"This isn't personal, I hope you understand that," Lisa said.
Melanie was sitting, tied to a chair in her living room, her mouth ungagged only because she'd promised she wouldn't scream or cry out for help. Lisa paced in front of her, cleaning her nails with the tip of her knife, the crazy dancing on her eyes, a sight Melanie had somehow failed to notice properly until just this very moment. "...you made me care about you," Melanie mumbled, angry, "You made me care about someone, and I've never cared about anyone, romantically, and now I'm going to second guess my feelings for everyone for the rest of my life, all because I won't trust myself not to think they aren't out to hurt me or use me." "I'm not proud of how this went down, but it was the only way to get back to your brother," Lisa said, "and I did care about you, you were far more interesting than he'd ever led me to believe. I'm sorry that I lied, and used you." "What's so great about Shane that isn't great about me?" Mel asked, her eyes cast down to the floor now. "Are you...jealous I'm stalking your brother?" Lisa asked, half laughing, "Jesus, you are messed up." "Yeah, I'm the messed up one here, that makes sense." "Okay, that was fair, I guess I deserved that." "Not surprising, my whole life people always preferred my brother over me, except for our father. He was the only one who liked me more than Shane. I've always been his shadow. Makes sense it would just happen again." Lisa knelt and touched Melanie's face, looking into her eyes as best she could, despite Mel's best attempts to keep them out of her line of sight. "Oh your highness," she said, "If we'd met under different circumstances, if we'd met before I met Shane, who knows what could've become of it all. I do like you. But this is the way things worked out, and I have to see them through to the end. Now you're going to call your brother, and ask him to come over. You're going to tell him you're having a crisis and need his help, and because he feels guilty, he'll come." Lisa picked up Melanie's phone and untied one of her hands, allowing her to take the phone and dial. But Melanie didn't call Shane, no, she scrolled down to a different number instead, the only other person she could think of who might help. *** Emma was sitting at the desk in their home office when Darren entered, eating an ice cream cone. She turned and smiled at him, pulling her glasses off and letting them hang around her neck. "What're you up to?" he asked, licking the ice cream. "Coming up with a gameplan for class this week," Emma said, "...why, you want to do something?" "Could be nice. We haven't been spending much quality time together lately. I was thinking maybe we could do something together. Go see a movie or something like that," Darren said, entering and eating the last bite of his cone, he added, "I'm sorry." "For?" "For pushing the family thing." "Look, you have every right to want what you want, and maybe in a bit I'll change my mind, but...I'm sorry I'm what's keeping you from having what you feel you need," Emma said, as Darren kissed her forehead and rubbed her cheek with his thumb, making her blush. "Hush, we'll work it all out," he said. As Darren exited to get his coat and use the bathroom, his cell phone rang. *** Lisa was standing in Melanie's open fridge, pulling out a plastic container, opening it and sniffing, before turning to face her, showing her the container. "Do you mind if I eat this leftover chinese?" she asked, and Melanie shrugged. "No, it's okay," Mel said, "You can have it." "Thanks. I was going to eat at the restaurant, but obviously I didn't stay," Lisa replied, pulling a fork from the sink and starting to dig into the food; she sat on the armchair and sighed, looking around the apartment, saying, "You know, it wasn't like I lied about everything. I did care about you. I do. I also like princess stories. Fantasy stories my father told me as a kid always had a happy ending, and I've never gotten a happy ending. I just wanted Shane to be my happy ending." "But not me, right?" Melanie asked. "...if we'd met first, I think I'd have been perfectly fine with having you as my happy ending, but that isn't how it shook out, so...besides, you wouldn't..." Lisa sighed and shook her head. "What?" Mel asked, raising an eyebrow. "You wouldn't want me after a while, nobody does," Lisa said. "Could it be because you don't continue taking your medication?" Melanie asked, "Could it be because you stalk people? Perhaps the fault of blame lies on you and not the people you think are being mean to you. And you got me to believe the same thing, that I didn't need help, that it would change me. Yeah, of course it's going to change me, for the better. But you got me to believe it'd be for the worse, all because you wanted someone to be sick enough for you to control." Lisa glared at Mel, and then sighed, shrugging and looking at her shoes. "Yeah, you're not wrong," she said quietly, surprising Melanie as she added, "I am sick. I just felt safe with Shane. I thought that maybe if I got someone to vouch for me, then maybe he'd take me back, believe I was better even if I wasn't. But I didn't expect to like you as much as I did. I wanted to be a part of your family because I didn't really have one of my own anymore." "Well maybe, if you got yourself well like I was trying to do before you convinced me otherwise, you'd be capable of making a family of your own," Melanie said. "Maybe," Lisa said, sounding broken inside, "But maybe nobody would want me once the most interesting thing about me is gone." "Your sickness is not the most interesting thing about you, that's just your brain telling you that because it's sick and wants to keep you ill," Melanie replied, "Once you think clearly, once you're better, you can find out what the things that really make interesting are. But you're never going to figure that out unless you get will first." As the words left her lips, Melanie suddenly realized how all of this related to her, and made that decision right then and there that, if she managed to get out of this situation alive, she would put in even more effort to get well. She didn't want to become Lisa. *** Darren grabbed his car keys and headed out the front door without saying a word to Emma, having heard all he had to hear over the phone call Mel had placed to him. He climbed into the truck and turned the ignition, backing out and speeding down the road, leaving Emma to look out the window, watching him drive away. Emma walked to the kitchen and started to make herself a cup of tea, then stopped, opened a cabinet on the bottom shelf of the kitchen and pulled out the wine, instead having a glass of