The Prince's Bride (Part 1) - J.J. McAvoy Page 0,25
movies, books, plays—anything that told a story, really—where the hero meets his heroine, and he’s completely blinded by her beauty.
Romeo said, upon seeing Juliet, “Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.”
King Arthur said upon seeing Genevieve, “And this damsel is the most virtuous and fairest that I know living, or yet that ever I could find.”
In A Farewell to Arms, Frederic said about Catherine, “When I saw her, I was in love with her. Everything turned over inside of me.”
It was ridiculous.
Just prose by poets.
The world didn’t work like that, nor would it be possible to ever feel like that in real life. And yet, when I turned around... She stood on the stairs, staring down at me with her blue dress pooled around her, flowing over the steps like water—as if she had arisen from some magical sea. Her long, thick curls framed her sweet and innocent face, and her brown eyes were wide, mesmerizing, and only focused on me.
At that moment, in that brief second before she screamed bloody murder, all I could think was, the poets are right. No one will believe me, and many others will think I am insane. But I want the sun to rise with my name on her lips and my hand on her hips.
Yes, just because she was beautiful—even more so in person than in pictures—I was at a loss for what to do.
Was it love at first sight?
No.
But I would be lying if I said I was not just a little bit happy at how she looked. Yes, it was shallow, but so be it. I could work with this.
“Sorry, I don’t usually stay here, so there isn’t really any other food but leftover pizza,” she explained. “I only ordered it like an hour ago, so...”
I looked down at the pepperoni pizza and the bottle of water she brought over to the coffee table. My brain couldn’t even begin to process the last twenty-four hours of my life. I glanced back up at her, and once again, I was blinded by her brown eyes that held me captive.
“Never mind.” She reached down for the plate. “There will be better food at the fundraiser so—”
“May I get a fork and a knife?” I asked, stopping her from taking the plate.
“A fork and knife? For pizza?” she repeated, tilting her head in confusion but then just nodded, turning to leave again.
At that moment, I drank from the water bottle, trying to knock down whatever was stuck in my throat. Sighing, I snickered to myself, shaking my head. Pizza. I had romantic literature on my mind, and she was worried about the pizza. If that wasn’t a reality check, I wasn’t sure what else was.
“Here.” She handed me silverware and a napkin.
“Thank you,” I said, taking it from her.
“No problem,” she replied, taking a seat right in front of me, on the opposite side of the coffee table. Her dress puffed up and spread around her. I was accustomed to people watching me eat, but for some reason, her gaze was just so...undeterred. She stared at me as if she were trying to analyze a foreign species. I stopped mid-cut and met her gaze.
She blinked a few times before she spoke. “I’m staring.”
“Just a little bit.”
“Sorry, please eat,” she said, quickly getting up to move to the other side of the couch. She pulled out her phone, but she watched me out of the corner of her eye.
“You are not going to take a picture of me while I’m eating, are you?” I asked, slightly annoyed.
“No...why would think that?” she said slowly, confused.
I said nothing, and she kept silent, but I could still see her checking her phone and then looking back at me every few minutes when she thought I wasn’t looking. It was only when I caught her scrolling from the corner of my eye—it was hard to see—that I saw an image of myself. I sighed and turned back to her. “You’re making me anxious.”
“Me?” she said, surprised.
I nodded, wiping the corner of my mouth. “Yes, you. You are hunched over your phone like some stalker—”
“Stalker? You’re in my house.”
“I didn’t stalk you to get in here. You, however, are Googling me—”
“I don’t use Google. I use—”
“Right, you are Etheusing me.”
“I am not...” she lied badly, placing the phone behind her back.
My eyebrow raised.
“Okay, I am,” she admitted. “But...I’m not sure what to do with a prince.”