Page 37 of The Prince of Hidden Shadows (Runaway Prince Hotel #5)

I was raised in Provincetown, Massachusetts—most people call it P-Town—until I was about four.

Then I gathered that my mom judged it to be an unhealthy environment in which to raise a child.

So she convinced my dad that Paris was a better option.

She said that we should all rejoin her relatives, and she flew her French butt out of there, back where she thought we belonged, with my little butt in tow.

Shortly after, my American dad followed us and imposed French as our default language at home… What a weird idea!

I had spent the majority of the past ten summer vacations in P-Town as an attempt to reconnect with my American background in a more carefree environment. There I tried to catch up on my long-lost English language, which had been my mother tongue once upon a time.

In fact, I’d have to admit that my slight accent betrayed my French upbringing on some specific words such as three or available.

And as much as I loved France, I hated to constantly be reminded of my accent because, to me, it meant that I no longer belonged in the US despite my American dad.

Growing up, I noticed that when I was stressed out, the French language took over.

It was considered to be endearing, though I’d say annoying. I could live with that.

Months after Guillaume had broken up with me, his words still hadn’t stopped ricocheting inside my head. I gave him my mind, my body and my soul. He mercilessly trampled over each.

“I don’t think that I want us to keep seeing each other.”

I was a wreck, empty inside. I had to do something to climb from the pit of my bottomless grief. I couldn’t bear to be in that state anymore, essentially having the word “depressed” tattooed across my forehead, yet I couldn’t help it.

A state where I couldn’t feel anything. Numb.

A year of loneliness and despair that I had put to good use.

My family tried their best to support me, but I was unreachable.

My heart was dried as that of a mummy, and nothing could help me to reason my way out of it.

That was why I wondered just as much as my mom how I passed my exams without much trouble and earned my bachelor’s degree.

“I don’t think that I want to continue wasting my time with you.”

So that was how I started to cut myself, shortly after Guillaume broke up with me. Soon enough, I discovered that my instincts were correct. Unsurprisingly enough, Guillaume was a cheater. Rumor had it that he had been seeing other people behind my back. Quite a lot of them. Lying son of a bitch!

The bottom line was: men could only be trusted as friends.

Hence, the self-harm. I’d much rather hurt myself than provide someone else the tools to do it, so I used Tiny’s forgotten X-Acto knife. My cousin’s girlfriend was named Veronica but because of her height and slim body, everybody called her Tiny.

I was grateful that she forgot this precious tool, after having spent a couple of weekends with us in Paris.

The twenty-year-old petite woman had been studying numerous techniques in a scriptorium in Toulouse, France: drawing, collage, calligraphy, knotwork and illumination. I made good use of her blade.

Poor desperate little girl. Out of curiosity, I had questioned my ability to feel something.

I did. It hurt. Not too much. The right amount to feel alive, at least. After the first few times the razor blade met the inside of my wrist, I found that I took pleasure in it.

I really did. I wasn’t trying to kill myself, I swear.

I hid the marks under a large leather triquetra wristband that Guillaume had given me on our first anniversary.

The irony wasn’t lost on me that all I had left of him was his meaningful gift which I used to hide the wounds of our broken love under a Trinity knot, the Celtic triangle that symbolized past, present and future—as if I had a future with him!

The wounds didn’t heal fast enough, but nobody ever noticed. Then it became an addiction. I had to do it. To remember how to feel. Some cuts here and there? Well, my body and mind were in pieces so what difference did it make? I was a zombie anyway.

For the first time, I found it impossible to admit to Judd, my favorite American cousin, what I’d been doing to myself.

I had been such a fool… Learning to cope with bad experiences and rejection were part of growing up, right? I understood that now.

The one good thing I got from the breakup had been Vincente’s undying friendship.

We had become inseparable around the time that things went down the drain with Guillaume, and he stood by me, always.

And to be sure that my intentions were clear I made a bold move and set Vincente up on a blind date—not a typical French tradition—with Alexandra, another friend of mine.

I was proud of my matchmaking talents because they’ve been together ever since.

Perhaps I wasn’t ready to commit because my parents had met at a young age, didn’t wait to get married, and had this perfect relationship, setting my expectations too high? Perhaps it was because I wasn’t ready yet with Guillaume?

