Chapter Eighteen: Fighting

         “Stop being a snob.”

        “Stop being arrogant,” I retorted, glowering. 

        Hadrian lets out an exasperated moan, turning away from me. “Let me just tell you this now, Callea. You’re not always going to get your way. In fact I’ll probably give you your way almost never.”

        “Yes but you see, with this one you can’t do anything about it. I’m telling you that I will not attend any wedding ceremony of mine for at least a month, so either you can wait that long or be the only attendee at your wedding.”

        Hadrian doesn’t say anything as he just refuses to meet my gaze, like he’d kill me if he did or something. It hardly bothered me because just this once I wasn’t going to let him have his way, either. I didn’t care if he went on about another one of his suddenly genius thoughts, I just wasn’t going to let it affect me.

        “You know what, I have someone I need to go see, so while you come to your senses, I’ll be with your cousin Gloriana.”

        “What?” I ask in a hard voice. “What do you mean you have to go see her? Hadrian what are you doing?”

        On his way out he turns to look at me with a face saying ‘none of your business,’ and ‘you heard right’ at the same time. He closes the chamber door on the way out, leaving me in there alone. I scream to myself. I was sure he was only saying it to get a rise out of me but I really wanted to kill him right then. And I probably wouldn’t have felt very guilty if I did so.

        As it happens the truth is that he irritates me all of the time. And when he’s a jerk about everything he doesn’t even so much as apologize, he just assumes that I’ve forgiven him by the time he’s ready to come visit me again and he acts like everything is completely fine. Then he makes me even angrier when he tells me I’m being childish and then the whole process starts over again. Repeat, repeat. 

        Then once every three or four days when he knew I was most irritated at him he’d just ignore me, until for some dumb reason I was the one begging for forgiveness, when it most certainly should have been the other way around. Only after an hour of nagging him would he decide to stop ignoring me and then he’d be bitter and rude. Just now, that was the bitter and rude state.

        And I was going to have to deal with it for the rest of my entire life, maybe. Most of our arguments were about the wedding such as which colors or he was even so bold as to try and tell me how to string my hair up. Why does he even care about most of this stuff? It shouldn’t be his job anyway, but even after we’re married I’m sure he’ll still find plenty to nag me about. But then again, it still stood true that I didn’t have a choice about the marriage.

        However, apparently we had speculators on the night I officially agreed to marry him so when my father heard of the news he was, as you can imagine, utterly thrilled that I wasn’t going to fight with him just this once. So thrilled that he allowed me to make many of the arrangements myself, as I pleased, as well as pick a day.

        It should be my choice what day. Not Hadrian’s. He was marrying into higher royalty, he wasn’t the one who was already a part of it.

        So anyway. I figure that as long as I stay loyal to the marriage arrangements my father would allow me to pick things myself, so this is the only reason I couldn’t use the threat as an excuse. Not that it would matter anyway, if I did.

        What was Hadrian thinking seeing Gloriana anyway? I guess it would be honest to say it wouldn’t surprise me if he were having an affair, and that irritated me too. Of course he wouldn’t be able to get away with that forever. But I still figured that he was lying about seeing her, but even if he was I hated that he was just leading her on like that. Playing with her broken heart.

        The door opened again and I turned.

        “Forgot something,” Hadrian mumbled, coming back into the room then he picked up his coat and I turned away from him, this time giving the silent treatment to him myself. Without a word he left the room. You see what I mean? That’s what he does. That’s all he ever does, he doesn’t care in the least that I hate him right now.

        Another thing I couldn’t stop this for was because the town had come to respect me too. Ever since the engagement I haven’t been treated unpleasantly. It was a relief to not have to check under my sheets before I went to sleep and to not have to nibble at my food. I don’t think they knew that Hadrian had the same intentions as I did to stop the war but it didn’t seem to matter because for some reason they liked him anyway. I was sort of envious but grateful none the less.

