Since then he’d had a few run-ins with women but it was always difficult for him. Under the watchful eye of his parents as well as the rest of the kingdom, he was always unable to fully be himself. He wondered, for about the millionth time since finding out about his new bride, whether she would be anything like Annabelle. But he doubted it. The more he thought about it, the more he came to terms with the idea that she might be everything that he didn’t want in a wife. But then, he thought with a sudden feeling of anxiousness, I might be everything she hates too. He’d heard disaster stories from men who were so unhappy with their new wives and he didn’t want to be one of the statistics. Was it really so strange for him to want to meet a girl and fall in love? He cursed his parents.
The ne
