Five: Penelope Peters
873 Words
Chapter Five
Penelope Peters
There was something rattling the windows. It was about three a.m. Whatever the noise was, I was going to find it, and murder it. I opened my eyes, to see Audrey standing over me.
“What did you do to them?” she demanded.
I groaned. “What are you talking about?”
“The boys. Did you cast a love spell? Are you Romilda Vane?”
“I didn’t do anything. What nonsense are you talking about?”
“Look out the window.”
I went to the window, and standing there outside my dorm, was Jasper Jefferies. With a guitar in his hands. “Jefferies,” I said, “it’s three in the bloody morning.”
“I know, I know,” said Jasper, “but desperate times call for desperate measures.”
“Desperate times?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Here’s the thing. My family, we’ve always protected the royals. That’s my legacy. At the end of the day, in the history books, I am going to be the man in the pictures with an earpiece standing next to Cadoc looking eternally pissed off. But I’m not just second best. I’m not a walking shadow. I’m Jasper Jefferies, and I like you.”
I shook my head. “Jasper, you barely know me. We just met.”
“Well, I’m a pretty good judge of character,” he said with a smirk, “and I’m also a black belt.”
“Okay,” I said, “Jasper, I get what you’re trying to do, this is very sweet. But I’m also very tired, we start school tomorrow. What are you doing here, at three a.m.?”
He smiled. “I needed to impress you, so I’m doing the one thing Cadoc can’t do.”
“What’s that?”
“Sing,” he said, “he doesn’t have a musical bone in his body, and that’s after years of piano lessons. I, on the other hand, spent a summer busking around Europe when I turned fifteen.”
I blushed. “Alright, Ed Sheeran. Do your worst.”
He started strumming, a simple little melody. “Roses are red honey, violets are blue, don’t you know I want nothing but to go out with you, Roses are red, but for you daisies will do, if you give me a chance I might just love you…”
My heart swelled, and swooned, and at that exact moment my sixteen-year-old self didn’t care about goals or anything else that I couldn’t control. All it cared about was the curly haired, green eyed boy who was looking at me like I was his whole world. “Alright,” I said with a nod, “alright, I’ll go out on a date with you.”
“This Friday?”
“This Friday,” I answered, “now go back home. I need to go to sleep.”
He smiled up at me, his eyes shining with so much hope, and I watched him as he backed away, heading home. When I could no longer make out his form, I closed the window, and then turned back to around, smiling.
Audrey stood there off to the side, shaking her head. “This is the messiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. You three are Blank Space.”
“Blank Space?” I queried. “How are we Blank Space?”
“You’re all going to go down in flames,” she answered.
“Cadoc does not have feelings for me. You’ll see. We’ll graduate, he’ll marry Gwyneth, and I will just be some face in the yearbook that will be completely forgotten.”
“You’re not a footnote, sweetie,” she said, smiling at me the way one might if she were appeasing a child, “you’re Style.”
I stared at her, certain I was hearing wrong. “Please stop comparing my life to Taylor Swift songs”
“Oh please, that’s like the highest compliment I could pay you. It means your life is actually interesting, epic, like a love song.”
“My life is small, and boring. I’m not worthy of being compared to Taylor Swift. I’m…. Jack Johnson.”
“Ha! Whatever you say, Queenie.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m going to bed.”
“You do that. I give it two years.”
“Two years?”
“Before you and Jasper become Last Kiss. If anyone is a footnote, he’s a footnote.”
I closed my eyes, choosing to ignore her and her crazy talk. When I looked back on my life, Prince Cadoc would be dinner party talk material. About how I once went to school with the Prince of the Nation of Wales. And how his bodyguard was my first love.
- Writer
