My Roommates are Princes! [Complete!]

Chapter 11: The Memorial of a Princess

Joyful days were soon followed by somber ones.

The sky seemed to c***k with thundering storms on the twenty first of March that year. The bright shimmering blue of the morning sky was enveloped in a sea of deep gray clouds and as if angry and torn, it sputtered lightening from its malicious form, strong and dangerous enough to tear this small town into shreds at the mercy of nature. The rain poured and poured in a sorrowful melody, as if it mourned for something that would never return.

I lifted my head groggily at the first sound of thunder, weakly pulling my blinds a centimeter to the right, just enough to notice lost white dove flying across the sky, a bright contrast to the dark garden it had flown through. It was pure, beautiful, but indeed watching it weave through the storm was enough to make me nervous.

Just as I was ready to put my head down and get some more rest on this depressing Thursday before classes, someone banged at the door rather violently as if they were a murderer attempting to gut the life out of another human.

“Who is it?” I asked, sitting up at my bed.

“Eric.” He replied roughly. It was definitely him.

I trudged to the door to open it. Indeed, it was Eric, dressed up in a different get-up: a tan suit with tan slacks and a white dress shirt with a crooked lavender tie. His hair was neat for once, gelled upwards to reveal more of the face I had never seemed to really like. For once I had gotten a glimpse of his green eyes a color that was quite bright and was more shocking than Felipe’s blue ones. I had noticed, however, that they were rimmed in red. He made quite the scene with bloodshot eyes.

“Church is on Sunday not Thursday.” I said to him. “What happened?” I looked at him up and down, wondering what was going on.

“Ha. ha. Luisa Cardona la comedia.” He said in a fake Italian accent, quite sarcastically. “So funny. Look. I need you to go to Nice with me.”

“Nice? In France?! For what?! That’s seven hours away!” I exclaimed.

“It’s important.” Eric said sternly, stepping forward. “I already bought the train tickets and booked the hotel for the night. You just need to dress nice and pack a change of clothes. Hurry. There’s not time to explain."

“Ok. Ok.” I sighed. “I’ll go. At least explain to me what’s going on at the train station then."

~~~~~~

We got to the train station just in the nick of time for the 7 hour train ride. Of course, Eric had bought us first class tickets in which case we had gotten a shiny coach, both sides of the coach held glossy white tables along a row, each table accompanied by two velvet seats facing each other and rimmed with a golden polish. We sat down at one of these tables in the center of the coach, closest to the parallel exit doors.

Almost immediately after I had set my bag on the ground next to my feet, Eric had slumped himself against the glass window, his breath fogging the glass.

“Can I get an explanation now?” I asked wondering why he insisted on dragging me away so early in the morning.

“Today is the day Solange died.” Eric replied.

My heart stopped in place. “And Nice is where….”

“It’s where she’s buried.” Eric said. “I promised that I would visit her on her Memorial Day.” He added. “I would buy her some flowers too….beautiful ones.”

I clenched the light blue skirt of my dress. “I’m sorry…I wasn’t expecting that….” I tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear, looking down at my drenched black dress shoes.

“I wasn’t expecting you’d know.” Eric replied. “You know…this was the exact train we’d take back to France whenever Solange would miss her mother.” He added.

I could see that this place held a lot of memories for him.

He buried his face into his hand as if there was nowhere else to turn. “Whenever things would get hard we would laugh it off….talk about everything….down to the very meaning of existing.” Eric added. “The last time we had gone to visit her mother she asked me if there was meaning in a life that would end so soon…..little did I know of her plans to take her own bloody life.”

I could see two streams of tears flowing from both of his eyes beyond the shadow of his hand.

“And of course…I didn’t know how to f*****g respond to her…..” He continued. “She was always smiling like some dumb kid…..right up until the very end when she died…..” Eric added.

As he told his story, a waiter had come around, ready to serve lunch for the day. He placed two silver trays in front of us filled with the most scrumptious of snacks: three pieces of toasted bread delicately smeared with pate, a light potato dish garnished with fish and parsley, a cup of tea, a small side salad, and a small egg tart for dessert. “Thank you.” I thanked the waiter with a small smile hoping that he wouldn’t pay too much attention to Eric. As he left I had turned back to Eric, who had gone quiet after my attention had left him. There was nothing much I could do to comfort him. I, myself, hadn’t much experience in love nor loss. The only person I knew that I was honestly afraid of losing was my grandmother and that had yet to have happened.

I picked up the egg tart from Eric’s tray, removing the wrap slowly. “You know, I haven’t really been on trains before. At least not the trains like this one.” I leaned forward to hold the tart up to his face, encouraging him to at least take a bite. “The only memory I have of riding on a train was third class with my grandmother. It’s probably hard to imagine for you but there were no seats and it was a much smaller coach…”

Eric took the tart from my hand, eating it roughly.

“There aren’t any hospitals in my village so whenever my grandmother needed treatment, we would have to board the train to the capital and often it would take many hours….imagine sharing a couch half this size with thirty other people!” I exclaimed. “The train also took a long time and the whole thing breaking down was more of a common occurrence than a smooth ride.” I added hoping he would at least care a little. “There weren’t any snacks either.”

“Must suck to be a commoner.” Eric scoffed.

“Well…it did….but there were definitely perks to being close with everyone and enjoying simple life with the same people in a simple town. In simplicity….there is beauty too.” I smiled, remembering how simple life had been in the small town…every time I had walked down the main road, everyone would greet me and I to them. We knew one another very well…we empathized with one another. It was a feeling I had so greatly missed.

“Do you miss home?” Eric asked me.

“Yes. I do.” I replied, smiling.

“After the mission ends…you’ll be able to return right?”

“Ah…that…..I’m…I’m not quite sure.” I replied.

Eric c****d an eyebrow. “Weren’t you promised a better life?”

“I was.” I replied though I didn’t add on as the waiter came around to check up on us.

