𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐨𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐚𝐧, young royals

Chapter 3: Wilhelm

We Have it All,  Pim Stones

3: Wilhelm

"I want to see him."

Malin half-smiled. "I apologize, Crown prince. Your mother ordered that you stay put at the palace until further notice."

I was appalled. I was fuming. "What is this? house arrest?"

"If you will, Crown prince."

I scoffed, dismayed. Unbelievable!

Unbiddenly, my feet flew me to Erik's room, where I slammed the door behind me and threw myself on the bed.

For the rest of the afternoon, I cowered in my brother's bedroom, watching through the window as day crashed into evening, and the sky turned to iced tea, wrapping the world in an ocher cast. I rolled in Erik's bed, and I pretended the sheets still held his scent.

I thought about the jubilee and replayed that ephemeral moment before the chaos. Oh, how I wished those few minutes could have stretched into eternity. Now all I wanted was to hear him utter those three words again and again, like the world caught fire and held its dying breath. I wanted to have him whisper them to me until my ears bled, yes. Love, love, what a curse and a blessing.

It was once, I reckon, all I ever wished for. I've always been something of a romantic, I guess you could say. Younger, I yearned so urgently and fatally to fall in love, though it never seemed to come easy to me, like a foreign language of some sort. Nothing at all, in fact, seemed to ever come as second nature to me.  Why should love be any different?

Falling in love with Simon was effortless, though loving him was strenuous labour. Loving him was arcane and, in a sense, forbidden territory to me. We were something of a Romeo and Juliet sort of tragedy.  A clandestine tale, I think, nothing painless or trouble-free.  And I didn't want tragedy.  I didn't want the sort of subaqueous approach at love, the tempests of a merciless sea.  Like deep, deep blue waters rising to our collarbones and loitering around our heads, a clean cut between sedate air and the frolics of the undertow.

Still, I knew very well, I'd keep drowning for him, knowing we deserved better, dreaming of something like a still, moon-lit lagoon, far from action, where the storms can't get to us.

✧ ✧ ✧

It was roughly 8pm when a knock sounded at the door. With weighty limbs and cracking joints, I dragged myself out of my compact torpor and took on a sluggish trek to the door. I was unsurprised to find my mother and father on the other side of it.

"Hey," greeted my father, soft-spoken, as if my eardrums might split if he spoke too sonorously.

"Hi," I responded.

I stepped aside, and he walked in, gnawing on his lower lip, visibly troubled to be standing in his deceased son's bedroom. My mother strolled in shortly after, outsideish, like she wasn't entirely present.  She averted my gaze.

"We've contacted Simon and his family," announced my mother, straight to the point.  She began pacing around, placid, looking out the window absentmindedly.

I was taken aback by the suddenness of the events.  I had expected they would want to speak to Simon of further action, but I hadn't thought it'd be so soon.

"Okay," I responded.

"Malin will bring him in tomorrow at 10am," said my father, hands clasping behind his back.

In my chest, my heart lept and pirouetted, delighted that I'd be seeing him again soon, though I wished it'd been under more intimate, favorable circumstances.  For now, I just needed to see that he was okay.

"Okay," I repeated.

My mother halted by the window, staring out into the dusking sky.  At last, she turned to look at me, eyes impassive, and sighed.

"This is a very serious meeting, Wilhelm.  I'll be needing you both to assume responsibility for the future and be cooperative."

"We will," I replied.

She nodded.  "That's all, then."

With that, she was out the room, leaving my father and I standing there in silence.  He glanced at me, smiled, solacing, and opened his mouth.  For a moment, no sound came through his lips, as if the words were caught in webs in his throat, as if he'd forgotten how to speak to his live and breathing son.  He was, after all, always closer to my brother; I was alien to him, like galaxies were erected between us.  I was too much of my mother, too little of him.

"She's shaken," he spoke, "she'll come around.  Give her time."

I nodded wordlessly, nibbling on the inside of my cheek, untrusting of my voice to not betray me.

"Good night," said my father, flashing a soothing smile.  As his white knuckles stretched around the doorknob, he glanced around the room, swallowing, and looked my way again.  "Don't spend the night in here, Wilhelm."

I smiled crookedly, feigned, and nodded once again.

"Good night, Dad."