Her Runaway Prince

Chapter 3

“Okay, so then I just go down the road until I reach the old church, hey?” Peter enquired, his shoulder pressed against Amanda’s as they stared at the makeshift map she’d drawn for him. Amanda instinctively shifted and put a small distance between them.

“Uh-huh,” she answered. She herself was not a hundred percent sure of what he’d said, but the sound of his voice made her feel as if she would agree to anything. Snap out of it, Amanda. You’re not some schoolgirl. She shook her head and focussed her gaze back on the map. She couldn’t help but notice the rugged look of his hands. She wondered if he used to work with his hands. He sometimes used his hands as he spoke, and the movement was hypnotic. A part of her started to wonder how those hands would feel if they ran up her ribs, tracing the small concave spaces between the bones—

See, this is what happens when you don’t get enough sleep. You don’t actually have feelings for him. It’s just because he’s some foreign pretty boy that paid some attention to you. Snap out of it.

“Then I’ll take a left,” he said and snapped her out of her daze.

“Yes,” she instinctively agreed, except she was so deep in her thoughts that she didn’t even register exactly what he said. For all she knew, she was actually leading him straight to the old age home at the edge of town. She glanced over the map once again, just to make sure that if her words failed him, her attempt at cartography would save him. However, when he followed the trail on the tap with his finger, he pressed his shoulder against hers once again. Before she could put distance between them again, her thoughts betrayed her. She started to wonder what kind of weight he carried in those broad shoulders. Was he just an average office Joe, who worked for himself and only survived day-to-day, escaping the clutches of normalcy by running off to a distant land? Or was he an important man, in a dangerous job, who carried the well-being of the lives of others on his shoulders? She dismissed the latter idea, finding herself caught up in her reverie again.

“And from there, I won’t be able to miss it.” He stood back, folding the map up with delicate precision. Maybe he was a musician, playing music for the masses in giant, awesome opera houses, letting people lose themselves in the emotion that only his fingers would cause.

*****

“Yes. You’ll see it immediately,” she smiled brightly. It was the most genuine smile he’d ever seen. Most girls had an agenda behind their smiles, but Amanda had no clue about his status. However, that smile was aimed at Peter Michaels, the vulnerable stranger, not at Petro Johansen, the playboy prince. Suddenly he began to wonder: would Amanda’s smile still have been so genuine if she knew who he really was? He felt like he was stuck in the most ironic kind of paradox. He was pretending to be someone else when he’d fled his homeland to avoid pretending to be someone else.

Yet, something about her made him feel like he wasn’t pretending. He felt like this was someone he could be. He felt confused and conflicted. At the end of the day, who was he really?

He desperately wanted to be the man who was reflected in Amanda’s dark brown eyes.

“Okay, so I guess I’ll see you around,” he said gently and suddenly he felt an almost kind of magnetic attraction between them. Petro opened his arms for a hug, and Amanda feigned annoyance with an over-dramatic eye-roll, but he saw how her plump bottom lip was quivering from suppressing a smile as she pressed her face to the crook of his neck and wrapped her skinny arms around him in a friendly hug.

“Yeah, see you,” she mumbled into his shoulder before standing back and smiling faintly. He picked up his bags, saluted her, and left without saying another word.

*****

She finally breathed.

For the first time since he’d arrived she breathed properly. However, the air that was passing through her lungs wasn’t as sweet as she was expecting it to be. She’d expected her alveoli to finally feel like they hadn’t turned to cotton, but instead they only hurt even more. Stupid crushes. Goodness, she was being such a teenage girl. Fixating over a handsome, blond, foreign man with a strange accent. She wasn’t in a fairy-tale. She of all people should know that she was the last person to be stuck in a fairy-tale.

She turned around, looking at the small, cosy cottage. Wood floors and walls, such a beautiful natural aura. She breathed in the scent of the old wood, allowing the familiarity to warm the chill in both her bones and her soul. She allowed the presence of her dear departed nana calm her, and her heart contracted painfully at the thought of her nana. What advice would she have given Amanda?

Amanda thought back to a time when she could have climbed onto her nana’s lap, rested her ear against her frail chest and heard her strong heartbeat. She shook away that bitter-sweet nostalgia and walked over the hardwood floors to the kitchen. The small, familiar space enveloped her, and the loneliness of the cottage caused her mind to wander. She busied herself with re-washing the dishes, thinking about how she wished the warm soapy water would wash away the toxic thoughts and unwanted romantic feelings swirling inside her.

Who on earth was Peter actually? As far as she knew he could be an axe-murderer on the run. No, don’t be silly, this isn’t a book. He could be any old murderer on the run. No, he didn’t look like the type who’d appreciate having blood on his suit. She giggled to herself imagining his oceanic blue eyes widening like a swelling tide at a splatter of blood on his white dress shirt. Nonsense, she shouldn’t be thinking such negative thoughts. He was a good man, from what she’d seen. Willing to help, good conversation, and he never seemed to mind her scattered-brain tendencies, which sometimes made her zone out at strange times and speak about things totally unrelated to the topic at hand.

She sighed deeply, her chest rising with a certain ache she wasn’t able to quite place. She noticed that she’d stopped washing the dish mid-way, and the water was just pouring down on her hands, causing her finger-tips to become wrinkled. She turned the water off and ran her wet hand through her silky hair, biting down on her plump lip.

Yes, Nana, it’s like you said so many times before. Men are only good for two thing: causing confusion, and inspiring great stories. Her nana would most definitely tell her to channel her confusion into something productive, but her past had caused her love for fantasising to shrink in it’s shadow. A part of her still refused to allow her mind to wander, unlike her nana had raised her. Nana had inspired her, had stimulated her mind to be a hopeless wanderer in the maze of reality. She was merely a vessel for her extravagant imagination.

And, as of late, a vessel for confusion.

She blamed Peter and his accent. Yes, it was his accent. And maybe his eyes, which resembled the colour of the sea when the waves hit against the pale sand. And his mysterious aura, which only caused her mind to wander even more. Her curiosity was slowly killing her.

If only she could know.

*****

She mustn’t know, Petro repeated to himself in a somewhat daily mantra. I don’t want to scare her off. Maybe she should never know. He cursed under his breath as he walked up the familiar road to the familiar cottage. He’d expected to be finally able to think things through properly without her influence, but he found the exact opposite to be true. Instead, his mind was plagued by the thoughts of how he was going to tell Amanda that he was literally a prince from a faraway land on the run from his family and his future. He could imagine the way she’d break out laughing in his face, calling him insane and probably going on with her daily tasks like it was nothing.