Princess

Izzy James was a boy of few words. He never talked much to anyone, but when he did, whoever it was appreciated it greatly. Everything he had to say was very worthwhile to listen to – accepting the occasional “pass the butter” at the dinner table, his usual monosyllabic answers when people asked him questions, etc. – and though he kept silent most of the time, when he did speak it was seen as a marvel, something that didn’t happen often.

Izzy liked things this way; it made people pay more attention when he did have something real to say. Plus, he found the idea of small talk unnecessary. All it was used for was politeness, and he didn’t really care about that. He was polite whenever he was forced to answer someone, but usually he just kept silent. It was easier that way, he reasoned.

There were times when convention forced Izzy to speak. Times when people introduce themselves, and expect an introduction in return, or when someone directly asks him a question.. Otherwise, he avoided conversation and kept to himself. He didn’t need anyone else. The only one he needed was himself…and his younger sister, Catherine.

Cathy was a talker, and that’s what Izzy loved about her. She could chatter all day about anything from rabbits to rainbows, and never expected an answer. Izzy could simply nod and smile whenever she talked to him, and she accepted it. At the age of eleven, this may not be very impressive to some, but Izzy thought so. She could allow him to be his silent self, no questioning about it.

That was more than could be said for most of the other people Izzy knew. His only friends were the ones who left him to his silence and required no answers as Cathy did. So usually, he ended up with the talkers that needed listeners. He was a listener, ready to take in all the information anyone might share with Isaiah James. This wasn’t much, but he was a people-watcher, and he picked up more about people than most did. It was a skill he’d always possessed, and one he definitely did not take for granted.

The only reason Izzy liked school was that it was a perfect environment he could watch people in. He saw people at their best and at their worst. He looked into the very heart of people’s natures, and some things he saw, he did not like. People bored him after awhile; he’d already seen the same traits repeated in so many of them that watching became tedious.

At least, until the day Whitney Knowles moved to Seattle.

Izzy had lived there all his life, and never had he seen someone so intriguing as Whitney. From the moment he saw her, he wanted to know more about her. She was a gift to people-readers like Izzy, just someone waiting there to be deciphered and thought about. The girl reminded him almost of a present begging to be opened, or a puzzle wanting to be solved. She was a mystery to him, and a person like Izzy loved mysteries. As soon as he saw her, he knew she was one of those rare mysteries, and he was captivated.

Her clothes were not strange, but just different. They were not a combination Izzy saw in the hallways every day. She wore a white skirt with a denim section at the top, dusty black Converse high-top shoes, and a plain black T-shirt with a simple red rose on it. Izzy himself could admire her for this – her different taste in style without looking too eccentric. He himself only dressed normally because he didn’t take the time to look like she did.

Her stringy brown hair hung limply down to past her shoulders, making her look slightly grungy and dirty. Whitney’s hair did project the image that she hadn’t washed it in weeks. Her skin was not tan, but simply a darker shade than most people he considered pale. Her perky green eyes sparkled whenever she looked at someone, and the deepness of the color was very unusual. Most greens in eyes are lightened by a brown or blue tint, but her eyes were just green, blindingly so. They were wide and childish, and Izzy expected her to be the naïve type who thought the world was perfect. But when he met her, he would soon realize that she was just the opposite.

She stopped by his table at lunch, the one he had all to himself. Before now, no one had ever invaded his solitude, but the new girl did just that.

“Do you mind if I sit here?” She asked, in a voice that seemed somehow soft to Izzy, despite the strength he could sense behind it.

He only nodded, patting the seat next to him. This was the very girl he’d wanted to know more about, and she’d come to him all by herself! Once again, the boy thought fervently that she was a miracle to people-watchers like him.

“My name is Whitney Knowles,” she began. “It’s nice to meet you…” she trailed off, but didn’t look at him expectantly for an answer. “I’m afraid I don’t know your name, but that’s okay. Names aren’t really important, I don’t think. We don’t have any say in them, so what’s the point? Our parents choose them for us, and we’re stuck with what they wanted. I think it’s silly, especially because I don’t know who my real parents even are.”

That last sentence intrigued Izzy even more than Whitney’s appearance had. He decided, against his better judgment, to talk to her. She did seem the chatterbox kind like his sister Cathy, who didn’t need answers in order to keep talking, but he wanted to reciprocate what she’d given him. That was personal information she was sharing, and Izzy felt a need to say something in return.

