Acting Royal #Wattys2017

Chapter 39

JENNY

It was morning and Jenny's head and neck and shoulders hurt from sitting on the bench all night. She hadn't slept, you wouldn't dare sleep alone on a bench in the middle of the night in a bus station in South Africa. Bad idea. Instead, she had sat wide awake all night jumping at every sound and every shadow.

She was so grateful when the sun finally came up and the station got busy again. She made her way to the bathroom and went to the toilet. She washed her hands at the sink and looked up at herself in the mirror. God she looked a mess. From being in ball gowns and wearing expensive jewelry to looking like this. Palace to bus station in twenty-four hours. She wondered what Zayn was doing right now. All love for him this morning was gone- it would probably come back at some stage, she knew how bad break-up's worked. But right now all she felt was anger and hatred. She must admit it was a welcome change, hating him and wanting to kick him in the balls felt way better than loving him and wanting him to love her back.

She tied her hair up, washed her face and tried to make herself look vaguely decent. She walked back onto the platform and the bus was ready to be boarded. She climbed on and felt exhausted. She was looking forward to sleeping. And she felt like the luckiest person alive when the two seats next to her remained empty, she guessed a bus trip into the middle of farming country in the Free State wasn't exactly high up on the tourist radar.

As soon as the bus started moving she curled up in the three seats and put her head down. Something caught her attention on the floor, a magazine. Her blood ran cold when she saw what it was.

Don't pick it up, don't pick it up. She urged herself over and over again, but she didn't listen. She was that much of a masochist. It was a local gossip magazine and she flipped it open and started paging through it. He would be somewhere, no doubt about it. He was always in these magazine's and just as she was thinking that, she saw him.

Her heart stopped for a second and her breath caught in her throat. There he was, in a series of pictures that showed him kissing and fondling a hot blonde in a nightclub. The caption had the phrase, "get a room" in and this made her feel sick. She tore the article out and then ripped his head off by tearing the paper. It made her feel better for a second when she crunched his head and threw it down on the dirty floor- but only for a second.

She closed her eyes and tried to sleep, but so much was running through her mind. Not only Zayn and what had happened, but the idea of going back home filled her with dread. One of the reasons she'd wanted to leave was the incident with her so-called best friends. She didn't want to see them, at all. She had heard that they'd gotten married and were running the local grocery store. She reflected on the pain she had felt after sleeping with a man she loved, only for him to tell her he was in love with someone else, her best friend.

She had been so heartbroken after that she hadn't thought she would survive, but she had. And if she compared that feeling to this one there was just no comparison. That heartbreak and betrayal and embarrassment felt nothing compared to this. Still, that didn't make seeing them any easier- and she would. It was a small town.

She willed those thoughts away and closed her eyes and fell asleep.

**

When Jenny woke up they were traveling through the Free State. Nothing but large expanses of empty land stretched out in front of her. Everything looked so dry and she wondered when last they'd rain. It looked dry and barren and desolate, just how she felt. Her parents had mentioned a drought, but this looked bad and she wondered what condition the farm would be in.

But still, there was something quite comforting about seeing the place again. The wild open spaces that she'd grown up in were a far cry from the manicured lawns of the palace. The bus finally came to a stop at a tiny bus stop in the middle of nowhere. It was less like a bus stop and more like a tiny tin shack on the side of a deserted road. From here she could see her mother standing by their old beat up old car, the same car she had been driving for over twenty years. Her mother also had a fiery mop of red curls and a face full of freckles, it was something they both had in common. Jenny climbed off the bus and immediately ran up to her mother, she threw her arms around her and clung on as she started to cry again.

"What's wrong, what's wrong?" her mother asked stroking her hair as she cried. She was unstoppable now. The floodgates had really burst open and she sobbed.

"Jenny," Her mother's voice was filled with panic, "Has something happened, has something bad happen to you?"

Jenny wished so much that she could tell her what was going on, but she couldn't.

"I'm a failure." She cried into her shoulder. "I failed. I didn't make it. I'm broke and I failed." She continued to cry into her mother's shoulder while she rubbed her back reassuringly.

"Don't say that." Her mother said.

Jenny finally stopped crying and pulled away. She looked her mother in the face and barely recognized her. It had only been a few years since she'd seen her, but she had grown old and weather beaten. The lines in her face were deeper now, her freckles darker as if she had been spending time in the sun. Her lips were cracked from sunburn and her hair was thinning.

"Mom." Jenny gasped. "What's wrong?"

Her mother shook her head. "You couldn't have come home at a better time."

"Mom, why? What's going on?" Jenny felt a bolt of panic rush through her.

Her mother looked down, "It's been bad here, very bad. The drought has killed all the crops, the sheep, a lot of farmers are suffering, it's bad." She said quietly. "We've had to let almost all the workers go, it's just your father and I and Chris."

Guilt smashed into her. She'd had no idea it was this bad. While she had been traipsing around Cape Town chasing some stupid dream, her parents had been here struggling. They got in the car and drove down the long dusty road that lead into the small town, and when she saw it, her heart sank. Almost all the small shops had been closed. Foreclosure and Auction signs covered the town's buildings like a virus. The place was sad and looked like a lonely, desperate child.

Jenny took a deep breath as she realized this was where she was meant to be. Chasing big city dreams, living in some palace on an island, wearing ball gowns and pretending to be royalty, that was not her. This was her, this was where she was meant to be, and this was where she would stay.