The making of "Princia"

"And then the princess lived happily ever after in her rich castle with all her friends!"

"Wow! That was amazing! Can I also be a princess, daddy?" 

I excitedly looked at the shadowy figure of my worn-out old man, my eyes twinkling brighter than the stars above our heads.

"Of course you are my princess, you're the most special girl Alaya!"

He lifted me up on the very top of the world and spun me around! My hands were spread wide in the air, my hair was dancing with the breeze, my eyes were smiling bright and my laughter bubbled to the brim of my mouth.

The bubbles of happiness filled with mine and my father's laughter burst loudly as I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. How far had I come from those pink ruffled dresses, magical golden locks and daddy's little angel days? It almost seemed impossible at this point. Looking at the haphazard, knotted brown hair that sat steady atop my bruised face, complimented by my torn lips and tear-stained cheeks, twinkling eyes that were replaced with exhausted ones and laughing heart switched for a broken one, the princess had clearly bowed out for a chaotic mess to take her place.

Life seemed so much easier when I sat on my father’s shoulders and peered at the world at my feet. Now, all I wanted to do was just jump off. Off the shoulders, off the world. Just to get out. Life had become so much more complicated as I grew up. The father I knew to be the king had become this face of tyranny. When I looked at myself I knew I had lost the princess in me, but when I looked at him, he had more than just lost the king in him, he had practically dictated war against the good in him. A war that the good in him had lost.

I got up and scurried accross the floor to the small glass window and peered down to the traffic of monotonous bodies that swarmed the gates of my grey, brickstone castle. Adam was nowhere in sight! He had to have been here by this time, he had to be alright, didn’t he? My eyes were moving extremely rapidly, scanning each face of each vehicle and shop till the road would go on for. Sweaty palms up against the window, eyes glued to the glass, heart throbbing with anxiety, it was this picture of vulnerability and helplessness that I know father was dying to see. He knew that my power was yet subservient to his thumb, he knew that he had broken the facade of the confident back to the little girl she was, even without seeing me like this, he knew. 

He absolutely had to show up. He was going to be the key to my escape. My exit. My flee. My get-out-of-hell for free card. Well not free, all things cost. Some dreams are just worth the price. 

I sat back down on my bed, amrs folded, nerves twitching, did I really want to go through with this? Is the outcome going to be worth what I’m losing? Yes, wait ofcourse what am I even thinking? Anything is worth escaping the clutches of my father. I will go through with this. I don’t have a choice. I must escape. 

“Ah!” The blue and reddened fragment of my skin cast a painful shard into the depths of my pain when I clenched my fist. It was kind of hilarious. When I was young, my father would leave marks of love on my cheeks, soft strokes, kisses, “good girls,” and he continued that tradition with utmost determination, leaving me hard slaps, bruises and cuts that emphasised the same control through different means. I remember this specific bruise. It was the first one actually. I had just found out about my father’s excessive dedication and passion to run his system of blackmail, drugs, extortion and much more. It was easy to say that after he found out that I knew, he begun to run his system on me. Physical, mental, health and every other form of abuse in the book was carried out on me as I kept finding out more about his “work.”

Everytime he threatened me, my love for him fizzled. When I looked into his eyes, helplessly searching for the warm man that carried me up all those years ago, I was met with the icy cold stare of this giant, horrible, evil man. The same man who crowned his daughter the “princess” of the world was now beating her up, scaring her, and had truly embodied the role of the wicked witch in her life. 

In one of their many altercations, he had sent his worker Adam to clean up. Little had I known at that point, peering at the tall man through hazy, teary and worn-out eyes, that he was going to be the one to save me. His sympathy resonated loudly as I wept, whilst he cleaned up the fragments of glass that had previously pierced my skin. He had taken the cloth from his suit and lightly touched the bleeding wound on my hands as my shriek echoed through the garden, piercing the ears of anyone who stopped to hear. He held me tight and straight as I kept breaking from inside so that when he was done cleaning me, I was done with life. 

But that was it. He hadn’t helped me immediately. I don’t think he saw enough to go against my father yet. 

However, a few weeks later, when my head had been held under the pool for just enough time to warn me not to leave my room, he presented me with the ray of light that I craved. Taken to me like his daughter, he knew he had to get me out before my own father choked the voice out of my system. 

“Alaya, I can help you leave. But you’ll to give something up, and I don’t know if you’re ready yet.”

“Give up? I’ll give up anything! My clothes, my money, my anything that I have but please, please help me leave Adam! Please” I had begged frantically, latching onto hope faster than a predator on its prey’s flesh.

“You’ll have to give up yourself. Your identity. Your name.”

“My name? How am I to survive in the world without my name? Who should I be?”

“You can be quite anybody you want, Alaya, but you’ll have to move fast so I can get you to New York immediately.”

I had hesitated. I didn’t believe it and it made me sick to my stomach, but I had hesitated. I could leave any amount of expenses behind but that wasn’t the most valuable to my father. It was his name. He wouldn’t stop till he had it so he wouldn’t stop till he had me. The only way for me to flee was to leave myself behind. 

I could never look back. Alaya Saltzaman had to be dusted off forever. I could be anything in the world, that is a more vulnerable feeling than you know. It is heartbreaking to imagine. Almost impossible to do. And if I wanted to-

There’s a knock on the door. I rush to open it and see Adam standing there with my passport and haversack of essentials. 

“This is the last you’ll hear from me Alaya, your father mustn’t ever be suspicious of me. Good luck for your future little Alaya.”

“It’s not Alaya, Adam, it’s Princia, after my daddy’s loving name for me all those years ago.”