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Simon’s phone dinged with a message.
Do you still want to go shopping?
The English alone revealed it was Madison. Simon stared at her question and remembered. All of a sudden, the weight in his shoulders didn’t seem like something he wanted to bear anymore.
Are you still at school?
No, but I can come to Bjästard for you if you like
It would be so easy to say no.
Instead, he got up and started to gather his clothes. It was still early afternoon. He hadn’t been to Stockholm in ages, and he was on the verge of falling off a metaphorical cliff. Madison was offering a lifeline, and damn him for thinking about not taking it. Damn Wilhelm, most of all.
Yeah please , he wrote back, and pocketed his phone once he put on his jeans. These were the ones he wore the day he told Wille he wouldn’t be his secret.
“That sounds so dramatic,” Rosh had scoffed when Simon told her all about it.
“Yeah, like a movie!” Ayub had been next to her on the living room couch. “I know it’s your dignity, bro, but that sounded straight out of a drama.”
And wasn’t his life precisely that? No more reporters had appeared, but the looks and glances in the streets hadn’t stopped. Whispers accompanied them, quick-paced and stab-like in their effectiveness: they might not kill you, but they definitely hurt.
Simon’s mom hadn’t insisted on pressing charges, not once since Simon had explained all the ramifications of that plan. Ayub and Rosh were working on the alternative, and Simon — well, a broken heart didn’t need much explanation. Wanting it to go away made no difference, because feeling was a part of life, but Simon didn’t want to feel because of Wilhelm. Not anymore.
Madison arrived an hour after her text. Felice was with her.
Simon knew, by experience, that Felice wasn’t what she portrayed her life to be. That didn’t make her a bad person, but a complicated one. Everyone was, really, but Felice didn’t deserve that burden. Nobody did.
“Hi, Simon,” she spoke now. “I never had the chance to tell you how sorry I am for everything that happened, so: I’m sorry.”
Simon wished that rich people were easier to hate.
“I did tell you I’m sorry,” Madison said as a greeting, “so instead I’m offering you a forgetting experience.”
The car they were in was nice — being at Hillerska made Simon used to this kind of unconscious display of wealth. But he had cultivated socialism inside him as more of a foundation of his character instead of a principle, so relaxing around luxury when he knew where it came from wasn’t an easy task. It had been, around Wilhelm, because even though he looked like a prince, he didn’t act like one — not in the ways that mattered. Posh gestures and lengthy words were nothing compared to a shy smile and genuine thoughts. An expensive watch wasn’t so flashy when the wrist it enveloped belonged to a boy so beautiful it was impossible not to look at him twice.
“Are you thinking about him?” Madison’s question made Simon look away from the scenery past the car window. “You are. Stop it right now.”
Instead of answering, Simon looked at Felice. “I also have to thank you for finding out who took the video.”
“It was the least I could do,” Felice stated. There was so much warmth in her eyes. So much worry. Then, they tinted with disgust. “He’s a piece of garbage.”
“We don’t talk about him,” insisted Madison. “This is supposed to be fun, you two. Pause the angst.”
Simon smiled at her, if slightly so. Felice obeyed and changed the topic, starting to talk about what stores they would visit, what items she was most interested in. Her sideway glances never stopped, and Simon knew better than to mope. He would have time for that, later, because his thoughts always veered in the same direction. A broken heart did that for you.
The thrill of visiting Stockholm was muted in Simon’s heart.
He wondered how long the numbness would last, if it would go away at all. A big city should have made him raise his head until he fell backwards, but a pang in the chest was all there was to it.
The palace was there. Inside its rooms, a prince who could be called a lot of things but never a coward.
It should have been simpler. Wille should have been a dick so Simon could just hate him. He should have had it all figured it out so his lie would have been nothing more than an excuse. Instead, he deserved time because he was alone and scared, and maybe Simon had made it worse by deciding to take care of himself. Unfairness existed with no reason, he knew, but couldn’t make it go away.
They had to talk. Simon was still angry at Sara for withholding information, for protecting August of all people, but he couldn’t let the anger win. Yes, there was a plan in the making, but it was for both Wille and Simon to participate in it. That was the right way.