“Well, I’m Isaiah James, but most call me Izzy,” he said slowly. He realized that his voice had deepened since the last time he’d used it for anything longer than one syllable, and that it sounded hoarse due to lack of use. “I agree with you about names. It’s kind of like we have to live with a reminder of our parents, no matter how much we might detest that reminder, isn’t it?”

“Exactly!” She exclaimed, smiling to reveal slightly yellow teeth. “It’s just something our parents had to gift us with so we’d remember them, even though I can’t remember mine. I’ve never met them – as far as I can remember, anyways.” She retreated into her thoughts, those deep green eyes staring off into another world.

Izzy brought her back with a question that he hoped wouldn’t be rude. He didn’t want to cause this girl Whitney any discomfort, as little as he knew of her. “What happened?” He asked simply, catching her eye for a moment before looking back down at his dismally grotesque-looking school lunch. Deciding not to eat it after all, he put his fork down and looked back up at the girl next to him.

“I don’t know,” she said softly, though Izzy could sense no real pain behind the words. He only saw contemplation and a strange wistfulness that he understood as longing for the past she described. “I’ve never known what happened to them. One day when I was about two, they left me at my aunt’s house in Buffalo, New York, and disappeared. No one ever saw them again, and no one knew where or why they’d gone. They were just gone, and my aunt took care of me ever since.

“Just two weeks ago, Aunt Paulie died, and I didn’t have anyone else to take care of me. I was put into the foster program, and here I am.

“My new parents are African American, and very kind to me. There are a lot of other fosters they’re taking care of, too, and I’m lucky to be one of them. It’s very nice, to take a homeless child under your wing and teach them to forget whatever happened to leave them parentless in the past. I think foster parents are very admirable people, and I do like Seattle. I’ve never minded rain much; I actually like it quite a lot. It’s almost calming, to me…” she mused, trailing off into silence once again. She seemed to do that a lot, Izzy noticed: go on with one topic until she couldn’t say any more, and then just drift off into saying nothing again.

“Well, it’s good you live here, then,” he said with a smile. Washington was practically known for its amount of rain.

Izzy conversed with her comfortably for the rest of the lunch period, marveling at this new appearance in conversational skills. He usually had no idea what to say to anyone, so he just kept his mouth shut. It was one of the many reasons that he was not a talker, But with Whitney, he always had the right thing just waiting to be said. She seemed to like him all right, and that made him very pleased. He didn’t have any real friends, and he wondered if he might become friends with Whitney.

Friends. It was an unfamiliar expression to Izzy, almost. He had a friend or two at school, but none he was very close with. It was against the boy’s nature to get close to anyone – he was somewhat of an introvert, a loner. He had always embraced this piece in the puzzle that was him, but now he thought that maybe he could come out of his shell a little. Whitney encouraged him to say the first thing that came to his mind, and if she could continue to do that, it would help him immensely. He felt extraordinarily grateful for the arrival of this strange girl.

The next morning, Izzy woke up feeling actually excited for the coming school day. This had never happened to him before – he always wanted to go to school, but the feeling of anticipation rushing in his veins was something very new. This was something different, something to break the constant monotony of Izzy’s days. He had never had anything to look forward to before, and now, when he looked into the depth of the feeling, he realized that he was only excited to see Whitney.

As the stunned boy stumbled to the mirror, he looked back at the shocked expression on the face he knew so well.

His face was a creamy brown, almost like light-colored coffee. He was half African American from his dad’s side, but his mom was white, resulting in his coffee skin tone. His eyes were a deep brown, though not the kind that looked black. With his eyes, you could look at them and immediately distinguish that they were brown. Izzy had always loved the chocolate color belonging to his eyes.

His hair curled into thin, tiny curls, resulting in kind of an afro shape. It wasn’t huge or very puffy, but it never lay flat on his head. All of it stuck out in different directions, but for the most part it looked okay, he thought. The color was sort of a coppery brown, though it looked almost orangey in some lights. He was very skinny, and didn’t have much muscle on him at all. He had no need for muscle, so this was not an inconvenience to him.

He didn’t know if he was handsome or not. He was just Izzy James, and he thought that he might have just fallen in love with a girl.

As soon as that thought hit his mind, an overwhelming stream of emotions pummeled him in one second. Through the confusion that was going on in his own head, Izzy couldn’t hear the harmless suburbia sounds coming from his open bedroom window. All he could hear was her voice when she’d talked to him the previous day, and all he could see was the first look he’d gotten of her, standing in the middle of the hallway.