        There were so many reasons that I should have just forgotten about the wedding too, though. Mostly because it felt like a sacrifice every single day more and more to stop the war because each and every day I felt like I hated Hadrian more and I had reason to doubt he actually did love me. He said he did but I knew how good his word on that was once, and it was in the least bit interesting how he hadn’t said anything about it since. Actually it was frustrating. What I was sure of was that a part of me loved him, a part that was very deep down right now but a lot of me was just mad at him.

        And I was still in love with Kier. I had thought about him so much since I had come to the realization that I could never, ever be with him no matter how much I wanted to. I worried about how I was going to tell him everything, in just four days. I’d come up with several solutions but in my head they never had good endings. I was afraid that once I saw Kier that he was going to convince me to come back somehow, because that’s just what he did. And I’ve thought about telling him I hate him, that I’m already engaged, I’ve considered telling him that I’m princess Callea and letting myself suffer consequences for it. But nothing was that simple.

        The only conclusion I could decide on was that I had to make myself truly, honestly hate him myself. So I had decided I was going to ask about his opinion on the war- and then he was going to tell me he abhorred the Princess Callea, and then though it might kill me a little, I could finally accept that he hated me- even if I wouldn’t tell him that night that I was her, but just to know he’d hate me if he did know…

        I’m such an idiot. Why did I let myself meet him in the first place? So that I could completely complicate my life later? I should have left him the last time that I told him I would. I shouldn’t have dug myself this deep into a hole.

        And of course, there was that large- humongous would be a more accurate word- part of me that deep down, still wanted to never leave Kier. I didn’t want to potentially hurt him. I didn’t want to hurt me.

        Reprimanding myself for letting Hadrian get under my skin again, I head up to the library, hoping to wash away all my anger and frustration.

        *~*~*~*~*~*~*

        “Callea, what are you doing?” Vorion’s voice asked.

        “What do you mean?” I questioned.

        “You’ve forgotten all about me, haven’t you? Why are you marrying that man that I banished. Remember what he did to you Callea?”

        “He’s changed,” I responded. “I haven’t forgotten about you, Vorion.”

        “You’re in love with Kier,” Vorion accused. “And you’re just throwing that once-in-a-lifetime true love away, feeding it to the earth.”

        “I thought you didn’t like him.”

        “But he makes you happy, Callea. Never mind what I think, because I was wrong. He needs you just as much as you need him and he’s kind to you. Hadrian is not.”

        “But I’ll be the ruin of this war if I marry Kier,” I whined miserably.

        “You’ll be the ruin of yourself if you don’t.”

        I woke up, screaming to myself. Nobody was in my chamber except me. I brought a hand to my forehead. What were with these dreams that I’ve been having lately? They felt so real- like Vorion was actually scolding me. Is that even possible? Could he be talking to me? Will I never be able to please him?

        *~*~*~*~*~*

        “I demand to know why you can’t marry me in a month and why it has to be next week.”

        Hadrian turned to look at me with one eyebrow raised. “Must you know the answer for everything?”

        “Well I would like an explanation on why you’ve been such a pig lately,” I snapped.

        “If you must know it’s so that I can start thinking about other things.”

        That’s a dumb reason. He hardly has to worry about anything, he’s just giving himself all these responsibilities, most likely to get a rise out of me.

        I roll my eyes, plopping myself down on his bed and moaning. He’s so difficult. Always.

        “And why can you not marry me in a week.”

        “Because you insist that it be on my sixteenth birthday, for one, and for another,” I huff. “You know, I really don’t want to get married when I’m still not even completely mature.” I bit my bottom lip, closing my eyes as I admitted this. I wasn’t ready for marriage and that was just that.

        “You’ll grow to maturity.”

        I squeeze my eyes tightly. For once couldn’t he just say something to make me feel better and not worse? Something I didn’t already know maybe? Where was all theat genius deep inside of him anyway?

        “Really Hadrian? I had no idea,” I sigh then I get up off of his bed and start my way out the chamber.

        “Callea,” he calls, trying to stop me. I wave him away and he lets out a frustrated sigh of his own.