Perfect
Chapter VIII

I think Claire was screaming the whole way home but I wasn’t sure since I'd tuned out half way due to the nonsense she was trying to pull off beside me. I’m sure Michael had had enough too, since he pulled a pair of earplugs out about ten minutes into the drive. I was still mulling it over in my head that we’d just gotten invited to a high school party. A social event I haven’t been too since Queen Catherine decided to rain her storms down on me and ban both Claire and I from every social event or gathering in the world. However, the host invited us this time so there was a glimmer of hope inside of me that prayed it would be a good night.

Seth had texted me the details just like he told me he would about twenty minutes later. The message read that it was at Jason’s house tomorrow night, Saturday and it started at seven. We didn’t need a finishing time because god knows when it would finish and knowing how me and Claire party we probably wouldn’t be back till late, if nothing goes horribly wrong.

We reached the house and Claire’s endless chatter about social status had stopped. I watched her race out of the car towards the house mumbling about having to pick an outfit out for tomorrow night. I laughed quietly and waited until Michael reached the door and opened it. He put his hand out and I gladly took it to step down out of the car. It was quite hard to act like I wasn’t royal, I was so accustomed to the posh and easy lifestyle where everything was done for me and I didn’t need to work for much. I was just, luckily born into the right family. Obviously being the Princess had its downs to go with its up’s but I didn’t complain much. I wasn’t that much of a stuck-up person to want my maids and butlers to do the very simple things for me that I could easily do myself and I loved going to school and working hard for my grades

Although, I was a Princess soon to be Queen of England. When it hit the exact date of my eighteenth birthday my life would never have an ounce of normalcy again.

I dragged myself up the stairs, exhausted from the day’s expeditions. I wanted nothing more than to curl into a tight ball and fall asleep but Claire was already in my large walk in wardrobe going through outfits for the party that was tomorrow night. I listened to her endless chatter for a few minutes until my eyes started to droop shut. The good thing about Claire was that she never really noticed when you ignored her. I was soon in a deep sleep, my head reeling with nothing but blackness, well for a while anyway.

Waking up in a dimly lit room, I blinked a couple of times before assessing my surroundings. I was lying on a musty single bed that was positioned quite close to the wall and after further investigation found myself to be bound by the wrists and ankles. Heart rate rising and starting to panic, I struggled, looking for a way out. But before I could a figure staring at me in the darkness came forward. “Hello?” I tried asking with confidence in my voice, but it only cracked, wavering and making me sound weak.

“Princess.” The man said gruff voice before slowly walking over towards me. He hadn’t even stepped out the shadows before my senses kicked in and I remembered the musty smell, the alcohol, his voice, and his hands.

“Y... you’re meant to be in jail?” I said, coming out as more of a question than a statement. My face started to pale and the trembling started, “I skipped out on that just for you darling.” He taunted grabbing my face roughly with his big hands and smashing his grotty lips on to mine. I squirmed underneath his grip while his hand roamed up my thighs.

I tried screaming for help but nothing came out of my mouth. My skin was as cold as ice and I felt a large void start to grow in my heart. In desperate hopes I bit his lip and he released me letting out a string of curse words before slapping me across the face. “You’ll pay for that you stupid bitch, I’ll hunt you down till the day you die.”

He lunged forward again, punching me in the stomach before forcing himself on top of me and pinning me down onto the bed. I heard a switchblade enter the equation when I started squirming too much but I just kept screaming and screaming.

In the back of my mind I heard someone calling out my name, telling me to open my eyes. I tried my absolute hardest to listen to the voice and drowned out the purring voice of Victor as he tried to molest me in my mind yet again.

“Isabella open your eyes!”

My eyes sprung open, as a piercing scream escaped my mouth. Claire’s wild and worried voice beside my head forced me to look up at her, “Oh my gosh Isabella, never scare me like that again.” She sighed deeply, “It was him again wasn’t it?” Claire was cradling me in her arms and I hadn’t realized I was crying until a tear had landed on my thigh. Trembling in absolute fear I just nodded my head at her, the rims of my eyes filling with more tears.

“Oh, baby I’m here, he can’t hurt you. I’ll never allow that and neither will any of the 500 security/guards/agents that came with you. You’re safe here!” I nodded at her words, touched that she thought I would be safe, but I just clung to her shirt and sobbed. I felt like an absolute buffoon, I was touched in a way I didn’t want to be and of course he didn’t rape me or anything. Not that he didn’t have intentions too, but he still touched me, felt me up and made me feel unclean. Not to mention the countless nightmares I’d had because of it; my brain was just so vivid and alive that it conjured up almost anything to frighten me into submission. I was terrified of male figures, I tried not to show it but that’s just how it was and just because I was the Princess didn’t make it any less serious in my brain. To my parents it was beyond serious, they wanted him dead. But no women wants to be sexually assaulted, ever.

