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“I have never,” I reply. The truth, embarrassing as it is, is so simple to say. People should try it more often. Just a few words: The truth.‘I have never.’“Not all the way.”
He sits down abruptly on the bed behind him, as it hits him that I want him to be the first.Myfirst.
“You… Why?” he whispers through pale lips. “Why, Olivia? Why me? You don’t even know me. Why me?”
The same thing he said when I asked him to give me a ride to Yale.
“Slim pickings,” I joke and he visibly flinches.
Ah, so now I get it. It is not simple, after all, to tell the truth. Nor is it easy. I thought I was so superior to all these liars in my life… Until now. Until this moment. Until the moment when the truth is not something I can possibly say.
How can I tell the truth? How can I say,‘I like you’? I am so not allowed to say that. To feel that. It’s not safe, it’s not smart, it’s not logical. It’s not anything.
No, I can’t possibly say the truth. So, instead, I lie through my teeth. And insult him, on top of everything. That ought to keep him well and truly off the scent of my real feelings.
“Do you know how hard it is to find a dude who is not completely intimidated by your crown,” I continue, “and also is not your cousin or your bodyguard? Very.”
He swallows hard.
“But Iamcompletely intimidated by you,” he says. Also, I am extremely flattered, but it’s not happening.”
“Do you not want…?”
He cuts off my words with his lips.
“I want.” His husky voice envelops me. The word is a hoarse whisper against my lips. “I want, my queen. More than you know”
“Oh, I know,” I murmur, opening my lips to explore his mouth. His body is trembling, pressed up to mine. I already know how much he wants the same thing I do.
“But I can’t,” he says in this destroyed, tortured voice, pulling me away from him. “I won’t. We…” He wipes his mouth. “We need to get out of here.Ineed to get out of here. That was incredibly stupid of me. Dammit.”
I don’t understand his reaction, or rather the intensity of his reaction. The self-repulsion in it. Or is it me he is repulsed by? Is it because I am supposed to be royal? Or because I am me?
That is the question, isn’t it? I don’t know if I’ll ever know the truth. When someone wants me or when someone rejects me, every single time, always and forever this question torments me:
Is it the royal thing?
Or is it me?
/we the rotten royals/
This is a message to Crown Princess Olivia:
It’s time to speak up about us, baby girl.
It’s time to pick sides.
Complicit or courageous?
Which are you going to be?
We’re waiting.
thirteen
I wake up wrapped in his arms.
Still alive. (Incredibly alive).
