White Girl Problems

by Tara Brown

  Her eyes widened. “What? You don’t think he’ll be back?”

  I shook my head. “No. He’s got obligations and rules now. It’s about time reality came crashing back in though. Who meets a prince, falls madly in love, and gets a happily ever after love story at seventeen? No one. It’s not realistic.”

  She gave me a sad face. “Dude. I don’t know a lot about guys or love, but I know he loves you. He is crazy about you.”

  I laughed. “Ya know the funny part is I don’t doubt him or me or our love. I know he loves me and he’s crushed, just like I am. But this is where we are. We’re stuck between a rock and hard place and there is no room for wiggling, as Mae always says.”

  She laughed and we both looked at the tree. “I guess we should open our presents. Happy friggin’ Christmas.”

  I sighed. It was our first Christmas alone. Sheila had demanded a vacation for being wrongly accused of tormenting Jess and me. The story of Sheila’s evil deed had become that the evil maid recorded Sheila talking because I paid her to and then the maid was the one who trashed Jess’s room. The maid took all the blame and in two years, my dad would swear that was the way the story had happened.

  So Jess and I were alone, with no presents from our parents, just from our friends and each other. Dad had given us both a huge lump sum of money, buying our holiday for us.

  I fluffed the pillow under my head and closed my eyes. “If I let myself daydream, I think I would wish that he would just come here and we would try to make it work. I left it in his hands and all I can do is hope he will choose me. If he ends up becoming king, we can cross that bridge when we get to it. My Christmas wish would be him just choosing to be twenty and me eighteen and us just seeing what happens.”

  She laughed. “So that’s all it took for you to decide to trust a guy and love him and let go of the control?”

  I smiled. “I guess so. That’s sort of the problem with meeting Prince Charming. You have to let yourself be open to the possibility of true love. And no matter how much my chest burns or my heart hurts, I have to be proud of the fact I was open to it. It took a lot, but I did it. I let myself be vulnerable and got my heart broken, but I also fell in love.”

  “I’m proud of you!” She sniffled. I opened my eyes, barely able to see her through the kaleidoscope my tears were making with the lights from the tree. We both cried and she saw just how vulnerable I really was and just how broken my heart had been.

  The problem with Christmas wishes is they only come true in movies.

  My Christmas wish never came true, not at Christmas. I ate a TV dinner from Jamie Oliver’s line of frozen food with Linna and Jess. We watched James Bond movies all day. Apparently they run back to back and contain no love stories. It was perfect. Three girls with broken hearts didn’t need anything else.

  The day before New Year’s Eve, we took down the tree and made the house look like before. Both of us seemed pretty tired of Christmas.

  The doorbell rang as I was pulling down the lights. “Can you get it?”

  Jess ran over but called me. “Dude, it’s for you.”

  I groaned and left the lights on the couch. I was covered in tinsel and tree bits, thankfully fake tree bits, when I got around the corner. Aiden was standing there with a letter in his hands. I smiled and jumped into his arms. I couldn’t fight it.

  He took a long smell of my hair and it made me smile more. “I missed you,” he whispered into my hair.

  I nodded. “Me too.” I pulled back. “How are you?”

  He shook his head. “I hardly know.” I looked behind him to see Mary. I squealed and ran to her. We hugged; it was different with her. I knew how I felt about her and how I was allowed to feel about her. She squeezed me. Johan was behind her. He smiled wide. I rolled my eyes. “Came to cause havoc in the US, huh?”

  He laughed. “I am fulfilling my dream of always wanting to go to Washington.”

  I laughed and hugged him. Jess was excited to see Mary, who hugged her and introduced Johan. I turned back and took the letter from Aiden. “What’s this? My Christmas present?”

  He laughed. “No. It’s mine.” He took my hand and pulled me up the stairs to my room.

  Mary shouted, “Make sure you add the I told you so, Fin. He needs it.”

  I looked at Aiden. “What?”

