Runaway

Prologue|Wilberforce|Boys On The Bench

1785. Five years after I missed my chance.

In memory of William Pitt, the man who held the nation in his hands but never saw the love of one who stood beside him.

That's what the stone says.
That's what I wrote.

And still, somehow, I don't think it's enough.

I'm sitting in the gallery at Commons. The same crooked bench where, in 1780, we first learned how to fall in love without saying it out loud. Where our thighs brushed under robes too heavy for boys pretending to be men. Where Pitt leaned too far over the railing and whispered, "Look at Fox trying to form a sentence—should we tell him nouns are required?"

And I laughed. Too loud. Too fast. Because even then, my heart beat a little too quickly when it came to him.

It's quiet now. No debates. No Pitt to dazzle the room with sharp wit and sharper cheekbones. Just me, hunched over a book I wasn't meant to find.

His diary.

Tucked in the back of a drawer in his old desk. I don't even know why I opened it—maybe I thought I'd find tax reforms or bad poetry. But instead, I found myself.

March 2nd, 1780
Wilberforce laughed again today. I nearly kissed him. God help me. I think I'm in love with my best friend.

I reread it. Again. And again. Until the words don't look real anymore. Until I'm a pool of something formless on the gallery bench, tears falling fast enough to soak through Pitt's own ink.

He loved me. He wanted me. And I—God—I never let him.

Because I was scared. Because I was righteous. Because he was drunk and I told myself it wasn't real, that it didn't count. Because loving him out loud felt like blasphemy and I thought, stupidly, that silence was safer than sin.

July 10th, 1781
He refused me again. Told me to "sleep it off." I should hate him for it, but I don't. I just wish I was braver. I wish he was.

I thought he hated me, after that. He acted like he did. Shorter with his words, tighter with his smiles. Then Addington came around more often. Always hovering. Always gentle. And Pitt—Pitt let him. Pitt let himself be loved by someone else. And I stood there, watching, my hands too empty to hold anything anymore.

And now I read this:

May 4th, 1782
Addington is kind, but I don't love him. I think I'm using him to make Wilberforce jealous. And it's working. He flinches every time I say "dearest." Perhaps this will embolden him. Perhaps he'll finally say what I can't bring myself to ask.

God.

I thought he moved on. I thought he chose someone else. But it was always—me. And I never said a word.

Well—I did. In the end. On the floor of Parliament, as he died in my arms, whispering about chocolate and James bloody Gillray. I told him I loved him. I kissed him like I should have five years ago. But by then, my mouth was full of paprika and panic, and he died anyway.

He died thinking I'd poisoned him with lunch and regret.

Now I sit in the Commons gallery where it started, reading his diary like it's scripture, trying to piece together the life we should have had.

What if I had said yes?
What if I had let him kiss me sober?
What if I had reached for his hand in 1780 instead of just brushing it with mine?

He was the man who held the nation in his hands.
And I—I was the fool who let go.

If I close my eyes, I can still see us here. Boys on the bench. Politics on the floor. And love, unspoken, between every heartbeat.

I'm sorry, William.
You weren't alone.
You never were.

You just didn't know it.