Absolute misery was all Alana felt, was all Alana breathed, was all Alana lived that next week, not able to get word out to Matt that she had been fettered to the wall like a rabid animal without her concent. She laid by her bay window, her sweet, carefree face not splitting through her new found rock-hard grimace, the shining sun seeping in sparatic bands of gold into her room and on her face the only relief that she didn't slip into the smirched cracks of Hell. Her whole body rotted heavily, rotted immobily. She felt as if the angel of Death was filching her enery, her will to go on with greedy, bony hands.

She decided to go to sleep; maybe a nap will renew her motivation to do her school work. Maybe taking some responsibility will assure her mother she was ready to date, ready to be herself, ready to be a teenager. She doubted that would happen this millenium, but she was willing to try anything. With one hand, she pulled down her white blinds weakly, her room casted in the darkness she felt like a bundle of fat sickly-grey cloud blocked the sun's rays. She crawled over the layers of her bed and snuggled into the pillows, dearly missing Matt who spent the whole night next to her a few weeks ago, his scent still lingering at her side like the spirit of a ghost as she drifted to slumber.......

Matt's car came to a hault in front of Alana's magestic 2-floor mashion, black iron gates blocking him from her with strenght and authority. Even though it only been a week or two since he last saw her, he was concerned, like her thoughts seeped through the lonely, stark air to his brain, her emotions bouncing off the walls of his heart like pin balls. He could almost hear her voice grazing his ears at night, calling to him, pleading for him. It had to be that strange connection, that unexplainable force. He jumped from his car and strolled nonchalantly to a gold speaker phone to the right of the gate. Unsure which of the white buttons to press, he pressed the largest and a monotone voice bellowed back at him, "Who is there?"

"I'm..." Matt studdered, surprised by the quick and stentorian responce. "I'm Matt. I'm a...friend of Alana's..."

"Wait there please," asked the brusque voice as their connection dropped like a hot potatoe. He saw a tall man hurry from the brown front double doors, dressed in a black tux and grey tie like he stumbled from the set of the movie Clue, brown hair combed over a small bald spot distributing around his head uncontrollably. He briskly walked to Matt, his chin lifted slightly toward the sky, each step executed the same as the last.

"I am Thomas," the man told Matt, the man's hands stiff at his sides like trunks of trees. "I am the butler to the Princey's. I only come out here for my concern of your dear Alana."

A siren of fear sounded off in his head and heart, mustering Matt's eyes to dialate with the endless possibilities of her troubles. "Is she all right..."

"Alana, she is fine physically, but not so emotionally," Thomas informed him, shaking his head slightly in disgust. "Her mother discovered about her sneaking off to see you at night. She is punished as has been for a week now. If I could, I would let her sneak out, but my job is at stake, you understand?"

"Sure," Matt replied earnestly, relieved nothing lethal happened to her, his breathe pushing the releif through his nostrals. "Wait for a second." Matt ran to his car and dug a blue pen and piece of paper from the mass of McDonald's bags and Poland Spring water bottles cluttering his car like it was a garbage disposal. He jutted down his number quickly and handed to Thomas, Thomas peering down at the paper uninterested.

"Please give that to her," Matt asked politely, his eyes those of a young puppy's, big and glazed, worry executed from his body through his tapping toes. "Ask her to call me whenever she can."

Thomas gazed into Matt's eyes; eyes he knew all too well. Matt's eyes swam around his sockets like the great blue ocean, eyes searching for truth and position in the world. So much could be read in someone's eyes because they were definately the windows to the soul. They were eyes of a young boy who had discovered the rare and precious gift of his first love and would do anything to be with it. Hopefully, it will work out for Matt better than it did for Thomas; Thomas never fully recovered from the dismissal his first love bestowed to him.

"Everything will work out, Matt," Thomas whispered to him, Thomas's skinny arm slipping through the bar and tapping his shoulder with understandment. "It always does when it comes to love......."

Alana's eyes fluttered open, sleep still sitting on them like stagnant boulders. It was indescribably black in her room, the only source of light creeping in was from the bottom of the door, the light only traveling with particles of dust a few feet across the floor before transmuting into darkness.

A few hard raps echoed to her ears from the closed door, the sound like the thumping of a hammer against her fleshy brain. "Alana?" she heard her mother call as bright light streamed onto her, her expression that of a deer in headlights.

"I have great news!" Marie cried, shuffling to Alana and sitting at the foot of her bed, a pleasent smile drawn on her face.

"What?" Alana asked groggerly, rubbing at her eyes with fatigued hands.

"Your father wants us to return home!" she announced, clutching her hands together in joy, "He misses us terribly and feels your should begin learning the training of the rules and edicut that a queen should..."

"Home?" Alana questioned with the voice of a squeaking mouse like her mother was speaking Spanish, grabbing at the sheets enfolded by her stomach. "But I am home."

"Oh," Marie sighed with content, grazing her daughter's arm with feign gentleness. "I'm glad you've adjusted so well. But we're going back to Liechtenstein in a few days, just like you have wanted."

"We can not!" Alana screamed, all her emotion pouring from her small eyes like tiny waterfalls, the galaxy constricting her tighter and tighter, breaking her, suffocating her, massacuring her in disbelief.

"Why?" Marie responded, her eyes compressing in suspision.

"Because...because..." Alana tried grappling for words, despairing hands reaching along the ripples of sheets toward her mother. "I am in love with Matt!"

Those words shook her mother violently like she was hit by a truck, Marie's brain faltering into a catastrophic meltdown. Her eyes burned in red fearless passion, her smile dropping into an angry grimace. "You don't know what love is! That boy will forget you as soon as you leave, the sooner, the better. I will not argue with you because I'm tired of it!"

"Mother!" Alana wailed as Marie stormed off in a fury, her ears mute to her daughter's desparate cries. The slamming of the doors banished Alana into a cold pit of despair as she crawled from the bed, her eyes wet and vision blurred with tears. She felt as if she was crumbling from the inside out, her heart dying and cracking to evil intentions, a plague of sadness sweeping through her body like a plague of locust, destroying everything she lives for. Anger propelled her hands toward the closet thing that could be destroyed, ravaged, her Precious Moments Display, hurling it to the ground with the unforseen strenght of Goliath, the fragile glass case disinegrating to tiny shards of sharp glass. Huffing like an elephant, her brain pumping relentless wrath throughout her body, her eyes scowered over the fallen glass and observed none of her dolls broke, not one piece of spring hat or shy face layed dismembered from its original position. They were indestructable, just like her. Alana could do anything, she didn't have to take this devastating news sitting down. She could control her life, not be an obedient doll hustled about wherever her owner pleased. Her discovery circulated through her bloodstream and darkened heart, renevewed energy and hope bursting onto her face. She had the perfect plan, a simple plan, a brilliant plan!

Noticing a piece of paper lying on her dresser, she cautiously carried herself over the spewed glass and hurled for the note. Scribbled on it was Matt's name and number. Fate! It had to be. She smiled hoyfully as she reached for her white phone. She dialed Matt's number with the addictive high rushing around her body, Matt picking up on the 3rd ring.

"Hello, Matt. This is Alana," Alana told him breathlessly. "Yes, I am OK. Well...I really am not, but I will be. Will you meet me at the lake? I must talk to you."