  His cheeks flushed. “Three days after his funeral, Alex made it perfectly clear she had always been madly in love with me. She and my mother decided why not just rearrange it and make her my bride too? Like Catherine of Aragon.”

  I gasped. “Like the chick on Tudors? Dayum. That’s evil. Who does that?”

  He sighed. “Royalty, apparently.”

  I beamed. “So you’re engaged, then?”

  He pushed me on my bed. “You better watch yourself. You’re speaking to the future king here.” I loved it when he mocked it too.

  I made a face. “Ooohhh, scary.”

  “I would never marry her, or anyone but you.” He laughed and lay on the bed next to me. “Tell me you can forgive me for calling you jealous and petty.”

  I smiled and ran my fingers through his recently cut hair. “I can forgive that. It’ll be my Christmas present to you.” I winked, making him laugh. I loved watching him laugh. “But you have to stop saying the word marry or I will run away again.”

  “Cross my heart, I will only say it when discussing my sister.” The blue of his eyes held me captive. “I love you, Finley. I know the whole thing between us is awkward right now, but I wanted you to have something back.” He pulled the ring from the letter I had left him. “I know what I want and I will find a way to have it. So I want you to keep this, my heart, until the moment you are ready to be mine in the way I want you to be.” He winked. “See I never said it.”

  My face must have expressed the panic in my heart because he laughed again and brushed my hair from my face. “You don’t have to worry. I don’t have any expectations. We will be like any other normal couple our age until we can no longer be a normal couple. Can you grant me that?”

  I nodded. “I can. Well done for not saying it. You had a lot of opportunity there.” He slipped the ring on my right hand and I felt a great weight lift from my shoulders.

  He kissed me and whispered, “Not that being together isn’t amazing, but there is something I desperately want to give you for Christmas, and I’m not sure if you noticed or not, but my guards have managed to stay outside in the car.” I felt his smile against my lips and laughed.

  He pulled off his coat and got up to lock the door. He lay back down beside me and pulled his phone from his pocket. “I am actually going to do a selfless act and ruin the mood I think you’re in. But the reason the guards stayed outside has nothing to do with what your dirty little mind is thinking.” He lifted his phone so we could both see the screen. I had expected we would get naked, but instead, he kissed my cheek. “After much nagging and bothering, I managed to get something from Hattie that I knew you would like.” He kissed again. “She found it at a friend’s house after I made her search high and low, just in case something like this had ever been recorded. This was my intended Christmas present to you.”

  He tapped his finger and started a recording.

  It was a fuzzy and kinda crappy recording of a living room. I didn’t understand what it was until I heard a voice I knew, a lady I knew. She was talking to a small child. The camera zoomed in and a tear slipped down my cheek. It was her, my mother. The small child on her lap was me. She kissed my cheek, but I sniffled like I had just been crying.

  “Did that doggie scare you?” my father asked. It was him who was recording.

  I sniffled again, sticking out my little lip. My mother lowered her face to my cheek and wrapped herself around me. She rocked back and forth and sang in a low voice. It was the two little boys’ song. After a few minutes, I stopped sniffling and she smiled and I could see it. She loved me. She smiled at me and kissed my cheek. She was oblivious to the rest of the room, and maybe
the camera, but she was smitten with me. I reached up and grabbed at her face and she blew a raspberry on my hand. The video ended.

  I looked at him, tears filling my eyes. “Thank you.”

  He kissed my cheek. “It comes with a message from Hattie. She doesn’t care if you’re the queen of bloody England next year, she expects you will be in Nova Scotia at least once.”

  I sniffled and laughed. “Okay.” I couldn’t believe he had found it. “How did you find it?”

  He wiped away my tear. “I figured it was the nineties and everyone had a bloody recorder and there was no way she had gone all that time without being filmed, even once. I never expected to find her with you, not after the way she has been described to me. But Hattie remembered one Christmas you had all spent in the Hamptons at an estate, and she said the whole thing was recorded constantly. It was two years before your mom got sick. She wasn’t positive she would find anything, and then she struck gold in a dusty attic.”

