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“Go back home,” I say. “I did what I came here to do. The longer we stay, the more dangerous it is. Reporters could discover us any minute now.”
Hector nods, tight-lipped. He’s been talking on his intercom almost nonstop.
“Will you call him?” he asks and I hesitate.
Will I?
Not right now, he won’t be able to listen. But he will wake up soon, won’t he? He will. He has to. But I won’t call him even then.
I let his mom know how things are with me, and that it’s up to him now. I let her know that I have feelings for him, not in so many words, but by crying so much. I told her so many times that I can’t wait for him to wake up. But I won’t go to him, or call him, I won’t contact him directly.
He’s died enough times for me already.
I won’t drag him back into this mess. If he wants it to be over, it is over.
“You are an amazing bodyguard,” I say to Hector. But… I think I need a brother.”
He looks down at me, holds my gaze with his amber eyes. “I think you do too,” he says slowly.
“So, you’d be ok with that?”
He nods, smiling. I’d never noticed before how huge his smile is. He’s smiling with his teeth showing, as if he’s a little child. Maybe it wasn’t as full before.
“I would,” he says. “I’ll finish this term in the guard and then I’ll go… be whoever it is I’m supposed to be.”
“A king’s son is who you are,” I tell him. “I don’t know who you are supposed to be.”
He nudges me. “And a future queen’s brother.”
I shiver. “Don’t even joke about that. I can’t… I can’t think about it right now.”
He throws his head back and chuckles. “I know,” he said, “just wanted you to experience the horror of hearing yourself referred to as something that absolutely terrifies you. Like you did to me.”
Ah. I called him ‘the king’s son’ and it was too soon. I smile back. He’ll have to get used to it eventually. It suits him; I’m already half-used to it, to be honest. My brother, the prince. Yep, I’m used to it.
“Do you really have no idea what you want to do?” I ask him, looking out of the plane’s window. The clouds are wafting by, their bellies painted golden by the sun.
“Medicine,” he blurts out, and immediately his eyes go wide as if he wasn’t expecting the word to come out of his lips.
“Pardon?”
“I don’t… I don’t know where that came from.” He chuckles, his cheeks growing pink. “I’ve wanted to be a doctor for a long time, but it’s not possible. I’m too old, for one thing…”
“Hey, look at me.” He does. “You,” I tell him, and I’m dead serious, “are the son of a king. You can be anything you like.”
He nods slowly, biting his lip. It’s going to be a problem, isn’t it, having a brother who is that gorgeous? The nightmare of having girls chase him, and trying to get to him through me… I hadn’t thought of that. Is it too late to take back the whole ‘brother-sister’ thing?
“It’s too much,” he says, thinking. “I can’t even consider it. I have pushed it to the back of my mind, you know? With all the other impossibilities.”
“Well, push it forward,” I tell him. “Promise me you’ll think about it.”
“I will if you’ll promise to think about calling Marco when he… Later.”
The lump in my throat is so big, it’s stopping my breath. “He’ll wake up, right?”
“I don’t know,” he murmurs.
I’m so glad you’re here, I think at him.I hope you’ll be here from now on.But out loud, I just say: “Will he wake up?” again.
