This Enchanting New World

Chapter 25

My next class was Basic Chivalry.

I immediately blanched, suddenly nervous.

Basic Chivalry had to be a class that Ryder was in, and that would mean putting on my farce again. Not only that, but this time, how charming and polite I pretended to be didn't just affect my throne. It affected my grade.

I couldn't do it. Even as I walked to the door, I couldn't bring myself to go in.

I couldn't do this. I wasn't this person, this femme fatale with a sweet, flirty look and a snarky comment for every occasion. It wasn't me.

I was messy. I was a mess.

I had gone from crushed to overjoyed and back to devastated over the course of a day and a half, then gotten distracted from news that changed my entire life by food, of all things. I had incinerated my stepbrother's shoes, and my schedule, because I felt I was slighted. I had framed someone for a crime he did not commit and was currently working to seduce a prince in order to gain a throne.

I looked elegant, powerful, and refined on the outside, but on the inside, I was an insecure and sensitive princess who would never be anything more.

The future queen of Andalasia was everything that defined me, everything I ever was, and now that I didn't even have that anymore, I was...nothing.

I did realize that before others could treat me like a queen, I had to treat myself like one.

It's just hard to treat yourself like what you will never be.