  I smiled. “My last memories of her, she was always tired and in bed and then she was asleep. She wouldn’t wake up. I was four when she died so the memories are funky. But I remember her pulling me up onto the bed and showing me the picture book she’d gotten. It was a Barbie book. The next time I came to see her, she wouldn’t wake up. I had brought the book, probably wanting her to read it, but she never woke up again. It was so sad. My dad cried. I never saw him cry again. Not even at her funeral. I didn’t cry either. But I heard her sister saying she was so glad she’d never married and had her life sucked down the drain like my mom did.”

  He tilted my chin. “Your parents never belonged together, but that doesn’t mean you and your mom didn’t.”

  Tears leaked from my eyes. I sniffled and nodded. “You’re right.”

  He held me in his arms, where we both zoned out and just hung out, like two kids in love.

  The only reason I know anything about history and the world is the smart people who cast the historical romances with yummy dudes!

  #TrueStory

  Chapter Nineteen

  Cat and Mouse

  June

  I could smell summer in the air as I hung my head out of the car window, the damp yet warm air caressing me. I suddenly understood why dogs did it. One week of school left and I was skipping my last classes to meet my boyfriend in Ireland. I almost wished I lived in Europe so I didn't constantly have jet lag.

  The driver gave me a look as we pulled up to the cathedral. “Will ya look at that? The parking lot is empty.”

  He saw a church, and I saw a man.

  A man with satisfaction spread across his face in a smile. He held out his hands. “Do you remember it?”

  I started laughing. “How do you do it?”

  Aiden tapped his head. “You are on my brain at all times.”

  It was the church from the show Tudors, the church I had said I loved. I ran to him, letting him wrap himself around me. “It must be exhausting.”

  He shook his head. “Contrary to popular belief, having someone run through your head is actually quite refreshing and invigorating. You inspire great things in me. You make me more than an ordinary man.”

  I gave him a look. He rolled his eyes. “Obviously, beyond the whole prince thing.”

  I sighed. “I missed your Shakespeare.”

  He leaned in, taking a deep inhale of my hair. “And I missed the scent of you in my air.”

  I lifted my face as he lowered his. Our lips met in the polite kiss we were permitted. I could feel his hands shaking with the want of a passionate kiss, but we saved those for closed doors. He smiled. “Let’s go. The cousin of the queen can’t very well be making out with girls outside of not only a religious, but also a historical landmark.”

  “Girls?”

  He winked. “Don't tell anyone, but I bring all the pretty girls here.”

  “Oh my God.” I sighed as he took my hand in his and dragged me up the stairs. The image of us in the glass window was so strange. It was a crucial moment, a defining one. I stopped him and looked. I was in a cream lace dress with short sleeves and my wide-brimmed sunhat Hattie had gotten for me. I looked like a lady. It made me smile. It also suited the Christchurch Cathedral I was standing outside of in Dublin. He suited me perfectly in his khakis, baby-blue dress shirt, and black jacket, no tie.

  “What are you doing?”

  I smiled at him in the window. “We look different.”

  His brow furrowed. “No, I look exactly the same as I did when I was here last.” He looked down. “Lord, I think these trousers are even the same ones.”

  I gave him a slight shove. “You’re an idiot. That's not what I meant. I mean we look like a couple. We match.”

  His smile grew. “I agree. But I feel as though we’ve always matched. You were beautiful and I was handsome.”

  “Oh my God, you are such a cheesy wanker.”

  “Well, we match on the outside. On the inside, I think you might be evil. Cheesy wanker?”

  I flashed him a smile as I took his arm and let him lead me to the cathedral. “It’s Mary’s pet name for you. The cheesy wanker.”

  He stopped to tie his dress shoe, looking up at me through his inky lashes. “She says that? When I’m king, I might have to reinstate hangings or some kind of torture.” He laughed. “Did you know my brother and your sister are having sex?”

  My jaw dropped. “Johan?”

