My Roommates are Princes! [Complete!]

Chapter 4: The Prince reveals himself..

Before I had known, time had passed me by.

As the trees outside had become barren, all its life blown away with chilly winds, winter was greeted with the first flurries of snow across the marble campus. As I had become accustomed to being someone I wasn’t, life had passed on, with only the season of quiescence to mark the end of an era.

The era of Luisa.

I gazed out the window during stretches at gym. With one leg held forward and a hand on the end of my foot, my eyes were glued to the French style aperture laced in gold. Outside was a winter wonderland that I had never seen before. Everything was slowly becoming covered in a blanket of pure white.

Surrounding me were the four girls whom I now learned to address by their names: the blonde was named Susie, the girl with the hyena laugh was named Heather, the girl with the purple hair was named Penny, and the girl with the red hair was named Josephine.

They all sat surrounding me. Susie the blond was fixing her mascara. Heather the brunette had finally had the bandages from her nose job removed and flaunted it with every chance she had gotten. Penny and Josephine were giggling with glee as they watched Duke, Chaiya, and Felipe do their stretches from the other side of the room (It seems Eric decided not to come today). These four girls always told me that my roommates seemed to “sparkle” and spoke of them with insane and maniacal obsession. After I had defended Duke, they seemed to hold him higher on the pedestal along with Felipe and Eric.

Chaiya waved to me from the other side and I waved back with a small smile.

Today’s activity should have been volleyball, but the four girls had always opted to sit on the sidelines as always and talk instead of joining in the activities. I sat in the corner along with them, barely joining into their conversations, as I was still mesmerized by the landscape outside.

Everyone else had seemed to enjoy the light sport. The nets were set up by the instructors and it wasn’t long before the spheroids went flying through the air in zooming velocities.

“Oh my God, Emmy, what is with you and that damn window?!” Susie snapped her fingers in a zig zag pattern in front of my eyes.

“Huh?” My head shook for a minute as I came back to reality. I turned towards her.

“Are you, like, good?!” She followed up.

“Don’t tell me you got the flu too!” Josephine the redhead exclaimed, backing away from me. “I heard it was spreading around like wildfire!”

“I heard Felipe got the flu! DON’T TELL ME YOU GOT CLOSE ENOUGH TO HIM TO ACTUALLY GET INFECTED BY HIM!” Penny exclaimed aggressively, her hands immediately heading into the air, as if she were about to choke me to death for a minute.

“No. I just like winter.” I said calmly. I was used to how obsessive they got over Felipe and Eric. It was quite sad actually. It was as if their entire lives had revolved around their school crushes.

I saw a glint in Susie’s eye as I looked straight at her, a speeding ball of white entering the corner of her eye.

It wasn’t until a looming shadow fell over me, that I heard the ball go smack into the side of someone’s head. Susie’s smirk of anticipation had turned into a horrific gasp.

Two long arms had flanked the sides of my head as the tall figure staggered to regain his balance.

“Are you ok?” He asked as I felt some drops of thick blood land on the side of my cheek as I looked upwards, finding Felipe’s face awfully close to mine.

I gasped as I saw blood dripping from his nose. “I’m fine but are you?!” I caught him just as his arms began to weaken. His body was a little heavy but I was able to sling his left arm across my shoulder just in time, holding him up. I’ve lifted heavier things in my days on the field. The only thing I had began to notice was that up close, Felipe had reeked of alcohol. The smell was enough to burn my nose.

“I’m fine.” Felipe tried to pull away, but he only staggered.

Around me, I noticed that all movement had stopped once they had realized that Felipe had gotten hurt.

“Hang on, I’ll take him to the nurse’s office!” I explained to the four girls in front of me as I began to break out in a nervous sweat. With Felipe dangling on my arms, I exited the gym, struggling to remember which way the nurse’s office was.

“It’s in a different building….” Felipe told me as he began to push more of his weight onto my body.

A force of chill had tried to push us back as I opened up the doors which were heavy from all the shielding it had to provide for the main building. But it was nothing I couldn’t handle.

