely short temper- that is, if I were known for anything at all. And the list was long. Maybe it was because I got grounded. Maybe it was because I found out my boyfriend cheated on me. Maybe it was because I was told I'd have to take summer school. Maybe it was because I was uninvited to the cool kids' bonfire. Or maybe it was because I had my period and the cramps were killing me.

And if any of those were your guesses: dear, you are terribly wrong.

It's funny, cause I preferred all those other guesses as to the reason why I was so angry. In fact, I wouldn't be mad at all if any of those were true. I'd be a little sad for the boyfriend-caught-cheating-on-me thing, but I wouldn't be as mad as I was. I wouldn't be ready to act so violently either. I'd just act like the regular, moody teenager who people would wrongfully assume was on her period because I just so happen to be a girl and there was no other reason that girls could be so pissed off. Note the sarcasm.

I was digressing a bit but, seriously, what the fuck. I could be a naturally pissed off person. Or I could have been genuinely angered by something legitimately provoking. Or I could even have been harassed, but, hey, as long as I was a girl, that was unlikely. Cue the heavy eye roll.

But back to the topic at hand: the reason I was so pissed off wasn't something you'd think of too much. It would seem even trivial, almost. Maybe an issue that you'd shrug off. But to me, it wasn't.

So the fire that decided to boil my blood till it simmered came in the form of a letter in my mailbox on one Thursday, June 4th, also known as the last day of school. Ironically enough, this should've been a good thing. News on the last day of school! Maybe I wasn't going to have such a dreary summer after all!

I wouldn't say I thought that exactly, though, considering I actually was invited to the cool kids' bonfire party and my boyfriend wasn't really cheating on me. In fact, the latter was pretty much impossible considering he and I weren't exclusive, nor could we label each other that. We were together in name only and we sealed the deal by a few make out sessions but that was really it. We were more friends than anything. Friends with benefits, if you will.

Again, sorry for digressing.

The letter was, by no means, daunting. It was a regularity because my parents had this weird job that had nothing to do with the United States government and had everything to do with some other big named people in another country who didn't want the "corrupt, capitalistic society" (as my parents would bitterly describe it) to gain any knowledge of their business. The whole mess seemed like such a hassle to me that I didn't even want to know the reason. I couldn't even be asked to remember where, specifically, my parents worked from. It could be for the king of England or the tsar of Russia (if they still had those), I still wouldn't know.

Their presence in my life wasn't very significant besides the fact that they paid for where I lived and they were paying for my schooling, so I never bothered to learn, at least, not after they continued to shove me off with the continuous excuse of "it's confidential"- god, did I loathe that line. Anyways, I got what I needed to know from the letters and I figured that if that was the only way they were going to tell me anything, then so be it. I never responded back to them, though, aside from a 'thank you' text every once in a while. They didn't pry for anymore details and they never seemed to want any so that's the extent of our virtual conversations.

These letters usually consisted of the same things: where they were, a really vague idea of what they were doing there, what places they saw, the souvenirs they would send me, how much they'd transferred to my bank account, if they'd paid the bills, report on school, etc. They were the usual issues a parent would ask or talk about over dinner or once they got home. But since they were practically never home and we hadn't had a sit down dinner together since I was six, this was the next best thing.

When I opened that specific letter, though, I was ready to skim past everything. And I did, but I think that was where I should've taken my time. The news came at the very end, and when I say, "very end," I mean very end. The regular letter finished and I looked over their signatures at the bottom, ready to toss it in the bin when the backwards "P.S." that had bled through the paper caught my eye. Before I could think twice, I flipped the paper over and boom! There it was.

P.S. Oh, and this Saturday a friend of ours will be flying there to take care of you. Use the car to pick him up and send him over to our bedroom when he gets there. Take good care of him because he'll be spending all summer with you. See you soon, sweetheart.

And if you're still wondering how the hell did that piss me off, well, the pissed off part came on that Saturday, when an obnoxious ogre of a prick walked through the airport doors with his all high and mighty attitude, grumbling about how he was going to be my babysitter for the entire summer and glaring at me as if it were all my fault.

Yeah, buddy, like I wished for your shittiness to crap all over my summer.

In retrospect, mad and pissed off don't seem to cut it.