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“Of course I do—”
“Alex,please,” Henry says, and when he finally turns to look at him, he looks wretched, miserable. “Don’t. This is the entire goddamned reason. I can’t do this, and youknowwhy I can’t do this, sopleasedon’t make me say it.”
Alex swallows hard. “You’re not even gonna try to be happy?”
“For Christ’s sake,” Henry says, “I’ve been trying to be happy my entire idiot life. My birthright is acountry,not happiness.”
Alex yanks the soggy note out of his pocket,I wish there wasn’t a wall,and throws it at Henry viciously, watches him pick it up. “Then what isthatsupposed to mean, if you don’t want this?”
Henry stares down at his words from months ago. “Alex, Thisbe and Pyramus bothdieat the end.”
“Oh myGod,” Alex groans. “So, what, was this all never going to be anything real to you?”
And Henry snaps.
“You really are acompleteidiot if you believe that,” Henry hisses, the note balled in his fist. “When have Iever,since the first instant I touched you, pretended to be anything less than in love with you? Are you so fucking self-absorbed as to think this is about you and whether or not I love you, rather than the fact I’m an heir to the fucking throne? You at least have theoptionto not choose a public life eventually, but I will live and die in these palaces and in this family, so don’t you dare come to me and question if I love you when it’s the thing that could bloody well ruin everything.”
Alex doesn’t speak, doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe, his feet rooted to the spot. Henry isn’t looking at him, but staring at a point on the mantel somewhere, tugging at his own hair in exasperation.
“It was never supposed to be an issue,” he goes on, his voice hoarse. “I thought I could have some part of you, and just never say it, and you’d never have to know, and one day you’d get tired of me and leave, because I’m—” He stops short, and one shaking hand moves through the air in front of him in ahelpless sort of gesture at everything about himself. “I never thought I’d be stood here faced with a choice I can’t make, because I never… I never imagined you would love me back.”
“Well,” Alex says. “I do. And youcanchoose.”
“You know bloody well I can’t.”
“You cantry,” Alex tells him, feeling as if it should be the simplest fucking truth in the world. “What do youwant?”
“I want you—”
“Then fuckinghave me.”
“—but I don’t wantthis.”
Alex wants to grab Henry and shake him, wants to scream in his face, wants to smash every priceless antique in the room. “What does that evenmean?”
“I don’twantit!” Henry practically shouts. His eyes are flashing, wet and angry and afraid. “Don’t you bloody see? I’m notlikeyou. I can’t afford to bereckless.I don’t have a family who will support me. I don’t go about shoving who I am in everyone’s faces and dreaming about a career in fuckingpolitics,so I can bemorescrutinized and picked apart by the entire godforsaken world. I can love you and want you and still not want that life. I’m allowed, all right, and it doesn’t make me a liar; it makes me a man with some infinitesimal shred of self-preservation, unlikeyou,and you don’t get to come here and call me a coward for it.”
Alex takes a breath. “I never said you were a coward.”
“I.” Henry blinks. “Well. The point stands.”
“You thinkIwantyourlife? You think I wantMartha’s? Gilded fucking cage? Barely allowed tospeakin public, or have a goddamn opinion—”
“Then what are we even doing here? Why are we fighting, then, if the lives we have to lead are so incompatible?”
“Because you don’t want that either!” Alex insists. “You don’t want any of this bullshit. Youhateit.”
“Don’t tell me what I want,” Henry says. “You haven’t a clue how it feels.”
“Look, I might not be a fucking royal,” Alex says, crosses the horrible rug, moves into Henry’s space, “but I know what it’s like for your whole life to be determined by the family you were born into, okay? The lives we want—they’renot that different.Not in the ways that matter. You want to take what you were given and leave the world better than you found it. So do I. We can—we can figure out a way to do that together.”
Henry stares at him silently, and Alex can see the scales balancing in his head.
“I don’t think I can.”
Alex turns away from him, falling back on his heels like he’s been slapped. “Fine,” he finally says. “You know what? Fucking fine. I’ll leave.”
“Good.”