“You’re a little too strong to be the Princess I know….your muscles are also quite rough…..” Felipe joked with a hint of sadness that came from his memories of the true princess.

“Tell me…what would the Princess have done instead?” I asked.

He began to lean more and more of his weight on me, until I began to sweat so much that the burn actually made the wintry winds seem hotter than that of a dog day’s worth of summer breezes. “She would’ve hit the person who hit me back and ordered that they bring an ambulance for me. It’s that building over there.”

He gestured to what looked like a two story clinic with the signature Red Cross at the very top of the entry doors. This building didn’t seem as classic as the others and was actually quite modern with automatic doors.

A nurse had immediately checked us in and brought out a wheelchair for Felipe’s nosebleed, finally giving him a tissue as she wheeled him into a doctor’s office.

As I was about to go in with him, she had stopped me, telling me to wait outside in the lobby until the doctor was finished.

Turning around, I had bumped into another person, right in their wound too. He yelped out in pain. “WATCH WHERE YOU’RE GOING YOU PHONY b***h!” Eric exclaimed. I had recognized him immediately from his choice of words.

“A-Ah, I’m sorry!” I turned around as he clutched his broken rib in pain. His scowled face was covered in bumps and bruises everywhere. As he looked up to me with a black eye, I saw a surprise had come from him when I had apologized, making him quickly look away.

“Whatever…just….just sit down over there for a minute.” He gestured to the lobby area.

We sat down right next to each other, in soft cushioned chairs, in silence as Eric leaned back slowly into comfort.

“Did you get into a fight-“ I began although the question was rather obvious.

“There’s no need to play pretend here.” Eric added. “The nurses know how much you love to play dress-up. They have to know how to treat you in case you get found out.”

“I don’t like being Princess Emerald that much.” I sighed although I was relieved that I could finally relax for once in the day.

Eric scoffed. “Yeah right. Whatever, it’s not like you make much of a decent Emerald at all OR a decent human being since you STILL managed to make people believe that you’re really the princess you claim to be.” His tone seemed to get more aggressive with every word.

“You already know I’m not the princess so why do you always have to continue treating me like I actually am?” I asked, finally.

“Because you’re an exact replica of the face I want to punch.” Eric replied as he folded his arms across his chest, though careful not to put a lot of pressure on his fractured ribs.

“Then can I ask why you hate the Princess so much?”

“Who wouldn’t hate her?” Eric turned his face in the opposite direction to mine.

“Well fair enough. Even the Agricolans hate her and even her own so-called ‘friends’ don’t like her very much but it just seems like you won’t even try and compromise with presence in any way.” I told him.

“How much do you actually know about what Princess Emerald has done?” Eric finally turned towards me again, though he grabbed a part of my hair to cover half my face with. “Don’t look at me with that face, it makes me sick.”

“I really can’t change that….” I sighed.

“Answer the damn question.” He reminded me, a vein seemed to pop on the side of his forehead.

“Well….all I know is that she picks on the weak…kicks people when they’re down…..throws apples at people at lunch…..she got reported for emotional abuse last year and that’s how she ended up at the male dormitory.” I recited. “In Agricola she was known for showing off how rich she was even though ninety nine percent of the population lived below the poverty line. She didn’t really care. That’s…pretty much it.”

“Well what you know is just the tip of the iceberg.” Eric concluded. “There was a girl……” Eric began as his eyes fell blankly before him, glued to the ground as if to visualize something that has long since passed.

“A girl?”

HIs expression softened as he drifted off into his pensive thinking. “Her name was Solange….” He added. “She was in love with Felipe….she probably loved Felipe a lot more than Princess Emerald loved him.”

“Wait what?” I asked.

“You have got to be the world’s biggest dumbass if you haven’t noticed how defeated that motherfucker looks just because the real Princess Emerald is probably dead and thank Jesus she is probably dead.” Eric added.

“Just continue with your story….” I sighed. He was such an emotional brat.

