𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐨𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐚𝐧, young royals

Chapter 25: Stella

Latch,  Disclosure

25: Stella

Our dorm was silent.

It was always silent at night, of course, but these days more than ever. It was the encumbering sort of silence, the suffocating, crystallizing one, and I bore it like stones on my shoulders even when the sun came up again.

She'd spent a few nights in Felice and Maddie's dorm, claiming she had a science project to finish up with Maddie, but I knew she was just avoiding me.  And now that she could no longer avoid my presence without raising inquiries among our friend group, she was back to sleeping in our dorm, but somehow, that was even worse.

It was worse because she could scarcely hold eye contact with me for more than 5 seconds, and even small-talks couldn't soothe the awkwardness between us.

And that stung.  Really bad.

At night, I found myself regretting everything, crying silently in my pillow.  Damn me for hoping, I thought angrily, because hope was a far too dangerous for someone like me to toy with.  And damn the prince for making me have hope, even for just a nanosecond.

Baroque pearls are irregular, misshapen gems found inside of oysters, and that's what makes them so special and rare—they're not shiny or particularly pretty or smooth.  These gems gave their name to a revolutionary era of architecture and art because of their distinctiveness; they marked history, in a sense.

But in the end, the Renaissance would always shine brighter than the Baroque in history books, and in this world of ours, no one wants a lumpy, distorted pearl.  You see, my parents, my family, my friends, and Frederika, they would've wanted a pretty and shiny gem.

And I was broken.

Traditions are what they are.  No one wants you to be unique and different here.  No one wants you to inch out of the line. They want you to blend into the masses.

"Fred?" I'd murmured into the pitch black of our dorm one night.

She hadn't responded, but I'd heard her shuffling in her bed.

"It was me who wrote that poem last Valentine's day."

✧ ✧ ✧

"Guys, guess who just fucking showed up!" slurred Felice, dropping down on the couch.

Sweat beamed on her forehead, mascara running slightly around her eyes, and her cheeks were flushed.  Fumbling, she fished a pocket mirror out of her Versace purse and fixed herself up.

"Who?" I wondered, staring down at my rhum and Coke and lazily tipping the cup to watch it slush around in a small tornado.

"Sara!" shouted Felice over the sound of blasting music.

You lift my heart up
when the rest of me is down

"No," replied Frederika, shaking her head, "what's she doing here?!"

"Don't know, don't care," said Felice.  "Simon must've dragged her here, or something."

"So are you gonna talk to her?" asked Frederika, leaning over the table to fill up her cup with punch.

You, you enchant me
even when you're not around

It was the third time she filled up her drink in the last hour.  I don't know why I'd counted them.

"Fuck, no!" she hissed instantly.  "This is Wilhelm's birthday party; I'm having fun tonight!"

Felice liked to pretend she didn't care; it made her seem stronger.  But I knew pushing Sara away hurt her more than she cared to admit.  There was more to their fighting, I could tell, and I didn't know what it was or why Felice hadn't mentioned it to us, but I knew she wanted to talk to Sara again, at least maybe to understand why she did what she'd done.