My Way to Becoming Queen

Chapter 3

I thought it would be fun to go walking on the beach and swimming. So that is what I did, although I swam in my dress. My maid was going to be so mad that I got salt water all over my dress, but at least I had tons of fun. I was joined by Nathaniel shortly after I got all wet. He didn't come into the water, just laid in the sun on the beach. I was having a ton of fun in the water with the waves hitting me. After a while I decided to get out and walked over to where Nathaniel was laying. He was asleep. So I walked quietly over to him and picked up the bottom of my dress and wrung it out over him. He yelped and stood up. I started laughing. He made me fall down and tossed sand over me. I looked down at my dress and saw that I was completely covered in sand, and it was sticking to my dress no matter how much I brushed away. When he saw that the sand was not coming off he told me that we were even.

Nathaniel got up and helped me up. It was getting late in the day and we should be heading back towards the castle. So that is exactly what we did. We went back to the horse and rode all the way back to the castle. When we got there we were swarmed by maids and servants. His parents came running out. They looked relieved that we were back safe. Then Matthew came out and looked furious. He came over to us and punched his brother in the stomach. Nathaniel doubled over. Matthew went to hit him in the face, but was stopped by Nathaniel punching him in the ribs. Matthew was taken by surprise. He never expected his brother to fight back. Then Nathaniel hit him in the kidneys and the back of his thigh. Matthew fell and gasped. He was in pain, put there by his brother for the first time. He tried to get up, but Nathaniel punched him in the chest. Everyone gasped. They had never seen Nathaniel stand up to anyone, not even his own brother. Matthew would sometimes beat up his brother just for public entertainment. But this time it was different. Instead of Nathaniel crying it was Matthew. I almost laughed out loud, but that would have been awful. So I decided that I was going to just go to my room to get cleaned up. As soon as I walked into my room my maid went ballistic. She saw my dress and was not very happy about how it looked, or how I looked. I had sand in my hair and all over my dress. There was dirt on my face and my knee was skinned.

So the maid sighed and took my dress off me and put me into the bath. She scrubbed me until I thought that I was sparkling. Then she scrubbed my hair and conditioned it. When all that was done I got out and she dried me off. Then she found me a nice dress for dinner, for it about dinner time. Then she brushed out my hair and put it up in a very nice pony tail that had curls flowing out of it. When she told me that I could leave I ran out of my room and ran almost all the way into the dining hall. Halfway there I crashed into Matthew. He groaned in pain. I felt so sorry and apologized to him a ton, only to get him waving his hand in dismissal. I asked him if he would accompany me to dinner. He looked shocked. He told me that he thought that I would want to go to it with his brother. I told him that I wanted to go with him today. He gave me sad smile and took me gently by the arm and led me to the dining hall. When we walked in everyone was surprised that we were getting along. I still liked Nathaniel, but I was supposed to marry Matthew. So I decided that if I was going to marry him I should start to get to know him.

I started to get to know Matthew from that day on. He was not as bad as I thought. He was actually quite kind and gentle, but didn't like to be told what to do. He also didn't like being thought of as weak, so he always acted like he was very strong. I decided that it was time to write in my journal since I hadn't done that for a while.

So I have been spending quite a lot of time with Matthew. Once I got to know him he was actually very sweet. I really don't know what I'm going to do since I really like Nathaniel, but am supposed to be with Matthew. I am so pathetic. Why can't I figure out what my heart says? If only I could tell my heart what to do and what not to do. Man I really hate being a teenager.

Then there was a knock at my door. I told the person that they can come in. So the person walked in. It was Nathaniel. He had come to ask me if I wanted to have some of his cake. I did not really want to have some cake but I said yes anyway. Then he walked over to my window and sat on the window seat. He patted the seat next to him. So I walked over to where he was and sat down. He handed me a fork and we started to eat the cake. He asked me how my day was, and I told him that it was good.

Then Nathaniel asked me how his brother and I are doing. I told him that we are doing fine, but if he ever wanted to hang out all he had to do was say so and I will cancel everything on my schedule and hang out with him. He smiled and told me that that would be great. Then he asked if we could hang out in two days. I asked why two days, but he said it was a surprised. So that was that and we finished the cake in silence. When the cake was done Nathaniel didn't leave. He told me that he was just going to go to hang out in my room for a while.

Then he went and lay down on my bed and told me how his day was going. His day was not as good as mine. He told me that he woke up with headaches, which lead to nausea. Then his appetite was zip. He just slept and slept all day and then decided that he wanted to get out of his room and eat some cake.

I asked him how he felt, and he told me that he felt terrible. I smile and walked over to him and told him that he could hang out in my room for a while. He smiled back at me and pulled me close to him.

Three years passed this way. Nathaniel and I hung out secretly. Matthew and I hung out in public. It started getting complicated. Day after day Matthew seemed less and less happy to see me and more and more nervous. It made me quite confused. Then I found out what had actually happened. Matthew had met this girl. She was not the prettiest or smartest out there, but she was pretty strong magically. She had put him into a trance just long enough to use sleep with him.

When he got out of it he found out what she had done and had her arrested and sentenced to death. He came to me the day before she was to be hung and told me of what had happened.