While I was sobbing into to Claire’s shirt I turned my head to the side just so I could be more comfortable replaceing myself looking at the time which read clearly three in the morning, I sobered up my sobbing and pulled away from Claire rubbing my red raw eyes, “Who else did I wake up with this nonsense?”

“It doesn’t matter Isabella.”

“Claire.” I said with a warning tone in my voice.

“Okay okay, let’s just say your screams were heard by the guards outside,” I gave her a mortified look and she was quick to notice, “but don’t worry they said it wasn’t that loud and they could only hear it slightly so no one other than the people in this household heard you.”

“So, everyone’s awake?”

“Yes.”

I looked down at my hands again and started playing around with my fingers. I hated that everyone in the house was awake because of me, they needed their rest just as much as I needed mine. “Claire, is Henry still on his watch outside my door?”

“Yes Princess.”

“Can you go call him in please?”

Claire nodded letting go of my hand, the warmth and closeness I had felt with her skin touching mine, gone. I suddenly felt very alone and cold. She walked towards the door opening it and left for a couple of moments before returning with one of my favourite guards. “Princess.” He nodded and gave me a warm smile, his face softening once he saw the state I was in. I didn’t know exactly how I looked yet but I knew it wasn’t pretty.

I stood up and tried to wipe the dry tears of my face, before addressing him. “I would like you to tell everyone to take the day off. Anyone that was woken up by me this morning has the permission to go back to bed. I will still needs guards out by every post, so put out men that have already slept. You are dismissed.”

“Yes Princess.” He replied swiftly before turning around to walk away but I grabbed him by the shoulder before he had the chance. “Henry, you need some rest as well after your shift, please take it.” I pleaded looking into his dull eyes, he looked exhausted. I knew that was my fault, being the Princess I had to be under constant surveillance. “Of course, Isabella.” He hugged me, gave me a tight nod and then left the room.

I slumped back down on the bed with my head in my hands and Claire came over to wrap me in her arms again. “I have no idea where I’d be without you Claire.” I told her letting out a big yawn, “That’s what I’m here for Bella, to be your best friend, or sister as we call it.” I nodded slowly at her words before letting out another extremely large yawn and getting comfortable in her lap.

I slowly drifted off but not before I heard her last sentence, “I’ll be here when you wake up Isabella, and I love you.” Then it was black.

Waking up to the sun shining in my eyes was not something I wanted in the morning, “Damn curtains,” I groaned internally, next time I’ll close them. Feeling a warm presence beside me, I turned around to replace Claire with her head in a book, obviously not having noticed that I’d woken up. I tapped her on the shoulder and she jumped giving me a murderous glare for interrupting her reading but softened her facial expression once she realised it was just me.

“Hey Bella, how are you feeling?”

“Shit.” I replied with a grumble. Emotionally, I was drained. It felt like there was a bag full of weights on my back and I was lugging them around with me. “Well it is four in the afternoon so you kind of overslept.” I gasped at her words, “I slept all day? Why didn’t you wake me?!”

“You had a rough night Isabella. I’m not going to wake you up early after nights like that,” she told me sternly.

“Ugh, whatever then, I’m going to go shower.” I huffed, crossing my arms crankily, Claire just replied with a manly grunt and went back to her reading. Slowly I climbed out of bed and made my way towards the shower. It didn’t really help when my legs didn’t want to function, they felt a lot like jelly. I looked towards the shower then towards the bath tub already knowing exactly what I was going to do.

I walked out of the bathroom all clean and patting my hair dry with a towel to replace Claire whizzing around the room. “What are you doing Claire?” I asked grabbing her shoulder before she could whizz away from me to grab something else. “It’s five in the afternoon Bella, do you remember a certain high school party that happens to start at seven.”

“Yes I do Claire and I also remember that in high school movies being fashionably late is very cool.” I laughed and started walking towards the door, “I’m going to get some food.” I flipped over my shoulder before walking down the stairs into the kitchen. My stomach met the divine smells floating through the air from the kitchen with a loud growl. “Ah looks like little Miss Princess is hungry.” I smiled as I saw Pete turn the corner with a big grin on his face and at least 3 omelettes sitting on the plate he was carrying. My mouth watered at the sight of the food.

He chuckled as he placed it down in front of me, I pulled out a stool and started devouring the food, a lot like a vacuum would suck up dust. It made sense especially since I hadn’t eaten all day. Soon enough I was begging for some water to quench my parched throat. Pete shook his head, stifling a laugh as he rounded a corner to go retrieve me something to drink. He returned a minute or two later with a cold glass of water in one hand and some Gatorade in the other. I smiled warmly at him as he passed me both cooling products. Unscrewing the lid quickly I gulped down the two liquids, soothing the raging dragon in my throat.

