When Mila finds out she's pregnant from a one-night stand with a reluctant prince, she is thrust into a fake romance with him; are her feelings that grow for him genuine or for his way of life that ensures her baby stability?|| Down-on-her-luck Mila...
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My favourite Disney princess will always be Ariel. Sure, she has a ton of issues – declaring that she loves Prince Eric when she's sixteen and hasn't ever spoken to him is problematic, and I swear she needs to be properly parented and taught about contracts, but the way she fought for her love and way of life, regardless of age and all, really is cool. Clearly, Ariel always felt like she shouldn't have been a mermaid and, despite the prince, once she found her legs, she fought for them, too.
It resonates with me how Ariel feels dysphoric as a mermaid. She feels like even before she met Eric, she was in the wrong place. It might be different, but the whole day I've been feeling the same. I'm not meant to be a royal, a princess, or be in this world. I'm the one destined to be back under the sea with my mermaid tail and fish friends.
The palace made me deactivate all of my named social media accounts, but I still have an anonymous one not tied to my name or anything, so I can see how it's all come to life with the news of Kai's engagement to me, and the photos of us they released. The ones we took yesterday won't come out yet. To my surprise, though, there isn't much on my tumble and few people seem to hate me. Yet. I've no doubt it'll happen.
I throw my phone down and pull the blanket around me, sniffing the tears as the Part of Your World song starts. The irony isn't lost on me right now.
The door opens and Kai walks in tentatively.
"Okay if I come in?" he asks.
I just nod in response, so he walks in more, closing the door behind him. He puts a cup of tea down in front of me and one for him.
"I thought we would have maids to do that for us or something. Surely a prince making tea is unheard of," I note bitterly.
He chuckles as the song finishes and the rest of the film carries on. "The royal family isn't always what people expect, you know? I don't enjoy having maids and butlers doing everything for me. I have the one who will do a quick clean every day because no one likes cleaning every day. Plus, I don't always have the time. A gardener, but that's not my choice because if I don't do it, the palace won't allow it to not happen. Everything else I do myself. You know I told you how much I hate this life? That's part of it. Too many people poking around in my life."
I shrug. "Fair."
"The Little Mermaid, huh?"
I roll my eyes. He's trying to find a way of talking about it. I better just get this over with, I suppose. My hormones are also all over the place, so I know this is a bigger deal in my head.
I sigh. "The thing is, more than ever, I get Ariel. She was never meant to be a mermaid, despite the whole fancying a man she's never met thing. She was born to be a human, and she has to fight to be what she wants. I was never born to be a royal, or in front of cameras. This is literally like that: I'm Ariel. Just without the cool tail and nice bra to go with it."