Whitney. He suddenly pronounced her name in his head with reverence, as if she were some kind of god. It did feel almost like she was higher than him, in some ways at least. She was a far better creature than he – Izzy had known that from the first minute he talked to her. Whitney Knowles seemed almost superior to him, but he liked that. She was another kind, someone who could be friendly with everyone and still keep her head. Izzy’s people-watching skills had helped him get inside her mind, and it was a great place. It was somewhere he could comfortably belong.

~~~

On a day about a week after Whitney’s arrival, he noticed something odd. Upon walking through the halls to his locker, he saw a boy he’d known vaguely; for the life of him, Izzy couldn’t recall his name. The boy was standing in front of Whitney, and as Izzy watched, he took his eyes from her face and traveled them up and down her body as if he was studying her.

This made Izzy slightly annoyed. He thought that he had been the only one to notice Whitney’s potential in being beautiful, but now it seemed that this boy thought he could take advantage of her looks. He frowned as he came up to his locker, pretending to ignore the two of them. He caught snatches of their conversation as he stood there, and listened carefully.

“I know, it doesn’t seem like school life and family life could interact at all,” the boy was saying. “They seem kind of like two separate universes, don’t they? Like if you brought your family to school, or school friends home, it wouldn’t work because of the different environments. It’s kind of strange to me.”

“Exactly!” Whitney exclaimed, and Izzy saw in his peripheral vision that excited look she got in her eyes when someone agreed with her.

Izzy frowned even more deeply as the two of them continued their conversation, neither of them noticing him grabbing his Science textbook and notebook out of his locker. Strange thoughts circled his mind, most of them nonsensical. One of them shouted above the rest, in a tone that sounded very, very hurt – just like Izzy was. It said: Whitney Knowles has deep conversations with someone other than me.

~~~

Because of Izzy’s recurring cowardice, nothing monumental happened with he and Whitney until a couple of months after her arrival. She came to his lunch table, where she’d sat ever since her first day, looking starry-eyed and dreamy, like her thoughts were on a completely different plane. She didn’t even bother to pick at her food, propping her chin on one fist and staring off into the distance.. He didn’t disrupt her, choosing to let her talk about it when she wanted to.

When she finally turned to Izzy, her eyes remained bright and shiny. Izzy guessed that she must have something very good to think about. “Izzy, Izzy, Izzy, if I tell you something, you won’t tell anyone, right?” She said this all in one breath, as if she couldn’t bear to use more than one.

“Who do I have to tell?” He asked her, grinning. Her expression didn’t change, and he assured her, “No, I won’t tell a soul. What’s got you so excited?”

“Okay, so you know Davis Ryan, right?” She asked, leaning towards Izzy in her feverish animation. Izzy found it hard to breathe with her so close, but managed to recall the boy in question.

“Yes,” he said, remembering. This boy had been kind to him on a few occasions, but still didn’t really like Izzy very much. Davis had always seemed like he thought himself higher than everyone around him, and usually that only made Izzy annoyed. “Why?”

“Because he just asked me out,” Whitney said in a rush. “And I said yes! Can you believe it?” She sighed dreamily, putting her fist back under her chin and gazing out the window.

In all reality, Izzy truly could not believe it. He had thought that he and Whitney had something special, and now…she was sharing her uniqueness with someone else. It did not so much anger him as sadden him. All he had wanted was for Whitney to notice him in another way than as a friend, and suddenly that wasn’t possible. He couldn’t stand it, knowing that she liked someone else.

“No,” he said softly. “I really can’t believe it.”

She looked back towards him with a questioning look in her still-glistening eyes. “What’s wrong, Izzy? Aren’t you happy for me?”

Izzy found this question a little rude, but answered it anyways. “Yes, I’m happy for you,” he said impatiently. “But Whitney... don’t you see? I feel like you’ve been leading me on this whole time, and it’s kind of got me a little upset.” He wasn’t usually the confrontational type, but Whitney had really disappointed him. He now wondered bitterly if Whitney had deep conversations with Davis like she did with Izzy.

“Leading you on? What are you talking about, Isaiah?” She asked, her eyebrows slanting together in confusion. She looked a little angry now, but that only provoked Izzy. He also didn’t like the use of his full name, as if she were his mother.

