The One He's Not

Homecoming & Revelation

 Homecoming & Revelation

DEXTER

“Ugh, I hate it. Next.”

In my entire life, I have never seen life change so drastically. One moment, I was getting married and hoping for my fiancée to return home and the very next day, I’m standing on top of a pedestal wearing a ridiculous blue robe that I’m supposed to wear for my upcoming coronation.

Needless to say, I was completely unimpressed.

For the past two hours, I’ve been breaking a sweat swapping from one garment to the next while I was being poked, prodded and embarrassed by my mother’s lady’s maids. While I am red in the face, my mother continued to force me to change every time she didn’t see something right (which was basically every time) and ever since I stepped into the room this morning, I’ve wanted nothing more than to leave.

What was even more ridiculous was that the moment my mother cancelled the wedding, the plans for my coronation began in full swing. At the end of this week, my mother and father planned to have me step up as King of Payne’s Landing while I just stand there like their little marionette puppet. The worse thing about it all was that they didn’t even care about Kat’s whereabouts and their motivation to find her was lacking.

My mother gestured for me to turn around and with a big groan of discomfort, I did so. The blue robe I was wearing draped down to the floor and the gold trim just made me want to gag. I felt like I was wearing some ridiculous Halloween costume!

“I think I like the baby blue, don’t you think Margret?” My mother observed to one of her lady’s maids while not taking her eyes off me.

As the two of them whispered to each other, I wanted to shout in frustration. Why the hell was I wearing a dress? Wasn’t this my coronation? And weren’t there more important things to worry about like, hm, I don’t know… Missing people!

“Do you mind telling me why we’re doing this?” I grumbled while throwing my hands in the air in annoyance.

My mother rolled her eyes. “For your coronation, I’ve already told you this. As a king, you need to look your best and wearing a huge pout on your face isn’t very professional. King and queens from all other regions are coming to the coronation at the end of the week to see you crowned, so we can’t disappoint. Now, turn around again please.”

With another huff, I turned my body around again and stared blankly at the back wall. Why was I doing this when I should have been looking out for Kat? She could be anywhere and Ella was out there with her. Who knows what danger they could be-

 The sound of a small girl’s giggles broke me from my thoughts and I turned my head to the door. It was wide open, but appeared to have no one in the doorway. When I thought of Ella, I must have imagined it. I haven’t been sleeping much lately since she vanished through the hedge, so maybe the lack of sleep was getting to me.

My mother cleared her throat and I turned back around to face her. She looked me up and down and then smiled while gesturing to her lady’s maids to pin and tuck the horrid garment I was wearing.

“Are you just going to forget that Kat isn’t even here?” I inquired her. “Did you even send out the search party like I told you to?”

It was awkward, but last night before I went to bed, I told my mother about the hole in the hedge and my thoughts of where Kat went. Just like I thought she would, my mother didn’t believe me, but agreed to send a search party out to see if I was right. Ever since then, I haven’t heard any talk about any guards going out to look for Kat, which was giving me the notion that looking for Kat wasn’t a priority.