Young Royals: After Season 1

Chapter 1: Wilhelm

The car rolls up to the main entrance of Hillerska, and all I can hear is my heart pounding in my chest. I'm more nervous now than the first time I arrived here. At least last time I had Erik with me. Now, it's just me.

Deep breath. The car door opens, and I get out. There aren't many people around, but the headmistress is waiting.

"Welcome back, Crown Prince," the headmistress greets. "How was your break? Relaxing, I hope."

"Hello, Headmistress. Yes, break was good. Thank you for asking," I reply while shaking her hand.

"Well, I'll let you get settled in, but it is nice having you back. I will see you at the 'Welcome Back' dinner tonight."

Right. I forgot about the 'Welcome Back' dinner. With a forced smile and a nod, I leave the headmistress and continue into the main hall of the school, my bodyguards trailing behind me. I am hoping I can just make it to my room without running into anyone. It's exhausting always having to be "on" while in public, and I can only handle so much of it in one day. With the 'Welcome Back' dinner tonight, I need to save my energy for that.

"Wilhelm!" A shout comes from my left. My shoulders instantly tense, and I paste the smile back on my face before turning.

The smile on my face becomes genuine when I see it's Felice. "Felice!" I respond, going in for a hug. "How are you? Do anything fun over break?"

"Mostly just ignored my parents and facetimed with Stella and Sara. Did you know that Sara is moving onto campus? She got a scholarship to cover the costs," Felice mentions as we continue walking towards the dorms.

"What? I didn't know that," I say, shock evident in my voice.

"Yeah, I didn't know they offered scholarships for the dorms, but apparently they do." Felice pauses, glances at me from the corner of her eye, clearly wanting to say something. "Have you heard from Simon? You know, since everything happened?"

'Everything' meaning me lying about being the one in the infamous video, Simon not wanting to hide our relationship, and then me confessing my love to him right before break.

"Uh, no, no I haven't talked to Simon," I mumble. Over break, I thought about texting him at least a million times but never did, not knowing what to say. Simon made it pretty clear that I need to figure out what I want on my own, and I want to respect that. That's not to say I don't want to talk to him every second of every day though.

I glance over at Felice, but out of the corner of my eye, I see Simon entering the main hall, curly hair a bit wild from being outside. Our eyes meet immediately, as if he was looking for me when he walked through the doors. I know that's probably not the case, but my heart wants to believe, so I lift my hand in a wave with a slight smile on my face.

Simon's eyes instantly drop to the floor as he turns to walk in the opposite direction as me and Felice.

Well, fuck.