“I’m talking about the fact that you seemed to like me, in another way, and now you tell me you’ve liked Davis the whole time? What kind of a girl doesthat?!” He asked angrily, for he now remembered the name of the boy who had been talking to her two weeks ago. It had been Davis.

“Izzy, you don’t like me, do you?!” She asked incredulously. It hurt Izzy deeply to see that she looked almost repulsed. Apparently, she found the idea nauseating.

“Yes, Whitney, I did,” he said in a louder voice than he’d ever used before. This had angered him now, knowing that she had betrayed him. “But now, I think I’m giving you up. You aren’t the girl I thought you were,” he spat, grabbing his tray and standing up from the table.

As he walked away towards the exit, he looked back to see a shocked look in Whitney’s green eyes. The only pleasure Izzy took from this horrible day was that he seemed to have gotten revenge. Whitney looked just about as hurt as he had been.

~~~

After leaving the lunchroom, Izzy wasn’t sure where to go. During lunch, the only options students had were to be in the cafeteria or outside. Thus, he headed towards the back door to find some peace and quiet in which to contemplate what he’d said and done. It shouldn’t be that hard, he thought absent-mindedly. No one goes outside for lunch in February.

He burst through the double doors, pushing them away from them as if they had personally offended him instead of Whitney. His eyebrows were pulling together and he was unconsciously biting his lower lip. His fists clenched and unclenched as he walked, as if considering hitting something. He knew that anyone who saw him like this would leave him alone. This was precisely what he had been shooting for.

Eventually, he found an empty bench under a small tree. He sat roughly down upon it, leaning his head back against the tree. He internally begged the tears in his eyes to stay there, and not to begin the journey down his cheeks. That would be the most humiliating thing he could think of, crying at school. No one did that in high school.

As he sat there, screwing his eyes up so that the tears had no route of escape, he heard a voice from above him.

“Excuse me,” it said brightly. It was a female voice, and Izzy jumped at the sound. He had thought he was alone. “I couldn’t help but to notice that you’re sitting below my tree. I had to introduce myself.”

A lean figure hopped down from a branch above Izzy’s head, landing fluidly beside him. She sat down on the bench next to him, extending one pale white hand.

“I’m Jane,” she said simply. “Jane Michowski. What’s your name?”

“Izzy James,” he mumbled, turning away from her. He hadn’t bothered to study her face like he usually had; he really just wasn’t in the mood for people-watching. He wasn't in the mood for much of anything, to be honest.

“Nice to meet you,” she said, grabbing his hand anyways to shake it. He pulled it away as soon as he could without being rude.

“What’s got you so bothered?” She asked innocently, turning away from him as well. Izzy appreciated that she gave him a little privacy, though really she was butting into a place she had no right to.

“None of your business,” he said darkly. He knew he was being very impolite, but didn’t stop to consider shaping up. Politeness was not something he could be concerned about right now. All he had wanted was to think about what Whitney had done, and now this girl was interrupting. It made him very irritated.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll let you think about it.” She clambered back up into the tree, and Izzy felt a rush of envy at how easily she went about it. The gangly boy had no talent for gracefulness.

“Thanks,” he said gratefully. He needed the chance to think.

Whitney had been his focus for over three weeks now. And now that she had betrayed him and gone for Davis, he didn’t know what he could focus on. There was nothing left for him to be interested in, there was nothing left for him to do. The tentative bonds of friendship that he had made before Whitney’s arrival had all been broken – he had been ignoring them because of Whitney, making both of them angry.

He sighed heavily, realizing exactly how he had ruined his life. He had set his sights on a girl who didn’t love him, and only now had he come to the conclusion that she was an arrogant brat. It made him very annoyed with himself to grasp this only now that she had done something unforgiveable. It shouldn’t have taken that much to open his eyes.

Izzy supposed that he would have to go back to his regular life. He had nothing else to do, now that Whitney was gone from it. He would go back to being alone, the random kid who watched people. It was his reputation, and now he would have to return to reality. He had been living a dream for the past three weeks, and it was time to bring his head out of the clouds.

Remembering the girl sitting above him in the tree, he called up to her. “I think I’m ready to talk about it now,” he said slowly. He wasn’t sure what the girl wanted, or what it would take to bring her out of the tree. He wanted someone to watch, now that his thoughts about Whitney had been sorted.