It took forever to figure things out. It took daily self-harming.

It took my loss of trust in men. But I did it.

Finally, I fathomed that as much as I was hurting, I could still rationalize our break-up.

Because, you see, I’ve always been a rational girl and that was how I coped with pain.

I let it engulf me for a moment after which I completely ignored it and pretended that it never existed.

So, in a way, our break-up helped me to not waste additional years with Guillaume.

It was safe to say that even after a year, I was still a ghost. Still, the ghost was thankful that he had dumped me: not how he actually handled it, but somehow that he found whatever consciousness he had to articulate the thought and eventually spat it out.

A ghost, and my mother, Isabelle, found a way to get rid of me for a few months and offer me a great vacation at the same time. A smart move. Only I never predicted what an impact her decision would have on my life. I would have called you a liar if you had warned me about what would follow.

The irony of it was that this American vacation was supposed to get rid of the Guillaume syndrome, as my mom had put it, yet Guillaume loathed the US, despite the fact that he had never set foot there.

Narrow-minded, he assumed what some uninspired French people believed to be true: the America portrayed on TV was the real deal…

as if. So glad it wasn’t true since TV never truly captures reality but portrays the extreme for entertainment. Stupid and clueless Guillaume.

P-Town would be a cure for me. Of course, that was the rational part of me speaking after the emotional nerve-wracking part exploded in France a year ago. The hurt was still palpable, and I simply couldn’t get over it. I had to admit I was still equally appalled by his betrayal and my gullibility.

It took time to build a strong relationship, but it took him a minute to end it.

Breaking up was rarely a smooth ride, but I had taken it the harshest way possible because Guillaume had handled the situation poorly and betrayed me.

Still, I couldn’t let go and continued to cherish and reminisce about most of our time together, even though I understood that he turned out to be wrong for me.

Far away from my French troubles, my helpless mother thought that I would be willing to revel in a long summer vacation the best I could.

Thanks, Mom, for booking a flight to Boston to take me out of my misery.

Deep in her heart, my mom would have trusted Aunt Lana with her own life, it was the same for me and Judd. My rebel of a cousin remained my hero in the US; I was thrilled to see him during the summer.

Before my parents and I went back to live in Paris, I considered him to be my older brother, and people would say that we were joined at the hip.

We kind of looked alike as well, sharing the dark wavy hair and greenish-brown eyes that ran in the family.

The difference now was his height and build.

Where he was a surfer type—not too tall, but muscular—my figure was slimmer; his thick dark hair was cut short while mine was shoulder length with a few highlights peeking through here and there.

Other than our resemblance and our love of scary movies—the cheesier, the better—we were nothing alike.

He was a hard-working self-made man while I was a depressed struggling student.

He was a clown while I was a square. He was bisexual while I was straight.

Every time I came back to P-Town, he was in some sort of trouble for not studying, stealing, smoking pot…

Maybe I liked him because he was a rebel.

Maybe he was my evil twin, after all. Maybe we completed each other perfectly, and that was why we enjoyed a strong connection.

I was well aware that my aunt and my cousin were the only ones who could reasonably cope with me, considering my state of mind for the past year.

I drifted off to sleep, and hoped that I would be able to thank her for sending me. I was tired of being lost. I was tired of being numb. I was tired of being myself.

Granted, I had interpreted her decision as a punishment at first, but deep down I understood that it wasn’t. I had waited too long to go back there. I’ve always felt good there. I’ve always felt free there. I’ve always felt alive there.

That didn’t happen anymore.

Guillaume took that away from me, without even comprehending the damage he’d done. I had placed my trust in him, faith even, but he fucked it all up. Somehow, our failure made me doubt men. I was hopeless now, certain that I wouldn’t ever have a meaningful relationship.

Happily ever after? Not for me, but Vincente and Alexandra found love, so deep down, I had a glimmer of hope.

Those two were getting married this winter.

But it was only May, and at this point, I wasn’t looking forward to attending that wedding.

I wasn’t looking forward to facing Guillaume again.

I wasn’t looking forward to showing how affected and alone I still was.

My mind and my body, yearning for the daily rush of the blade, kept reminding me that I was far from cured.

Crushed.