“Still thinking about him?” chastised Madison once they were out of the car. “Well, if you’re not gonna stop, I hope that this can help a little.”
Felice took one of his arms, and Madison the other. Simon knew, upon looking at it, that this was a rich people mall. There was glass everywhere, and whiteness dominated it both in color and consumer profile. He and Felice seemed to be part of the few people of color there, but that only vindicated Simon, took his mind to the present: they existed, they were friends, they were here. Fuck the monarchy and fuck the rest of the elitist world.
“So, where do you want to start?” Madison asked. “You probably need a Christmas outfit.”
“I need boots,” offered Felice. “Wanna go there?”
She was pointing in front of them, so there they went.
The trip almost worked. Simon hadn’t done it many times, but it came easy to him: laughing through the pain in your chest, smiling in encouragement despite feeling like a total failure yourself. We’ve done nothing wrong , Simon had told Wille that day, and now he clung to it every time Madison shoved him into an expensive pair of jeans or an extra-comfy jersey. Simon both marveled at and recoiled from the reality that were opposing human emotions and feelings coexisting inside a single body, inside him . Broken hearts could paralyze you, make you a shell of yourself, and Simon wished that was his case instead of this. This, that wasn’t exactly pretending, because Madison was funny and Felice looked gorgeous in everything she tried on. But it was something , something that punched a bleeding hole right into the core of his being.
There was being stupid, and then there was being a douchebag.
And, honestly, someone who said I love you to the boy after lying about him to the entire nation could be nothing but a massive douchebag.
Scolding one self for foolishness wasn’t a strange affair, not for Wilhelm. All this experience had often reduced him to calling himself a coward, even if the rational part of him knew he deserved time to figure himself out. He had deserved it before all the chaos, and he still deserved it now. Wilhelm had done the wondering and the pondering in his head quietly, and reached a conclusion: whatever he was, whoever he was, it was okay . He didn’t think Mamma or Pappa believed it was wrong, either, but they didn’t care that much about morality — they cared about politics. They cared about the stability of the monarchy, and a queer Crown Prince didn’t fit in that picture. There were bloodlines to perpetuate and legacies to carry on. A girl would be needed sometime in the future, a girl Wilhelm didn’t know if he would ever be able to feel attracted to.
Mamma had said that it would pass, that he would fall in love again. You’re young , she had explained. First love is never true love . Wilhelm knew his parents had never been in love with one another, but it never bothered him. Erik hadn’t seemed like he cared about it, either. But it made Wilhelm know what a loveless marriage was, and he shuddered at the thought of it. Was true love even in the cards for him? A negative response to that question made Simon a miracle, an oasis, a one and only opportunity that he missed. For being a douchebag, no less. Simon was too bright to be anyone’s secret, and asking him to be would always be a crime. Fear had struck Wilhelm like lightning, blinding his eyes to that single fact. He would never forgive himself for that.
“There are so many questions you ask yourself,” Erik had said once, “when you fully realize you’re gonna be king one day.”
“Are they difficult to answer?” Wilhelm had asked.
“The most difficult.”
It had been a relief for Wilhelm to know he would never have to ask himself those questions — such a relief. He could live with having to maintain his family’s reputation, but legacy was Erik’s duty. Had been Erik’s duty. The contract he had signed at birth as the second son had hidden clauses that should have been illegal, but fairness seemed to not exist for the monarchy. Principles and values were only convenient if they served the purpose of upholding it. Erik had been fine with that, but Wilhelm loved Simon for a reason: their beliefs aligned in more ways than one, and this topic was no exception.
“Malin,” he said now, eyes lost, “do you think I would make a good king?”
She took some time to respond, gaze wandering keenly around the snow-covered gardens. “I think you will make a great king, sir.”
“Wilhelm,” the boy scolded her slightly. “Please call me Wilhelm, or Wille, if you want, in moments like this. I promise you, no one’s going to come for your job.”
Malin’s lips curled slightly upwards, but she said nothing else.
Her response didn’t sound generic — didn’t sound like the mandatory compliment someone would say to the monarch or another person of close rank. Wilhelm remembered the time he had spent with horse riding as a hobby: he was good at it, great even, but there was no passion to draw from. It was what every other kid his age did, so he did it, too. He supposed he could be a good king, if he really wanted to. If he answered the questions. If he dared to ask them in the first place.