Apparently, conversation was enough to make her swing down from the branch above him. She sat down beside him on the bench again, and this time, Izzy was careful to study her face.

The first thing he noticed was that her skin was deathly pale. She almost glowed in the reflected light from the snow glistening on the ground. Her golden blonde hair waved down to her waist, the curls in it not quite ringlets. Some of it was straight and some of it curly, which only made the illusion of a crown around her head.

Her eyes were a dark, majestic blue, also projecting the image of royalty. They were large, wide, and innocent, making her look almost child-like. Izzy felt a pang of grief as he realized that this had been his first reaction to Whitney.

Jane’s small, skinny frame also made her look childish, as if she was the young princess of some faraway land. She was clad in a plain purple dress, but it didn’t seem odd to Izzy. It only complimented the image of monarchs to him. It went down to the middle of her calves, and wasn’t very remarkable. He did notice that it was sleeveless, and the air was extremely chilly. Izzy himself was wearing a jacket, a long-sleeved shirt, and a sweater; he had never tolerated cold very easily. Evidently, Jane did.

It had a scooped neckline that wasn’t revealing at all, and she seemed to be wearing a silver chain around her neck. It had no charm as far as Izzy could see, but that only added mystery to her. He liked the appearance of this girl; she was very different, and he liked that. He had always appreciated originality in girls.

“So, what was it you were mad about?” She asked, her high, soprano voice tinkling like bells. Her small hands grasped the bottom of the bench, and her legs swung as she sat – they weren’t long enough to touch the ground as Izzy’s did. Once again, she reminded Izzy of a beautiful princess. She could have been the royal heroine in a Disney movie.

“I wasn’t really mad, just sad,” he clarified, staring off into the distance. “There’s this girl that I’ve liked for awhile – ”

“Whitney Knowles?” Jane asked promptly, and Izzy was surprised that hearing her name didn’t hurt. Even thinking it had pained him only a few moments ago.

“Yeah,” he said, the confusion showing in his voice. “How did you know that?”

“I watch people,” she explained. “None of them bother to talk to me, but I just watch them and I can make conclusions about them. I’ve been watching you around Whitney for a long time. It wasn’t obvious that you liked her, but I could tell.” She blinked her wide blue eyes, her long, dark lashes brushing her pale cheeks.

“You do?” He asked blankly. “I do the exact same thing! I’ve never met anyone else who did,” he said honestly. No one had ever admitted to being a people-watcher, if anyone besides Izzy and Jane were.

Jane smiled. “I’m glad we both have someone to compare with,” she said sincerely. “But go on with your story.”

“Well, I’ve liked her for awhile, and just today she told me that Davis Ryan asked her out... she said yes,” he said reluctantly, his fists balling up and his eyes tightening as he remembered.

“I’m so sorry,” she said sincerely. “I heard about that this morning. I thought about you, wondering if you would be upset. I hope you can find someone else.”

As he looked into Jane’s eyes, her statement seemed ridiculous to him. He didn’t know why, but suddenly he felt like that was silly. He appreciated her consoling, but somehow that last sentence brought him close to chuckling. It was strange for him to be on such a roller coaster of emotions when he had only seen some of them in others’ eyes and not his own.

“Thanks,” he said, looking back to her juvenile face. Abruptly, he had a question for her. “Jane, what grade are you in?” She seemed so much younger than him, but for some reason that bothered him enough that he had to make sure.

“I’m a sophomore,” she answered quickly. “Why?”

“Just wondered,” Izzy said, with a strange rush of relief. “So am I.”

She smiled, and Izzy knew that he had already made a new friend. Strange that it was so easy for him after one friendship had already been broken. He supposed that only time would tell as far as how long he and Jane’s friendship would last, but as of now, he felt sure that it would last far longer than he and Whitney. Only time will tell, he reminded himself.

~~~

Izzy and Jane sat below the tree every day at lunch. Neither of them bothered to eat the school lunches, and usually they brought different lunch items to share. This method was easier for both of them instead of packing an entire lunch.

Because of this, they soon knew by heart each one’s food preferences and dislikes, any allergies either of them had, and what each of them liked to eat for lunch. He sometimes found himself searching for things she liked in his pantry cupboard before school, just to please her. It was funny to him, how easily he could be himself around Jane.

