Aligned (Book #2 in the Divided Series)

Chapter 5 - Part 3

Explaining the whole thing to Mr Nelson wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Sure, it could have gone better, but after he had signed the paperwork, I had a feeling that life was going to get a bit easier. Now, we had to tell our friends.

"Should we tell people tonight?" I asked, worried. I was always worried about this, but Tara seemed more collected about it than I was.

"I'm not sure. She admitted, chewing her lip. "I mean, I need to tell Isaac, and soon, or he'll never forgive me."

"Hey, he loves you, and I'm sure he'll see you for exactly who you are. Who you've always been." I said, "He just has to come to terms with the fact that you're now Royalty."

"That hasn't exactly been easy." Tara pointed out as wen entered our room, and we both laughed. I knew exactly what she meant. It was hard getting used to being two different people, who you had to try and be, all the time.

"What about after school?" I asked suddenly, worried, "What about then?"

"We're not at school, Izzy." Tara said, picking up a book, "We're on holidays."

"I know that." I said patiently, sitting on my bed, and waited until she did the same.

"What are you talking about then?" She lay down, looking over at me, "Once we get back?"

"No, once we finish." She gulped, suddenly understanding, "What are we going to do. I know they want us to come here, but we haven't discussed it ourselves, and we haven't decided when to tell the world either."

"I think, when the time is right, we'll know." Tara mused, putting the book on her stomach.

"What if there's never a good time?" I asked. "What if we do this our entire life?"

"I don't think we can. I mean," Tara said up, letting the book spill to her lap, and swung her feet off the bed, "One of these days, we're going to have to tell our parents, our real parents, who we really are, and our friends. After that, there's a lot of people to tell the world. The decision may be taken out of our hands. Especially now that Albert and Mr Nelson know. It's just two more people to tell the world for us." She said, leaning forward and bracing herself on her knees. "I want to be normal a while longer. I don't know about you."

"I want to be normal too." I whispered. She'd just explained my greatest fear; that someone we knew, and trusted, would tell the world for us. I'd been fearing that more and more since telling everyone became a real possibility. And by everyone, I meant our friends.

"So, I was thinking about university here. If we can get in here, be as us or the princesses, then we could try and manage it. It would be hard, since if we came as the princesses, then no where would we be able to unwind. But if we came as us, I think we'd need to live by ourselves, and the guards of course, for a bit, before trusting everyone else." Tara thought out loud. "What do you think?"

"I think that's a good idea." I said, turning it over, "What would you study?"

"Hmmm," Tara hummed, thinking, "Probably medicine? Become like a doctor? I think that would be useful. Something to fall back on if the princesses ever needed to disappear."

"You're thinking about a fall back?" I laughed, admiring the absurdity of it, "You know this is a lifelong position, right?"

"Yeah, but we were adopted out because of problems, who said there can't be more?" Tara pointed out reasonably, "Besides, I want to do something useful with my life. So far, being a princess hasn't been useful. I'm sure it will be," She hurried to say, "But so far, I can't see it being useful in a way that I see useful. It's all very well to donate money to places, I know they need it to keep running, but I want to do more. To be more, than someone who cuts ribbons and kisses babies."

"At the moment, we're hope." I said quietly, "Hope to those who thought the monarchy would die with us, when we were sent away. Albert came back, but then we did, and that means there is hope for the other two to come home. We're the hope to those who love the Royal Family."

"Maybe." Tara said, unconvinced, and lay back down again, "But I don't see that yet."

"Doesn't mean it isn't there." I shot back, lying down myself.

After both of us staring at the ceiling for a while, I decided to answer Tara's question. "A piolet."

"What?" She turned her head to look at me. I watched her out of the corner of my eye as I remained looking up at the ceiling.

"A piolet. I want to be a piolet. Probably for the army. Or navy. Whichever one it is."

"Anything else?"

"Not sure. Never really gave it much thought." I said, thinking. Was there anything else I'd rather do with my life? If I had the choice? A piolet sounded cool, and then learning to fly people around the world would be awesome. Get to travel, and be paid for it. Or fly myself places in a privet jet.

I ran through things like doctors and lawyers, politicians, emergency workers, and anything I could think of.

"A researcher. Or historian, maybe." I said after a while. "Be continually learning things."

"Why not do both?" Tara asked, "Get the navy to pay for you to become a researcher or something, and then when you join, become a piolet?"

"Think they'd let me?" I asked, shocked. That would be almost ideal.

"They do something like that back home. I think." Tara said, "Can always find out if they do it here."

"Or, just go through university, then join the army and become a piolet." I said with a laugh, "Like we'd even be given the option."

"Actually, lots of Royals have joined some part of the defence force, so why shouldn't we?" Tara said, rolling over onto her side and facing me, propped up on one elbow, "I could join too. Become a doctor for them, get the emergency training and stuff, save doing it through uni."

"How would we work that?" I asked, rolling to face her and mimicking her position, "We'd constantly have to be away for events, and they'd never let us."

"Maybe we could ask." Tara said after a moment, "If they knew, and we kept events to a minimum, then we could just say family problems, and we'd have to take some off where we didn't go into the public eye, or anyone paying attention could figure it out."

"Stop getting excited about it." I said, laughing again, "We have years to plan this out, and who knows what could happen in the meantime?"

"Well, we have to start thinking about it. We need to choose what subjects to do in school, and what university, or universities we're going to aim for, so we can set it all up now. I think we're supposed to start doing career stuff this year, so they make sure we're taking the right classes." Tara explained, "And then we get turned out into the real world."

"And here I was hoping to avoid talking to people about my future." I sighed, flopping back onto my back.

We lay there in silence again, this time it went one longer, and before I knew it, Tara was shaking me awake.

"Come on, dinner time. We need to keep energised." She grinned down at me, "Besides, There's a piano down there you can play. I asked the manager while you were asleep."

I jumped off the bed and almost ran to the door, leaving my laughing sister standing by my bed, "Well, are you coming or what?" I demanded, watching her, a small smile playing over my mouth, "I have a piano to play."

"Sure thing." She scooped her phone up off her bed, and tossed mine to me from where I had left it on the bed side table, "I wouldn't want to delay you."

I tossed my hair over my shoulder, "You shouldn't." I said, pretending to be haughty, "Otherwise I won't invite you up to sing with me."

Tara shuddered, "No thanks. You know I hate crowds."

"Can't escape them now." I pointed out, and we left the room.