  He nodded. “Caught them FaceTiming. Needless to say, I may never be the same again. He was doing a striptease in front of his laptop.”

  I looked up at the church. “You know you have totes ruined this for me, right? I was excited when you said we would visit a place that was on The Tudors, and now it will forever be tainted with the image of your brother doing a striptease for my sister. Sweet Jesus.”

  “Then we’re even for the cheesy wanker comment.” He lifted my hand and kissed the back. “Let’s see this place before the Archbishop sees us out here and locks the doors.”

  When we got inside, I was stilled by the beauty and intensity. The grandeur was overwhelming. I just stood there staring as he softly spoke. “The construction started in the 1100s. It’s got to be the only church I can say I know of that was a night club.”

  I smiled. “What?”

  “It’s true. A crypt keeper ran the crypt as a place to drink after hours. Apparently he accidently locked a soldier in the crypt when he closed up shop for the winter. The soldier died of starvation. They found his remains the following spring.”

  “People drank in the crypt?”

  He leaned in, whispering into my ear. “I swear it on my cheesy wanker soul. Apparently, the poor bloke still haunts the grounds. Very intense situation.”

  “That can’t be true.”

  “Come on, I want to show you the cat and rat display.” He pulled me along.

  I laughed. “You’re kidding right?”

  “No, the cat chased the rat into the organ pipe and they both got stuck and died.” He pulled me to a case that proved he was not, in fact, lying. I snuggled into him and looked at the most disturbing thing I had ever seen.

  After the tour, we walked out hand in hand. I smiled at Isaac and Tracy. They both waved. Aiden gave me a look. I laughed. “Say it all you want. They like it when I say hi.”

  He linked my arm in his. “Finley, we have to talk about something.”

  My lips tightened. “Not yet. You have that bad juju look.”

  He laughed. “No. Not about us. It’s about university.”

  “I’m still scheduled to attend the university of your liking, right?”

  He sighed. “Why do you have to be so difficult?”

  “I’m not.”

  “You said that like you were angry I got you into that school.”

  I shrugged. “I guess it annoys me that your life has influenced my life again. But Mary said she’s going to Saint Andrews too. I just don't understand why we have to go to Scotland for college.”

  “It’s a good sc
hool. Maybe you’ll be one of the lucky few who has an ear for accents and you could pick one up.”

  I shook my head. “My French is trash. Mary called me a useless tit at least once.”

  He scoffed. “She calls me that weekly. Come on.” He pulled me to the car. When we got inside, he grabbed my face, kissing me fiercely. My hands slid up into his hair, pulling his face down to me. He cupped my cheeks the way he always did, like I was the most delicate thing he had ever held. He whispered against my lips, “I love you.”

  We rode back over to Farmleigh House, which was apparently the place visiting dignitaries stayed in while in Dublin. It was a beautiful estate house next door to the president of Dublin. When we got there, the security detail was all set up. I tried really hard to not see them.

  Inside the mansion, I stopped short when I heard Jess’s voice and then Johan’s. No wonder she hadn’t wanted to tag along and see whatever Aiden was taking me to! I stormed into the library, the nicest library I had ever seen, and pointed at her and Johan. “Seriously?”

  Johan gave me a smirk. “Dare I assume the cat is out of the bag?”

  I looked at Jess. “Dude, come on. Not Don Johan? He’s whoring his way across Europe already. Why are you letting him whore in the US?”

  She laughed and Johan snarled. “She isn’t letting me do anything.” Jess looked proud but said nothing.

  Aiden lifted his eyebrows. “I’m pretty certain I saw some things on that computer that would suggest otherwise.”

  Jess’s face went red. “That's not the same thing.”

  I grimaced. “What the shit?”

  Mary walked in with a cup of tea. “That's not on the approved list of things you’re allowed to say.” I almost smiled, but Aiden’s mother walked into the library just behind Mary.

  She smiled at me like a snobby person would smile at a dirty homeless person before flicking change at them. “Finley, how nice to see you again.”