make it easy | young royals ✓

nineteen

Wilhelm

My head is heavy, my movements are laced with fatigue, but as Simon strums gently on his guitar, the world slows to a pleasant pause. We're sitting in bed, my back against the wall, and him cross-legged at the edge with the guitar in hand. His voice is melodic and medicine for my head, and my heart yearns for him, his kind soul, his reassuring spirit.

I break into quiet applause as he concludes the song with a soft smile, and he glances over at me, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment and happiness.

"You're unreal," I tell him.

Simons scrunches his nose at my compliment, and rests his guitar on the foot of the bed. "Just another normal day serenading the prince, I guess."

Closing my eyes, nausea returns to my senses. I brush a hand over my face, and take a few shallow breaths before he notices my deteriorating state.

"Hey, what's up? Are you okay?"

I open my eyes, and his face is etched with concern. I muster the last of my strength and choke out: "can you just get me a glass of water?"

Riding the high and coming down is a rollercoaster of fleeting pleasure and lasting pain. Last night's gathering with the club was deliriously freeing, and left me in the clouds liberated from my worries. For the first time in a long while, my problems and responsibilities dissolved, I felt the same high I do when I'm with Simon. The night faded into nothingness towards the second half, and I had no memory of waking up in my own bed, sweat-drenched and severely dehydrated. When Simon knocked on my door at late noon, I let him in, and it was the worst and best possible timing in the existence of the universe.

After I down the glass of cool liquid against my paper-dry mouth, I start to calm down. I hate the way he's staring at me like he knows what I've been up to. He can't possibly guess, how can he assume this as anything more than a bad case of flu?

"Where were you last night?"

"Studying," I say between breaths.

"With who?"

"Alone."

"You weren't in your room." Simon tips his head at me, almost accusatively. "Oh, and I checked. So, don't lie to me."

I throw my hands out to declare my innocence. "Fine, I was hanging out with some friends."

"Who?"

"Why do you need to know this?" Frustration takes over, and I close my eyes. "Like, why is it such a big deal?"

"You were with August, weren't you?"

"And if I was?"

Simon turns away. "I can't believe you."

"What?"

"After everything? He ruined our lives, Wille! How can you forgive him so easily?"

Groaning, I run a hand through my hair. "It's not like that. It's the society, it's like-"

"Did you forget how you got a poor guy expelled last year for what you guys were doing?" Simon's seething, his eyebrows twisted together in a deep frown. "How can you do this now? What if they push you under the bus and your mom-"

"They won't," I cut him off. "Because I have something on August."

Simon cocks his head to one side. "Like what?"

"Something enough to get him kicked out of the school."

"No way." Simon pauses for a second. "You won't do it."