“Well. The problem was. She was my first love….just as Emerald was Felipe’s. She was twenty times prettier than Emerald just so you know. You’re an ugly mutt compared to her.” He rolled his eyes. “But she was….too kind and too weak against Emerald’s torture. While Solange was basically an angel sent from heaven Emerald was Lucifer.”

I nodded.

The nurse that had taken Felipe had returned. “Felipe is ready to go back to the dorm. But he’ll need an escort.” She said, turning to Eric.

“Hell no.” Eric scoffed, standing up. “Go back and tell him that Emerald will take him back.” He pointed to the hallway where she came from, quite rudely at that.

The nurse bowed and turned back immediately.

“Whatever. You go take care of him.” Eric began to walk away.

“Wait!” I pulled his arm back. “What happened to Solange?”

Eric clenched his fists and pushed me back. “First of all, don’t you dare touch me with those damn hands of yours! And second of all, she f*****g committed suicide, overdosed on pills because of all the horrible things Emerald did just to make sure she wouldn’t be with Felipe. And well.. it worked obviously.” Eric said, before turning back the other way.

His words struck through my heart like a knife making its way through my chest. “W-what?”

“You heard me.” Eric concluded as he exited the doors, his broad back returning to the cold winds outside.

A nurse tapped me on the shoulder. “The prince can be taken back now.”

Felipe stood behind her with all the drama over his nosebleed set aside. His left arm was extended over his head, holding an ice pack in place.

“Are you alright?” I asked him as we left the clinic behind us.

“I’m fine.” Felipe replied.

“Thank you for protecting me.” I figured it wouldn’t hurt to show some appreciation for what he had done.

“I wasn’t protecting you, I was protecting Princess Emerald.” Felipe corrected me with a slight bitterness.

“Ah. Whatever it was, I appreciate it.” I added.

Felipe sneezed, followed by a flurry of coughs.

“Did they give you medicine for your cold?”

“Yes….” Felipe shot me a look, a mix of sadness and forced anger.

I covered up my face with my hair as Eric had directed me to. “Does this make you feel better?”

Felipe scoffed. “Bring me the real Princess Emerald and we’ll see how I feel.” He paced ahead of me until he was no longer visible.

~~~~~~

After we got back to the dormitory, the first thing he had done was dive for the fridge, presumably for some more alcohol, a staple accessory for this Prince. At first, I had ignored it, believing that someone else would have warned him about the toxicity of mixing alcohol and medication.

I kept an eye out for him for a couple of days innocuously so.

Medication was not his savior, but alcohol was. Whatever needed to be healed he had destroyed with the burning liquid. Even at such a young age, he seemed to bear the sorrows of downtrodden man. There was not a single soul that stood beside him nor one that dared to go near him.

Though he was as perfect as a statue on the outside, his soul was remnant of a broken vase.

He was once a happy person one who had known no sadness. But in the pit of his depression he had fallen, a story remnant of a fallen angel.

~~~~~

As he reached for another sip of the wine glass, I swiped it out of his hand. “You shouldn’t drink when you’re on medication.”

He scanned me up and down as if I was an invasive parasite in his natural habitat. “Why are you suddenly so concerned about me?!” He flailed his arms around before somehow falling over on the island, leaning against it for support.

“Because it’s what Princess Emerald would have done!”

“WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT PRINCESS EMERALD?!” He yelled, snatching the wine glass from my hand and throwing it onto the ground. “FOR ALL I KNOW YOU KILLED EMERALD!” Felipe exclaimed, coughing and sputtering all the same as he had been.

We were snowed in and alone in the dorm room. Chaiya was at another friend’s room and Duke was locked up in his room with Eric away on his usual mysterious disappearance.

“Have you taken your medicine?” I asked him as he calmed down in the moment, slumping down in his seat.

He kicked the empty bottle of plastic towards my direction though it only bounced a little forcing a laugh from the drunken prince. “I ran out a long time ago.”

I went up towards him, feeling his forehead for the burning sensation that I had expected.

“I’d rather die than drink that medication again. In fact….I WANT TO DIE!” Felipe stood up again, pushing me back into a wall as he ran to the bathroom, retching out his insides.