“Dinner will be served soon, s— Wilhelm,” Malin reminded him.
The gardens were beautiful, a supposed reflection of what being a royal meant. Not a punishment, but a privilege . A privilege to have so many things, to be the model of a generation, to have their trust and their approval. A privilege to sacrifice your life and your desires in the name of all that.
Wilhelm got up from the bench he was occupying, hugging his coat closer to his body.
Privilege, he knew now, was unfair.
Christmases improved when Micke left. Sara thought that, Mamá thought that, and Simon had to agree with them. The absence of a barely-standing drunk man lifted the spirits.
Presents were a quiet affair since then, too, because there weren’t many — Micke was complicated, but not a bad person. Simon and Sara had asked him no to give them anything, and he had complied. Mamá still bought them stuff. They kept all the traditions. It had made Simon the happiest, seeing his family’s wounds slowly healing, feeling his own going along with it. He had never thought he would be hurt again, because why would he? He had been young and liked some boys in school, but they had been more useful to the purpose of figuring himself out than to anything else.
Wilhelm, though. Wille had come after a decent amount of time had passed, after Simon had gone through his journey and relaxed the barriers around his heart. Simon knew this was a first love, teenage love, but rational knowledge did nothing to tamper the sorrow. It would cloud Christmas and New Year and who knew how many ordinary days. It would dampen every flicker of light that somehow entered through the window of his life. Simon was aware of the fact that it would eventually go away, but he was in the now . And now, goddammit, there was no escape.
“We still have to be careful,” said Rosh from the chair next to Simon’s bed. “That asshole is capable of anything.”
“What else could he do, though?” Ayub argued. “He’s broke.”
“Yeah, but no one knows that.”
“We could just say it,” offered Simon.
“And live a short victory? There’s no time for mercy, boys.”
There had to be some logic to this plan, Simon knew. They had to think of every possible scenario, of all the potential outcomes. If August had been ruthless enough to leak the video, there was a huge chance that feeling fully cornered might make him explode. Chaos would truly unfold then. But Simon wanted to see him suffer now, some part of his mind screaming that consequences be damned. Heartbreak did that to you.
But heartbreak apparently didn’t mean automatic hatred of the person who had caused it, because Simon would never dare to hurt Wille in the path to revenge.
“It feels weird,” he said, frowning. His bed was unmade, just like him.
“What feels weird?” Ayub questioned.
“Wanting to hurt someone.”
“You do give too many chances, Simme,” Rosh scoffed. “Sara is right there.”
Simon had told them about the first fight, and about the one after, the one that had originated from Sara admitting to withholding the fact that it had been August who leaked the video. Even the emotions that emanated from that episode couldn’t be properly felt and processed. They would wear Simon out completely, and he had to be stronger than that. Christmas was so close.
“Now that you’ve managed to contact Alexander and get him to help us,” Rosh said, “we have to be extra careful.”
“He wants to get back at them,” Ayub shrugged.
“ Them includes Wilhelm, though,” muttered Simon.
“That’s where we come in.” Rosh lifted her eyebrows, smirking. “Loverboy will be safe and happy in his castle.”
“It’s a palace .”
“We still hate it.”
This year, because of the mourning period, there would be no Christmas reception.
It didn’t happen every single year, but rather when the PR people thought the royal family was losing relevance . Wilhelm had learned those words at eight years old, fully grasped their meaning at twelve, maybe thirteen. Awareness hadn’t come in gentle waves but in tides of them, careless about the fact that he never was that great at swimming. His mother had unconsciously taught him to be polite in a way that made clear you were royalty, but Erik brushed that off himself, so Wilhelm did as well. If you wanted relevance, he thought, it better be for the right reasons.
Before the fight at that stupid party, everyone delighted in the quiet but charming prince Wilhelm. Erik had always had the spotlight, but Wilhelm made a good second son, veiled smile and tilted head in place. The art of conversation he mastered better, so he used that to his favor: not to establish his presence, as Erik did, but to put the others at ease. A genuinely-interested sounding question, an appreciative comment. It wasn’t exactly easy, but it didn’t kill him, either. He liked people, so he could bear the triviality.
