Which, I mean, I get the appeal, and lord knows she has looked like a princess since she was about three, but it just seems . . . I don’t know. So pointless. Waving at crowds, cutting ribbons, being this ornament all because of an accident of birth.
Or, in Ellie’s case, of marriage, I guess.
“And I assure you,” Alex goes on, “this will, at the end of the day, be a fairly normal wedding.”
“It’s going to be on TV,” I remind him. “That’s not normal.”
The corners of Ellie’s mouth turn down, and in that second, she once again looks like my regular older sister, the one who once stole all my colored pencils because I’d used her favorite lipstick in one of my drawings (in my defense, that shade of pink made a killer sunset, and that picture is still hanging up in Mom’s office).
It’s Alex who steps in again. “We understand this is going to be a lot for all of you,” he says. “The attention, the travel, all of that. And we’re already putting things in place to ensure this whole process goes as smoothly as possible. Like Ellie said, we want this to feel like the family event it is rather than a . . . spectacle.”
From her spot in the corner, Mom leans forward and says, “And we appreciate that, Alexander, we truly do.”
“I don’t,” Dad says, still leaning in the doorway. “Love a bit of spectacle, me.”
We all ignore him, and Ellie flexes her fingers where they interlock with Alex’s. “The wedding is going to be in the winter,” she tells us. “Christmas.”
Now Mom blinks, her hands coming up to fiddle with her long necklace, the one I bought her on a school trip to Boston two years ago. It’s a pewter tricorn hat, and she’s worn it pretty much every day since I gave it to her. “December?” she repeats. “That’s only seven months from now. Ellie, surely you’ll need more time to plan—”
“There’s already protocol in place for a royal wedding,” Alex interjects. “And our dates are rather limited due to my mother’s calendar as well as the twins’ school schedule.”
Right. The twins.
At the thought of Prince Sebastian and Princess Flora, my stomach drops all over again. Like I said, we’ve gotten used to Alexander, but we’ve had nothing to do with any other part of El’s fancy life, and that includes meeting Alexander’s siblings. They’re my age or just a little bit older, and even though he’s only seventeen, Prince Sebastian is basically one of the most eligible bachelors in the world. And Princess Flora? If Ellie seems glamorous now, that’s nothing compared to Flora, who had a Vogue cover when she was eight.
And they’re going to be part of my family now. What is that even going to mean, really? Will we go on vacations with them? Will we exchange Christmas gifts? What do you even get for a freaking princess?
All of a sudden, I feel dizzy and a little sick, and I find myself lurching to my feet. “You okay, kiddo?” Dad asks, and I nod, pushing my sweaty hair back from my face.
“Yeah, just . . . I think I need some air.”
When I walk out onto the porch, it’s even hotter, but being out of the living room, even for just a little bit, helps. It smells like rain is coming, and I take deep breaths, closing my eyes, listening to the sound of Mom’s wind chimes.
After a while, the door behind me opens, and I expect Mom to be there, her hands fluttering like they do when she’s nervous. But when I turn, it’s Ellie.
“Can you maybe not do this?” she asks, frowning a little.
I raise my eyebrows. “Not do what? Freak out because things are about to get deeply weird for me?”
Her frown deepens, and I suddenly feel like a total garbage person. “El, no,” I say, propping a hip against the porch railing and pushing my hair out of my eyes. Even El is looking a little shiny.
“I’m happy for you,” I tell her, but she just shakes her head, looking up at the porch ceiling for a second.
“Maybe practice saying that so you don’t sound like you’re dying,” she says, and I shift my weight from one foot to the other, arms crossed. The wind is picking up a little bit now, but strands of hair still stick to my face and neck.
“Maybe if two weeks ago, my boyfriend hadn’t decided to use my connection to you to score a little extra cash, I’d be happier, but he did, so I’m not.”
“How is it my fault that you have terrible taste in boys?”
“Michael was not terrible,” I say, even though half an hour ago, I for sure thought he was pretty terrible.
“I know it’s really hard for you to comprehend that not everything is about you, Daisy,” Ellie goes on, “but—”
“It’s not!” I interrupt, and here we go again. Maybe the seven years between our ages is too much, maybe we’re just too different, but put me and Ellie in a room together for more than ten minutes, and we always end up here somehow. “I get it,” I go on, “but you’re not thinking about us. Like, I know it’s going to be super sweet to be a princess and all, but none of us signed up for that. For tabloids and pictures and”—I wave one hand at the car of bodyguards—“that.”
Huffing out a breath, Ellie shoves her hands into her back pockets. She’s definitely sweaty now, and it’s honestly a relief to see some of her princess coating cracking.
“Well, life isn’t always fair,” she says, “and I’m dreadfully sorry my falling in love with a wonderful man is an inconvenience to you.”
I snort. “Oh, right, because you’d’ve fallen for Alex even if he worked at the Sur-N-Sav, I’m so sure.”
Ellie’s eyebrows nearly shoot up into her hairline. “What is that supposed to mean?”
But before I can answer her, I glance up and catch a glimpse of what’s happening through the front window, and—
“Oh god, Mom,” I say, and Ellie whips around, giving me a face-full of blond hair.
“No!” she gasps, and we both scramble for the front door, united for once.
Mom is sitting on the couch next to the future king of Scotland, one arm wrapped around his shoulders, the other holding her phone out.
She may be old-fashioned about her writing, but when it comes to phones, Mom is very up on her technology, which means in the past year or so, she has become Queen of the Selfies. And then some evil person, probably our neighbor, Mrs. Claire, taught her about silly filters, and our lives have been a hell of dog faces and anime eyes and unicorn horns ever since.
God love him, Alex is smiling gamely as Mom lowers her phone, chuckling. “Oh, this is a new one, this is perfect!” she crows before turning her phone to face us.