“I need you too, Kallie.” I hugged her back, not wishing for anything more in the world. Who needed husbands, anyhow? Best friends were better. Maybe me and Kallie could take my car and we could drive far away, flipping our middle fingers to the world.
As we pulled apart, I asked, “I’m guessing you’re pretty busy, huh?” I was fully expecting to spend my day alone, because that’s what I did now, every day. I used to be surrounded by friends and love all the time, and I’d lost it all in one crash and burn.
“I don’t have anything to do. I thought Cameron would want a rundown of Malovia’s status when it comes to the war, because there’s a lot to go over. But after I got my brother’s call, all the Emperor did was say he’s too busy getting ready for a party tonight to talk to me.”
Her shoulders slumped. “It’s like Cameron doesn’t care how many soldiers we have left or where we need to station them.”
“I don’t think he does.” Cameron had proven that he didn’t care about anything except his own convenience. It would be the death of us all.
Kallie and I spent day after day in the Ladies’ Court, languishing within the pool, the spa area, the sunbathing areas. We both desperately needed recovery after everything we’d been through, but even so, I found that things were dull.
Depression was so boring. Where was the drama, the excitement? I was so tired of struggling my whole life, but at the same time, I needed struggle to find the inspiration to keep going, and sitting around moping about my failed relationship wasn’t it.
Everything felt so… uninteresting. If I wasn’t striving to prevent chaos, or causing it myself, I wasn’t sure what the point was. I tried to figure it out in the long stretches of time where I had nothing to do but think, yet answers eluded me.
Maybe the Warden would never be strong enough to get past my shield, and we could live here forever while the rest of the world caved under his rule. But that didn’t seem to be the answer.
A week passed in slow tedium. I was sitting at a garden table in the Ladies’ Court at midday, stirring a pineapple smoothie, thinking of someone I absolutely did not want to, when a shadow fell over me. “Excuse me, princess. Is this seat taken?”
An annoyingly high-pitched voice rattled my ears. Standing nearby was a girl wearing a tight top around her breasts with flowing sleeves and an exposed midriff, loose harem pants resting on her hip bones. A shimmering face veil under her eyes dropped all the way down to cover her chin, and she held a blue fan that she fluttered in an obnoxious way.
I did a double take when I realized who I was looking at wasn’t a woman. “Marcus?”
“Who’s Marcus? He sounds very handsome,” he said in that same fakey, female voice. “I’m Marcine.”
“Get down here!” I yanked him into a seat. He nearly tumbled out of it, quickly adjusting the veil to cover his five o’clock shadow. “If the guards catch a man in the Ladies’ Court, they’ll skin you alive, and I’ll let them do it. I want some damn peace, thanks.”
“Ava, you haven’t left the Ladies’ Court in days,” Marcus whined. “How else was I supposed to talk to you?”
“I don’t need an annoying little thespian sticking his nose in my business, thank you.”
“You absolutely do, because I had to go to extremes to create this brilliant disguise! I even sewed it myself,” he burst, sounding very proud of himself.
“You didn’t consider that any of this might be, I don’t know, a little offensive in multiple ways?”
“I’m playing a role,” he shot back, offended himself. “I created this original character! Now you want to criticize my art?”
“What do you want?” My friends were going to run me ragged with all their fuckery.
“I want you to come talk to the rest of us. You’re shutting yourself out!”
“It’s not like anybody wants to see me.”
“I know one person who’d like to see you very much, though he’s trying to give you space,” Marcus hinted.
“Well, he’s not going to, because I’ve left him. Anything else?”
“I still think you guys need to actually sit down and talk things out.”
“The paperwork’s already done, and it’s in his hands, so too late.”
“You weren’t supposed to serve Charlie the papers. It’s not legal. Your lawyer was supposed to do that,” Marcus grumbled.
I shrugged, not giving a flying fuck. “I’m still the princess. I do what I want.”
“Can’t you at least wait to divorce until after Christmas? It’s shit to do this over the holidays.”
“I’m not going to sit through a stupid holiday dinner with Charlie and his dysfunctional family to make everyone else feel happy when I’m miserable. It’s my birthday. The best present I could give myself is getting away from him.”