Around two months passed, both of them learning more and more about the other as days went on. He soon knew her birthday, both of her parents’ names, her opinion on politics, her favorite colors, and much more. He wasn’t learning all this to study her, exactly, but just to know more about her. He wanted to solve the puzzle that was Jane Michowski, just as she seemed to want to solve the puzzle of Izzy James. It was a symbiotic relationship, both of them learning about the other. Izzy loved each moment spent with her.

On April 25th of that year, Izzy sat with Jane at lunch just like they usually did. He turned to her and smiled, saying, “Did you know it’s our two-month anniversary today? I met you on February 25th, I remember it clearly.”

Jane giggled, and it brought to Izzy’s mind the trilling of a wind chime. The sound made him think of silver pipes swaying in the wind, cooperating to make a beautiful sound just like the one now coming out of Jane’s mouth.

“I remember it, too,” she said with an amused air. “You stormed up to my tree like you'd just lost a battle. You scared me to death!”

Izzy laughed at the memory, and without thinking, he took Jane’s pale hand in his own creamy brown one. Her skin was icy cold on Izzy’s perpetually warm hand, and he rubbed his thumb in circles on the back of her hand as if to warm her up. He didn’t even think about what he was doing; it just seemed natural to him. He smiled at the way his big hand enveloped her tiny one, feeling as if he were protecting her from something.

I could be her Disney prince, the one saving her from the evil dragon, he thought pleasantly. He had always had a good imagination, and it was now getting carried away picturing himself in a suit of armor and Jane in a beautiful dress and thin silver crown.

He looked at Jane, and she was smiling warmly at him. Her tiny hand gripped his with surprising strength, and he knew that she had appreciated the gesture as much as he was. She scooted closer to him, and leaned her head on his shoulder. It fit easily, as petite as she was. Izzy leaned his curly-haired head on hers, and felt a strong sense of epiphany enveloping him.

Lines were blurring in the relationship between him and Jane. Izzy didn’t mind it, but he wondered what it meant. He thought about how he had felt about Whitney and how he felt about Jane, and they were completely different. But now, contemplating the way he felt about her, he realized that he was head-over-heels in love with her.

The thought made Izzy smile. He knew that in the back of his mind, he had known this for a long time. But now, he had finally acted on it, if unconsciously. However, he wondered how he could love her if the feeling for Whitney and the feeling for Jane could be so intensely different. It made no sense to him, since the emotion was the same.

And as he thought about it some more, he realized the difference. His love for Whitney had been more of a crush, simply an infatuation with the aura she had seemed to project. He hadn’t known her at all before he had fallen in love, and now he saw that it hadn’t really even been love. It had been wishful thinking, placing a personality that didn’t exist with the face he knew.

But as he saw the love for Jane, he knew that he had known her well before falling in love. He hadn’t fallen in love with the face, but the person behind it. And now, he saw even more strongly that she was a beautiful creature. Her perfect, Disney-princess features were overwhelmingly stunning to him, and he didn’t know how he hadn’t known he loved her until now.

“Jane,” he began tentatively. He knew that this feeling couldn’t be ignored; it needed to be shared. He knew this as surely as he knew his own name. “There’s something I need to say to you.”

She looked up from his shoulder, her blue eyes shocking him with their intensity. She looked as childlike as always, but she still possessed a certain beauty. Her hand again tightened on his, and she blinked at him expectantly. He couldn’t find the words to go on as he looked into her eyes, but then drew the courage from a place deep inside himself where he had never ventured.

“Jane, I’m in love with you. I have been for a long time. Please, just tell me how you feel. I need to know.” It was simple, but Izzy knew that it worked. He loved her; that was all he needed to say. Jane would understand.

The girl beside him grinned widely, showing off her white, glistening, dentist-daddy teeth. “I’m in love with you too, Izzy. I love you.”

The words empowered him so much that he felt he could sing – something no one would want to hear. He grinned back at her, and somehow her perfection didn’t intimidate him. He only loved how perfect she was for him, and loved having her around. It was amazing to him that she could love him back, the boy whom nobody paid attention to. He saw now that he could be special, just like Jane. She could help him find his way, and he would allow her.. It was how beautiful relationships were supposed to work, he thought with a smile.

Nothing more needed to be said between them. She put her head back on his shoulder, and he leaned against her. He breathed in the unique scent of her hair, the honey-sweet scent she had always carried with her. He needed nothing more than this, just to be close to Jane and remember that she loved him. This is my happy ending, he thought with a smile. The prince has finally gotten the princess he wanted. It’s all good.