~~~~~~

The rest of the train ride had passed by in what seemed like the blink of an eye. Eric had told me some more stories of Solange and I could see in his eyes that he loved Solange as much as Felipe had loved Emerald.

We arrived in Nice at around 4pm. The one thing that I stuck out to me the moment I had stepped out of the train station was red and every shade under its umbrella. Those were the colors of the buildings. Nice was a bright city, a bit warm and humid of course since it was near the ocean. It reminded me a lot of the town where the school was located. There were mostly pedestrians, typical of a European town. But here, it was a lot more urban and I could definitely hear all the cars rushing past me. There were also nude marble fountains that forced me to look the other way.

I followed Eric into a small flower shop where he bought a bouquet of pink tulips. The bright shade of pink had been the only thing that contrasted this sad time. Tulips, indeed were beautiful, but they were known for dying within a couple days of cultivation. They didn’t last very long.

We walked towards a grand cathedral, it was made of marble, its ceilings decorated in gold and blue. It was vaulted at the top, pointed towards heaven where Solange remained to watch over us. Eric and I had headed towards the graveyard where Solange’s family tomb had been located.

Eric had sunken in front of the tomb, tracing his finger over the name of Solange Marchand, delicately, as if it had been her face that he had caressed. As he began to mourn, he cried, tears streaming from his eyes angrily as he gripped a fist next to her name. “Can you apologize to her?” He whispered to me.

“What?” I was pulled down to earth.

“f*****g apologize to her.” He commanded. “You’re supposed to be Princess Emerald aren’t you?"

I see why he brought me along now. As the stand in for Princess Emerald, this was the only thing I could do to give peace to the mind of the Prince.

“So apologize for how much you ruined everything….pushing her down the stairs…..putting her in dangerous situations…leaving her alone to be humiliated…..I want a bloody apology.” Eric added.

“I apologize, Solange.” I said blandly. It probably wasn’t what Eric was looking for, but it was enough to suffice, indicated by a small nod.

“Thank you.” He said in conclusion.

As I attempted to approach him, he had stopped me. “I want to be left alone now.” He said.

I nodded, turning back into the cathedral.

As I walked in, I made a tour around the perimeter of the cathedral’s interior, where icons of blessed saints and beautiful paintings depicting the stories of Jesus Christ stood against glass windows, as well as paintings of the relationship between man and God.

I sat down in the seats as I waited for Eric’s return. The last time I had been to church was a couple months ago with my grandmother and since then I hadn’t the strength to go. I also could not go because I had to be Princess Emerald and I was sure that she did not go to the church.

I leaned forward on one knee, clasping my hands together as I leaned my head forward in piety and humbleness in front of a greater divine. I placed a lace mantilla on my head as I leaned forward to pray.

I prayed to God that day, I asked for Eric to get through his struggles, I hoped that nothing Eric had done throughout his depression would be held against him for whatever remainder of his life he had left.

~~~~~

The hotel we stayed at had two full sized beds. It, itself, was glorious as everything Eric touched was. He had still been silent, taking the bed closest to the window while I had taken the other. He gazed out towards the window blankly just removing his tie to give himself some breathing room. It seemed as if he hadn’t even notice the dirt on his trousers from kneeling on the grass for so long.

I took a quick shower and brushed my teeth before laying in my own bed with my blanket pulled up to my chin, turning to face the window to see if Eric had moved at all. He seemed to stay still as a statue in deep pensive thought while I had fallen asleep, waking up at morning to my alarm to see that he had remained the same, facing the morning light and below the sun, a bustling town. It was a town that had forgotten the suicide of a young girl just a year ago. It as a world where time had stopped for no one, not even those who hadn’t even a chance to say good-bye.

“Do you want to get breakfast?” I asked Eric.

“I probably should.” Eric replied, standing up.

The breakfast buffet was crowded but we ate quickly in silence before heading off to the train station for another day of travel.

“Ah. You never told me what you meant yesterday.” Eric reminded me.

“About?” I asked, sitting down in my seat across from him.

“You wouldn’t be able to return to your village when you were obviously promised that.”

“Ah. that.” I remembered with a sigh. “There were rumors that I would be killed for personifying the princess and knowing so many secrets about the royal family and those rumors to me make sense because….acting or portraying any member of the royal family is punishable by death.”

“What?” Eric’s face had turned pale.

“Yes. That is most likely the end to my mission.”

~To be continued~