Now, two scandals in tow, the mourning period seemed like the perfect justification to not make things worse. He would have to lay low for a while, and Wilhelm was more than fine with that. It would give him time to mourn.
See, the thing is, the only reason Christmas had any appeal after reaching ten was Erik.
“I already got you something,” he would always say on the first day of December, “so you better hurry and ask mom for my present.”
Traditions were stiff and mandatory, but not this one. This one was theirs, it was fun and exciting and magical, and it made Wilhelm live through endless receptions and dinners. This one was a race, but they always tied together.
This year, though, his father would give a book that Wilhelm would read in the next month, one of the few things his father did know about him. His mother would give him money, arguing independence and common sense. Wilhelm would contain the laugh he would want to let out in her face.
A lost brother got your heart broken, and a break-up on top of it made it look like it would never heal. Wilhelm had got no time to mourn his brother, no time at all, and it was weird, because he had felt guilty about it, yes, but he had also occupied that time getting the boy of his dreams back.
Now he had no brother and no boyfriend, and it was so ridiculous it made him sink further in his bed.
“Erik,” he said out loud, to the patterned ceiling and the old walls. “Erik, I’m sorry.”
There was gray in life, he realized now. So much gray. Not because of dullness, but because of behavior, of situations . He should have been mourning his brother, but he had brought a boy to his bed instead. He should be missing his brother (and he was ), but the absence of Simon felt like a limb gone missing. Questionable thoughts often led to questionable actions, and here Wilhelm was, responsible for both.
“I feel—” he whispered now. “I feel like falling.”
He had already fallen. Into a hole of chaos, yes, but Simon had been there first, and so instead it felt like he had fallen onto a field illuminated by the brightest sunny day. Erik gone was silent sorrow, but Simon out of his life felt like a healing wound torn back open.
“Guilty,” Wilhelm accepted.
His room in the palace was a whole apartment. It never meant freedom, but there was a time where it meant independence. Erik’s deal with their mother had granted Wilhelm space to roam and discover, but not permission to make the mistakes that would be inevitable in the process. It had been educational, to say the least, the fact that he had been allowed a room this big and friends as ordinary as the best public school in Stockholm could offer. Wilhelm remembered thinking he would have a half-normal life, a life that belonged mostly to himself.
Falling in love, at the time, had seemed like an adventure.
Simon had come to mean that someone was finally listening to him, actually interested in his words. He had become a shelter from the storm that was Wilhelm’s life, from the thunder in his chest and head and ears. Simon’s brash statements and bright grin made Wilhelm believe better things would come, that he deserved them. Simon’s mere existence signified hope and dreams and wishfulness, a world where the people to trust wouldn’t be limited to August and his so-called brothers of the society.
The people to trust should have never been trusted, and the person to love would have never been hurt.
“I love you.” It was the second time he said it out loud, and Wilhelm felt Simon’s arms around him outside the church again. “Simon, I love you.”
It felt like a promise then, emboldened by the knowledge of betrayal, and Wilhelm clung to it. His bed started to feel less like quicksand, his room less like a golden cage. If it had meant independence once, Wilhelm better recover its purpose.
He just had to find out how.
The answer wouldn’t come for some time, but hope crashed down on him, and Wilhelm welcomed the ache in his chest.
merry christmas again
No present in the morning had felt like this, and it never would.
Merry Christmas, Simon
Breakfast was a quiet affair, his parents more relaxed than usual. Wilhelm had listened to a story about Erik as a baby, and cried on Pappa's shoulder. Mamma had baked the cookies she hadn’t baked since Wilhelm was five, and they ate them in silence. Moping had been the itinerary of the day, with a brief prologue of skimming through his new book and storing his money in his nightstand. But this, this — this would keep Wilhelm on his feet all week.
A thumb in his mouth and the other hovering above the call button, he felt hope filling the cracks in his bones.
“Hello?” Simon’s voice was sweet despite the weariness. “Wille?”
“ Hi. ”
Hope swept the heaviness in his heart away.
“Hey,” Simon whispered through the speaker. “How are you?”
