His Majesty's Ballerina

PART XV -- Any Minute Now

Robert had looked like he was in some kind of a dazed these days, like he was not aware of himself, just like a man stranded in the middle of the ocean, lost.

“Robert, I’m tired. I keep asking you to break the engagement but you never listen and I’m so tired right now, Robert. So, I think,” the Queen drew a deep breath, “Oh, Robert, I never wanted to give you this options but you forced my hands. Now, you must chose, my son, chose between your country and the girl. If you still adamant to stick to the engagement, I have to ask you to abdicate, Robert. Give the throne to your sister Charlotte and you could freely marry that ballerina. But if you still want to be King, then you must break off the engagement once and for all. That’s all. That’s all the options you have right now. I can’t give you more than this. Think about it very carefully,” the Queen kissed Robert on the temple and left. She looked really tired indeed.

Kitty was just as frustrated as the royals. She was after all the one who got so much hatred from people that didn’t know her at all. They just read about her past from the newspapers or heard about it from newscast without giving her any chance to explain but then she thought what could her explanation be for her past? She was all alone, surrounded by hatred and mean words from strangers.

If Brad was here, she knew everything would be alright but he wasn’t and Kitty curled up in the corner like a loser cat who was waiting to die. All of her will have spirited away.

This time would be the first time Kitty has turned on the TV in her living room. She never cared about TV before but when the news of her engagement broke out, Kitty had been watching TV non-stop, she kept hearing all those people’s opinion about her and it wasn’t a good opinion.

“Oh, yeah, I know Kitty. We’ve been working together for a year before she was fired from the royal ballet company. She was a nasty woman, I could tell from the moment I saw her. She was no good, always a gold digger, she was arrogant too. I wasn’t surprised to read about her past actually, she’s the kind of girl that you would expect to do all those immoral stuffs,” said Mira to the reporters that swarm her in the entrance of the royal opera house.

Kitty was shocked, she thought Mira was a nice girl who was kind and helpful. She certainly was when she was shadowing Kitty back at the royal ballet company. But it turned out, Mira was a 2 faced snakes!

After Mira, the reporters caught sight of Clarissa, the prima ballerina at the royal ballet company and rumored to be Kitty’s number 1 arch enemy. They swarmed her in the hope of getting a hate remarks from her.

“Clarissa, can you tell me about your relationship with Kitty?” “Clarissa, what do you think of Kitty’s engagement with Prince Robert?” “Clarissa, what do you make of Kitty?” those are the questions that overlapping when the reporters followed Clarissa, demanding her answer.

“Kitty is a beautiful ballet dancer and she’s very talented. I have enjoyed working with her, she was driven and passionate about ballet and I could see why Prince Robert falls in love with her,” said Clarissa finally given in to the reporters demand.

Now, it was clear for Kitty, who was really the friend and who was really the enemy. She felt bad for all those time she blamed everything on Clarissa, all those time she fought with her.

Early in the morning a delivery boy came knocking on Kitty’s door. He brought her a package from Tommy. In it she found today’s newspaper with headlines written: “His Majesty’s Ballerina” with her picture underneath it. She had no idea why Tommy sent this particular newspaper, perhaps he was mocking her.

Later that night, Robert went to Kitty’s apartment. He looked haggard and in a dazed. These bad publicities had created problem for Robert, problems that he didn’t know how to handle and added to that the choice that the Queen had given him didn’t sound at all appealing for him. Now, he was starting to questions his sanity and reason behind the proposal, he even went so far as to question his feeling, was it really love or lust?

“Kitty, my mother has given me a choice. If I want to keep this engagement, then I have to abdicate, pass the throne to my sister Charlotte. However, if I want to remain to be the next in line to be King, I have to let you go,” said Robert. Even the sound of his voice was weak.

“Robert, no! Abdication is not an option here! You have to stand up for our love, please Robert! We love each other, do we? Then why shouldn’t we be together? Why they got to decide on our love?”

“Kitty, I’m not a free man like you thought I am. My life is not my own, it never is ever since my brother died,”

“But Robert, we haven’t even fight our corner! They’re on to us! Said mean things about us but we haven’t fight back, we haven’t show them how strong our love is!”

Kitty was frustrated. She could feel Robert slipping off her fingers. But she couldn’t just give up without a fight, she had lost everything and this was not the outcome that she has dreamt of.

“For god sake, Robert, you never even said a word about me to the media. They thought you’re ashamed of me! If we could just speak, to defend our relationship, to let people know how much we love each other, Robert, I think they would see our love and they would change their mind. Listen, Robert, I have got a call lately from dozens of talk shows, inviting me to an interview. I thought we should do this interview, Robert. Just pick one show and we’ll do it, we’ll show them that we’re not playing with each other, we’ll show them that we do love each other. We can’t just give up without even trying, Robert,”

“Do you think that would work?”

“Yes, Robert, I believe it will! Promise me you’ll do the show with me,”

“Okay, Kitty, I’ll do it!”