Thirty-One
AURELIA
“Darling,you cannot keep going on like this.”
Princess Beatrix yanks the covers back from over my head one Sunday morning. I groan and try to snatch them back, but she tosses them at the foot of the bed.
“Aurelia.” Margaret sits on the side of the mattress and strokes my tangled mess of hair. “It’s been two weeks, and you haven’t left this room except to go to work and class.”
“Look, I know my cousin is charming and supposedly attractive and all that, but he’s not worth all this.”
I catch a side view of the glare Margaret shoots her. “I think what Beatrix is trying to say is that we are worried about you and we think you need to get out and have a little fun.”
I mumble nonsense, not at all sure how to convey to them just how much I do not want to go out today. Sundays are my one day to wallow in self-pity. I haven’t had time to fully process everything between my work at the Maier’s and an increased school workload. The spring semester is in full swing, and looming graduation has me focused on final projects and rigorous practicals.
“Oh, god. Is she having a stroke?” Beatrix picks up my right arm and then drops it. I keep it from falling completely limp on the bed. “Oh, good,” she gasps.
“Trix, be a lamb and go start the shower for her, yeah?” Margaret’s tone isn’t exactly asking, and I wish I could see the expression on the princess’s face at being ordered around.
My friend stays by my side a bit longer, still combing through my hair and practically cooing at me.
“You haven’t said I told you so, yet,” I finally croak.
Margaret grabs me around the shoulders and pulls me into a tight hug. “Oh, my love. I would never say that. I can think it all I want, but saying it would help no one. You know I have your back no matter what.” She cocks her head toward my tiny bathroom, where steam is starting to drift from the gap under the door. “Beatrix does too, in her own way.”
In the weeks since the prince and I ended our little arrangement, his cousin and my best friend have taken turns checking in on me every day, both texting me multiple times, and have tried a few times to get me tocome out with them. I knew they would, at some point, get tired of failing via text message and phone call, and I’m not surprised they’re double-teaming me now in person.
“It’s kind of nice she’s been coming around,” I mumble into my pillow.
“That’s because I don’t like people very often, so I can’t afford to lose any that I do,” Beatrix says as she shuts the bathroom door behind her to keep the warmth in.
The room is silent for a moment, and I peek one eye open to see Margaret mouthing something over my back. Suddenly, I’m being hoisted up with arms under my shoulders. My head spins at the rapid change in position, but my two friends hold me steady.
“Good?” Margaret asks after a moment.
I nod and push to stand on my own. They follow me into the cramped bathroom, and I feel like a child as they help me undress because I just can’t seem to find the energy to do it myself. In fact, I don’t even have the energy to be embarrassed about being naked.
Margaret helps me into the shower, careful to keep her arms away from the spray. The hot water feels good. My body is sore from the grueling runs I’ve put in the last few weeks, and the emotional pain has settled into my bones, too. The water washes over me, and I try to imagine it washing all my worries down the drain. Too bad it doesn’t actually work that way.
Showering during the week hasn’t been a problem.I have a purpose during the week, a reason for getting out of bed and making myself presentable. But it’s as if my body recognizes the insignificance of the day, and I can’t even make my arms work to wash my hair.
“Here, love.”
Margaret helps me to hang my head away from the shower and begins to shampoo my hair. Her fingers massaging my scalp feel so good. I relax into her touch, grateful to have a friend who would do so much for me. She combs through my tangled tresses with the conditioner before helping me bathe. I feel like an invalid, and perhaps I am.A mental invalid.
Unbidden images flash in my mind of the last time my heart hurt like this. I had no one. My mom didn’t believe me or blamed me for it—her attitude changed daily. The friends I thought I had in church all stopped talking to me when I came forward. My only other friend had moved away earlier in the school year. I quit running for a little while then, not even able to make myself get out of bed for more than a shower, which I did at least three times a day in the weeks that followed. I didn’t go to school; I quit my job. All I could do was lay in bed and stare at the wall or the ceiling in complete silence, in as total darkness as I could manage.
Beatrix is sitting on the toilet lid when I finally step out of the shower. She holds out a towel and starts to carefully rub me dry while Margaret towels off my hair.
“Not exactly how I pictured getting you naked for the first time, darling.” The princess winks at me as she runs the towel down oneleg.
I blush at her casual flirtation. “You wanted to get me naked?”
“You know I have a thing for redheads,” she says with a saucy smirk.
When she’s finished drying me, Beatrix wraps the towel around my upper body, tucking a corner in to hold it in place and slips back into my room, mumbling about trying to find something to bring my sexy back.
“Where are we going, anyway?” I ask my best friend as she pulls my still-wet hair into a loose braid down the middle of my back.