Was it all because of Princess Emerald, I had wondered. I stood infront of the locked door, where the Prince of Glass sat behind, regurgitating all he had eaten in the past couple of days which didn’t seem like much. “Why do you want to leave this world so bad? Don’t you know…people will miss you?”

“And the only person I miss is already gone….” He cried from behind the door, his hair a mess. “You said so yourself.”

“I said she was missing, not dead.”

“And whose to say she’s alive?” Felipe sprawled down on his stomach, across the bathroom floor like a starfish that couldn’t stand.

“If you died now…who would find her?” I asked.

“If she was alive….why didn’t she come find me?” Felipe asked again.

I sighed, realizing how hopeless this Prince was. “I’ll get you the medicine.” I turned away from the door, only to come face to face with Eric who looked down at me with confused eyes.

He c****d an eyebrow. “Why are you suddenly getting him medicine? He’s already successfully killing himself with all this shit.” He gestured to the alcohol in the kitchen.

“He’s like this because no one will help him.” I rebuttled.

“Ok well here’s some logic for you, smart one. The REAL Princess Emerald? She didn’t help anyone. If anything from what I see you’re just trying so hard to please people. Don’t tell me you f*****g love that cunt too!” Eric got closer to me, as if to completely block my path off from the door.

My heart dropped at the sudden realization. In Eric’s eyes was only malice towards Felipe. “Why don’t you want to help him?….Was he not once your friend?”

“HE KILLED THE WOMAN I LOVE!”

“And the woman he loves is gone…and you took advantage of this….you ruined him. Y-Y-You introduced alcohol to him!….you wanted this to happen!” I stuttered, trying to get the right words to describe what was happening.

“So what?” Eric crossed his arms. “Nothing you do will save him now.”

“Well….at least I can try.” I pushed past him.

“What the hell are you going to do?!” He asked me as I threw my coat on: a gray fur jacket that provided enough warmth for the harsh blizzard outside.

“I’m going to grab the medicine he needs.” I turned my head back one last time. “I don’t care what you say.”

“Are you stupid?! There’s a f*****g blizzard outside!”