We sat in silence for a while afterwards, I knew he wanted to question me about last night and to be dead honest I didn’t really know how to answer him if he were to ask. He knew about the nightmares and that if they were to start happening again, to warn my parents. I didn’t want that though, not with all the heavy-weight load of stress stacked upon their shoulders. A deep sigh escaped my mouth when I saw a line start to form on Pete’s forehead, “Just go-ahead Pete, ask what happened. I won’t bite your head off.”

His eyes shone with amusement for a moment before they turned serious again. He shook his head at me, “I wasn’t going to ask you anything, I already know what happened to you Isabella. I was just waiting for you to explain what happened in your nightmare this time.” I shrugged at the curiosity showing in his big brown doe eyes, “The same thing that happens every other time. I’m locked in a small dark box type room with him and he tries to molest and rape me.” I shivered but stood my ground and watched as his jaw clenched, his knuckles turned white from gripping the table too hard and his facial expressions were changing from angry to paranoid.

“Well you’re safe here Isabella, nothing can harm you.” He said giving me a warm smile and pulling me into a tight embrace, “I also think it would be a good idea to get one of the football boys from your schools to be a personal body guard.” He mumbled pulling away, obviously not caring that I’d heard his totally ridiculous idea. “Pete my darling, you can’t! I have a secret and it needs to be maintained.” I whisper screamed at him.

“I’m sorry Princess but it’s for your own safety, and the fact that I can’t protect you at school has come into major play here. We may be revealing your secret to one person but I’ll replace someone I trust.”

“ISABELLA!” I heard Claire yell from upstairs, I looked down at my watch and cursed at myself. It read six forty-five, we’d definitely be late now. I groaned and looked back at Pete who was now deep in thought, probably thinking about how to ruin my life, “Whatever you do,” I said dangerously low, “do not choose Cameron Stone.” I picked up my voice a little to make it lighter, “If you want to choose someone pick from Ace, Seth or Jason.” I smiled quickly at him before running back upstairs to replace Claire in a panic. Looking around, it was as if a bomb had gone off and scattered all my belongings around the place. Claire was roaming around the room still trying to figure out what she needed next.

Claire stood up and looked at me with a bunch of accessories in her hands and a glint of excitement in her eyes, “So what do you say Isabella? Are you ready to glam up?”

I internally groaned, “Okay Claire, but we’re coming home as soon as something goes wrong and you have to realize there will be guards escorting us there and back?”

“Yeah yeah, I know the drill Bella, let’s get ready!!”

Approximately two hours later. I was standing in a sparkly silver dress that reached just above my knees and the sleeves reaching down to just above my wrists. The dress hugged my figure perfectly showing my hips and butt off, well if I had those features. It was a sweetheart neckline dress which gave me room to wear an eighteen-carat gold necklace with a love heart on it that I got from my mother before coming back to America from England.

A soft makeup look had been planned out for my face. Some sparkly silver eye shadow to match the green contacts and glossy peach lipstick along with a thin layer of foundation had been applied and some concealer was used to hide the slowly disappearing bruise on my face. The wig of brown hair was softly curled and put up into a cute up-do secured with bobby pins and curls let out to frame my face. I was wearing some expensive jewellery around my wrist and my shoes were four-inch black heels with silver sparkles engraved into the sides.

Stunned at my appearance and at a loss for words I couldn’t come up with anything to describe what Claire had done to me or how I felt about myself. “I told you I did wondrous things, didn’t I? She stated coming up behind me after she’d finished getting herself ready. “I don’t even know who I am to be honest Claire, I didn’t think I could look this...-”

“-Gorgeous,” she said finishing my sentence for me.

“I love you so much Claire.” I squealed giving her a bone crushing hug. I heard her groan in some sort of protest, which meant I was doing my job properly. I pulled back from her giggling and looked her up and down, “You look just as stunning Claire!”

She was wearing a red dress that looked quite like mine except it was sleeveless and she had a white cardigan covering her shoulders. Her makeup was somewhat natural along with mine and some nude lipstick covered her heart shaped lips. Dark eye shadow was filled in the crease and around the edges of her eyes. Her hair was straightened and fell to the middle of her back and to be honest, I couldn’t even tell that this was my best friend in front of me. Of course I’d seen her dressed up before but since we’d never been to a high school party, I’d never seen her go all out.

“Aw thank you Bell.” She gushed as she hugged me again, being weary of the masterpieces we’d made of each other. She looked at me with a determined look in her eye, “Are you ready to do this?”

I was filled with a sudden confidence I’d never had before and I found the words flying out of my mouth before I could even form them in my head, “I sure am. Let’s party!”