pieces | ethma

The Arrangement

Emma

I don't know how I ended up here.

I don't know why I was the chosen one, and I didn't understand how my father could just give me away like this.

I'm only sixteen.

It was his eighteenth birthday when his father called my father, and everything was set in stone.

He was a stranger. A complete, and total stranger, yet I didn't have a choice. The arrangement was done. I'd be married to him not one day after my own eighteenth birthday.

I didn't want it to be this way. I wanted to find someone and fall in love like the rest of the world does. You can't choose love, but I was chosen.

I begged my father to let me off the hook, but in my family rules are rules, and everything was already said and written. It was too late to live the life I truly wanted. I had to marry the Prince of New York Island.

The place we lived was just that. An island. And our country was actually called The Islands. There were more than one island, and all of them were named after previous States from what used to be the USA.

After the Third World War, a lot changed.

We're descendants from the United States of America, but that's not a country anymore. At least it isn't America anymore. There was a huge civil war, and the rebels won. They needed to win because the country was on the verge of tyranny. The system of our government was too corrupt for anyone to safely live in the country anymore. With the help of Canada and a few European countries, the rebels won. Some of them stayed in the new established country (The United States of French-Canada, and The States for short), but a lot of them fled.

My ancestors stayed for two generations, and their grandchildren came to The Islands. The Islands were empty, so the refugees made it into a country, naming each of the seven islands after the states their people came from. After the last eight states that survived. (North and South Carolina combined into an Island).

Massachusetts Island, New York Island, California Island, The Carolina Island, The Hawaii Island, The Alaskan Island, and Michigan Island.

Those were the strongest states. Frankly, a lot of people refuged to those places during the war. They were the safest areas.

Once the war was over, they all came to the islands, and it's been three generations. My great grandma and grandpa came to these islands, and they didn't even meet each other until they were both in their 30's.

Soon my grandfather was born, then my mom, then me.

Each of the islands have their own monarchy system, and my father was born into the Californian Royal Family. He became heir to the throne because he was the first born son of my grandfather.

My mother was the Duchess of the Carolina Island, and married my father when she was seventeen. Back then the laws were different.

Besides the arranged marriage, my life has been somewhat normal. Comfortable. I've always had everything I ever could need. I was close to my younger sisters, I had a few close friends from The Academy, and I had people to take care of me.

I was always kept safe by my security guards Marshall and Lorence, but having them around my whole life I was used to it. They rarely smothered me like security guards tend to, but they were there if I needed to be protected.

I didn't want to get married. Especially not a stranger.

I had read about him before. He wasn't exactly the friendliest person per se, and he definitely wasn't the romantic type. Even though I'd been sheltered about these kind of things, I knew he was the typical Prince, getting scarred by the depths of the royal mafia. He was raised to be a man since the moment he was born. I was raised as normally as could be expected in a royal family. But I never had to experience the darkness of the mafia. Ethan did.

Tomorrow's the night I will meet him for the first time, and I'm not exactly peeing my pants over it. I didn't want to meet him. I didn't want to fucking marry him, but I didn't have a choice. It wasn't up to me.

As I ate dinner tonight, I looked at my two younger sisters. Lia was two years younger than me. Only fourteen, but still so young. I hated that she would go through the same thing as me. She'd be chosen by a Prince somewhere, and she wouldn't have a choice. I wished she could have a choice. If one person deserved a choice, it was Lia.

My other sister was named Raven. She was only eight. My brother Thomas was aged between Lia and Raven. He was eleven. I hated that he was being raised so differently from my sisters and I. I hated that he had to grow up from the moment he entered the world.

The day I was supposed to meet Ethan, my father was going to have a business meeting with him and Ethan's dad.

Our seamstress Teresa fitted the dress I had to wear. I loved dresses, but I hated this one. The thing about royal mafia families is that the girls are supposed to be virgins until marriage, and boys are supposed to be sexually promiscuous at a young age. Too young. It was a double standard, but in this place, that was how boys turned into men. It's a shame it has to be this way.

The dress was made to impress a man. It showed off my legs, and some of my chest, and it was nothing but a tight-fit.

I was nervous as all hell, and even my sisters couldn't calm my nerves. This was the start to the new life I didn't want to be living.

When I walked into the room, I saw how guarded he was. I saw the look in his eyes that made me feel like we were never gonna be capable of falling in love with each other.

It wasn't just that. It was that I had to put on a brave face because the look in his eyes scared me shitless.

He looked at me like I was a piece of meat, and he was ready for dinner.