I ignored him, shutting the door right in his face.

~~~~

I got to the pharmacy which was dark and empty with not a single detectable soul inside the entire clinic. The electricity seemed to have stopped working here. I thought to myself.

It wasn’t until I switched the flashlight on my smartphone, that I found Susie the blond in the corner with a bottle of pills in her hand. As the light shown on her face, she looked at me with a shocked expression, that of a deer in headlights.

She immediately shoved the bottle in that bright purse of hers shakily as if I had just caught her red handed with an unforgivable crime. Knowing her, it was probably sleep medication to mix in with someone’s food, though I wasn’t too sure.

“Have you seen some cold medicine around here?” I asked, though I had an awry feeling that something was off with her.

She c****d an eyebrow. “For…whom? You don’t seem particularly sick.” The aura around her had changed as she stepped forward curiously.

“It’s for Felipe.” I replied.

Something about her eyes had changed, there was a fiery anger that surrounded her. “So you’ve moved onto Felipe now huh?” She turned me around as I went to look at a shelf. It was as if I had unlocked the gates of hell.

“LOOK AT ME WHEN I TALK TO YOU!” She shouted, turning me around and slapping me straight across the face. The stinging sensation burned me and I fell down to the ground, my phone dropping right out of my hand.

As I reached for my phone which was kicked quite a couple inches away, she kicked me in the stomach with her sharp heel. I sputtered as I gripped my now bruised abdomen. My body automatically folded into a ball. But she didn’t stop there.

She swung her heavy purse up in the air and threw it down on my body with a force that seemed unreasonable to me. Every three swings at my limbs, she would kick me again.

And again the pains repeated themselves.

And again she hit me, because I had a face that belonged to someone else. It was a curse really. That much I knew.

And again she hit me until I couldn’t move anymore.

It was exactly what she wanted.

“You f*****g slut.” She tossed her purse aside, kneeling down in front of my mangled body and pulled my head up with my hair. “You’re nothing.” She said.

I felt the tension between her fingers and my head that could barely hold itself up.

“You’re nothing compared to me.” She repeated. “If only I could kill you right here and now…” She chuckled. “No one will stand between Felipe and I. He is mine…and no one else’s….not even Solange can stand in my f*****g way.”

I narrowed my eyes at her, my face now bruised and battered from the trauma she had just inflicted on me with her purse, as I opened my mouth to speak, the locked door had been kicked down with a loud thud though the pitch black darkness made it difficult to see whom it was.

“Felipe would never love someone as low as you.” He stole the words right out of my mouth.

Susie tossed my head to the side like a dirty rag that would infect her with some incurable disease, backing away when Eric had come into the room, knowing full well that he was not afraid to fight with his own fists.

In the blink of an eye, Eric had punched Susie straight across the face, knocking her right off her ginormous heels. She fell to the ground with the contents of the bottle spilling out from the cracked bottle.

“What is this?” Eric picked up the bottle, examining the contents with the light of his phone. “Sleeping pills?” He smashed all the capsules with his foot, the contents of the medication grinding with the dust and dirt from his muddy shoes, wet with the dirty snow.

“HOW DARE YOU HIT ME?!” Susie stood up, as offended as she was hurt, her cheek was swollen.

“Get lost before I hit you again.” Eric knelt down at my side as Susie was taken aback at his threat.

Taking him with utmost sincerity, she had grabbed her purse and ran out the door as quickly as she could.

He shone the bright light in my face, putting his arm below my back to lift the top half of my body up. “I can move myself.” I pushed his arm away, sitting upright.

“Jesus.” Eric scowled as he saw the bruises on my face and body. “Didn’t you know the clinic was closed today?!”

“All the more reason to find the medicine myself.” I said.

“AND YOU ALMOST PAID YOUR LIFE FOR IT!” Eric yelled. “After all I told you do you think Felipe is really worth risking your life over?!”

“Would you rather him die? Wasn’t he once your friend?”

“YES! IF IT WASN’T OBVIOUS ENOUGH!” Eric answered me. “He may once have been my friend but after what he did to Solange, I can’t forgive him.”

Eric turned around with his back facing me. “But I guess I’ll have to help him this time since you’re so adamant about saving that b***h. Get on my back I’ll take you back to the dorm.” Eric said.

“I can walk.” I sighed, though my bruised arms shook uncontrollably as I struggled like a weak chick barely hatching from its hardened shell.

“You can’t.” Eric snarled in annoyance. “Hurry up before the storm gets worse.”

I looked away in defeat.

~~~~~

After Eric had paced back to the dorm with some struggle from carrying my weight, he threw me on the loveseat in the living room, brushing the snow off of his coat and body.

“They still aren’t back yet?” Eric looked around, with no signs of Chaiya or Duke.

Eric opened the door to the bathroom where an unconscious Felipe laid. “You stay there for now.” Eric commanded me as he went to get a glass of cold water from the kitchen.

I watched as he paced back to Felipe, tossing the cold water right into the latter’s face. Felipe jolted awake, as if he had just been administered an electrocuting shock.

“Sober up before I beat you up, dipshit.” Eric threatened, holding the glass cup so tightly that it struggled to maintain its rigidity.

“Eric! Don’t hurt him!” I shouted.

“He won’t.” Felipe glared at Eric as he stood up. “What do you want from me?”

Eric was quick, tossing the bottle of medicine right into Felipe’s hands. “Medication. Take it.”

He then gestured at me. “She just got bludgeoned to bloody death for you so appreciate it.” Eric added before pushing past Felipe to get some ointment.

Felipe looked at me, his eyes immediately becoming sad upon seeing the bruises on the face of Princess Emerald. “You didn’t have to do that for me.” He sat down beside me to examine the bruises on my face with his vast blue eyes.

“It’s what Princess Emerald would have done isn’t it?” I asked as Felipe’s eyes deepened in pensive thought.

~~~~

To be continued…