that, before heading to her phone and looking at Shane's number sitting in her contacts list. He'd given it to her at the restaurant, and she sighed, shutting her eyes as she hit 'dial'. Before she knew it, he was standing at her front door, smiling at her as she let him in. "Everything okay?" he asked, "Kinda surprised to hear from you." "If I kissed you, would that make me a bad person?" Emma asked, surprising him as she locked the door behind them, "If I were to kiss you, because you remind me of what I actually want from life right now, instead of berating me for not wanting something you want, would you call me a bad person? Even though I have a longtime partner and-" And before she could finish that sentence, Shane put his hand on her shoulder and kissed her. As they pulled away, he smirked. "There, now I'm the one responsible," he said, "No blame on your end." "You could keep being responsible for bad decisions," Emma said softly, making him chuckle and kiss her again. *** "You don't know what it's like," Lisa said, but Mel interrupted her. "Actually I know exactly what it's like," she said, "I was so not in my right mind last year that I...I figured that the boyfriend of a perfectly nice woman was actually my Prince Charming, and I should steal him from her somehow. I really genuinely believed that I was going to go back to a Castle and rule as a Queen at some point. My make believe world wasn't make believe to me. But I recognize it now was simply a coping mechanism, and that, while they're helpful, they aren't realistic to live in. I need to face reality. And yes, reality can be subjective, but...but it needs to still be real." "It isn't just that...when you've been unwell for so long, it becomes all encompassing. It...it becomes all you are. You become so wrapped up in that identity, that you aren't sure you're a person without it, and you're scared to try and find out." "I know exactly what you mean, Lisa," Melanie said, "But isn't it worth it, trying to find out?" Lisa waited, tapping her nails on the coffee table she was sitting on before shaking her head. "No, it isn't," she said, "One reality is safer than the other for me, and that's all there is to it." "But you-" "No, you need to stop psychoanalyzing me. We are not the same, okay? Just because something works for you, doesn't mean it'd work for me. Do you have any idea how many therapists in my life haven't helped? How many medications I've taken through the course of my search for 'help' that have only exacerbated my issues? No, you don't, and you never will." Melanie chewed on her lip, as Lisa started to sharpen the knife on her shirt and sighed. She knelt in front of Melanie and ran her knuckles down her face gently, making Melanie smile, even though she didn't want to. "We're similar, but there's a different ending in place for both of us," Lisa said softly, "Not everyone gets a happily ever after." "Then why not try for a moderately alright now?" Melanie whispered, her eyes watering, her lip trembling. "Because some of us aren't even allowed that." "Get better with me," Melanie said, crying quietly, "I understand why you did what you did, I'd like to still be your friend. We can get better together. Just-" "I'm not...I'm not getting better," Lisa said, "Some kingdoms are meant to crumble." And suddenly, without any warning, the door was kicked open and Darren was standing there. Lisa, surprised by his sudden appearance, rose and lunged at him with her knife, only for Darren to grab a book about armor and shields off the nearby shelf and hold it in front of him, defending himself from her attack. Melanie quickly used her free hand to start untying herself, and once she was free she leapt on top of Lisa's back, the both of them twirling around in circles in the room. "Be careful!" Darren said, "Be careful, she's got-" "I'm aware of what she's got, thank you very much!" Melanie shouted. Darren grabbed Lisa's wrist holding the knife, trying to wrestle it free from her grip, but she snarled and pushed herself against him into a nearby wall with all her force, as Melanie finally slipped off and, holding Lisa's hair, dragged her to the ground with her as Darren slid down the wall, clutching at his side, moaning. Melanie tied Lisa up with the very same ropes she'd been held with, and talked over her shoulder at Darren, who was trying to stand back up. "I'll call the police," Melanie said, "Just make sure she doesn't move." Melanie scrambled across the room back to her phone and began dialing, when she noticed Darren putting his hand on the wall, trying to use it to steady himself so he could stand, only for him to slide back down against the wall, a wall now smeared with blood. That's when it dawned on Melanie she didn't see the knife anywhere. She rushed over to Darren and turned him to his other side, only to finally spy the knife sticking out from his side. "Darren, you-" "Just...just call the cops, I'll be okay," he murmured. "Hello?" Melanie asked into the phone, "My name is Melanie Irres, and I need help. I need police, and an ambulance, my friend has been stabbed by a home intruder. Please come quickly!" As Melanie gave her address, she noticed Darren's eyelids fluttering, and his breathing shallow. She panicked and dropped the phone, grabbing his face with her hands and forcing him to look at her. "Darren? Darren! Listen to me! They're on their way, okay? You're going to be okay! Everything's going to be okay! You're...you're the knight I needed, you will be fine!" Melanie said, tears rolling down her face, but Darren couldn't reply, he could barely breath, the pain spreading through his body that it kept him from moving much. The sound of sirens eventually wailed outside, their red and blue lights dancing across the walls in the apartment windows, as Melanie held her knight in shining armor and tried to keep him conscious. Sitting in the back of the ambulance with him, after watching Lisa be dragged away by a crew of police, Melanie clutched Darren's hands firmly within her own and smiled at him. "Funny," Darren said softly, his voice hoarse, "...stabbed defending a princess." "You really are a true knight," Melanie said, smiling, wiping her tears on her sleeve. "I'm...I'm sorry I...couldn't be...who you needed me to be," Darren said, "I can't be....who anyone needs me to be, I guess." "What?" Melanie asked, confused, as he shut his eyes; she panicked and touched his face, "Darren? Darren!"
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Royally Screwed follows 24 year old Melanie Irres, an average young woman...who legitimately believes she's a princess. Archives
July 2023
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