“I’m good,” answered Wilhelm, thumb down and lips up. “How are you?”
“I’m good.”
Conversation flowed so smoothly after that. How was Simon’s mom, and Rosh, and Ayub? What presents had they gotten for Christmas this year and the previous ones? Was it really festive in Bjästard, or did people mind their own business?
“It’s been quiet this year, I don’t know why,” Simon said.
“Yeah, here, too.”
A quiet Christmas because of scandal and tragedy, but they didn’t say that. They shared a humming silence, and then: “Sara told me.”
Wilhelm frowned. “Sara told you what?”
“That it was August. Wille, why didn’t you tell me?”
The ache of hope was so addicting, and now it was being taken away. “I—”
“How long have you known?”
“Since right before the break.”
“And why didn’t you tell me? ”
Because it’s pointless , he wanted to say. Because I can’t do anything about it anyways. Not right now.
“I’m sorry,” he said instead.
More silence. And then some more. Wilhelm was about to hang up and cry himself to sleep when Simon blurted: “We have a plan.”
“A plan?”
“Why didn’t you tell me, Wille?”
“My mom,” he finally admitted. “She knew before me, and said nothing.” A deep breath. “It’s because we can’t take any action against August without revealing it was me in the video, because she knew I would want to anyway and she was desperate for me to deny it.”
“Well, fuck her,” Simon scoffed. “Really. I don’t give a fuck if she’s the queen. We’re minors .”
Wilhelm closed his eyes, tightened his hold on his pillow. “I know.”
“You don’t have to come out if you don’t want to, Wille.” Simon’s voice was so soothing, and so sad. “You really don’t. But I can’t just sit here and do nothing when that asshole is living his life as if he didn’t ruin ours.”
The tangled mess that was Wilhelm’s identity screamed at him. It wanted Simon despite the uncertainty. It longed for freedom and independence.
“And if I wanted to?” Wilhelm asked. “To come out, that is.”
“Wille—”
“I don’t know if I’m ready.” Wilhelm’s voice was shaking. “I don’t want to answer to anyone. I shouldn’t. But I know I can’t live like this forever.”
“Wille, in this system, you will always have to answer to someone,” Simon declared. It sounded like a mix of reticence and resignation. “Heteronormativity won’t disappear for a long time. It’s unfair as fuck, you know? Fuck, it’s one of the most unfair things in the world. But we either live in denial about it, pretending it doesn’t exist, or we face it and make it our own. I’m not trying to pressure you, I’m really not, but if you’re contemplating it already, then you better know that there’s no right time, that there’s no way people won’t have an opinion about it and judge you because of it.”
Make it my own , Wilhelm thought. “I’m so scared.”
“ Wille ,” Simon cried. “Wille, you’re one of the bravest people I know.”
“I don’t know if that’s true.”
“It is . All this shit should have killed you at this point, but you’re still here. A mistake doesn’t change that.”
“Mamma will never let me do it.”
“Look.” A sigh. “Look, this is yours and no one else’s. Really. That’s why I can’t just scream at you and demand you do it. Coming out belongs to the person who does it. If you’re still scared, I can only wait. ”
A second crash of hope made the ache blissful in Wilhelm’s entire being. Simon would wait.
“You said you had a plan?” he remembered. “A plan for what?”
“Oh.” Simon sounded careful. “Well, like I said, I can’t just do nothing. August has to pay.”
“I’m in.” Wilhelm started to chew on his thumb again. “Can I be in?”
“I guess? Rosh hates you, though.”
“She has every reason to,” Wilhelm accepted. “What you said— you’re right. And I can’t leave you alone with this, I really can’t. Mamma has never been there for me, not really. Erik is gone. I can’t lose you, too.”
Simon’s breath hitched, barely audible through the speaker. “You don’t have to do it for me. You can’t.”
“And I won’t. You’re right there as well: it has to be for me, and I— I don’t want this life. I never have.”
“And it’s that easy? Can you, what, abdicate at sixteen?”
Abdicate , Wilhelm thought. What would Erik think?
“I don’t know.” His eyes were closed again, and he imagined that Simon was right in front of him like that day in his bed at Hillerska. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try.”