Young Royals: Part 2

Chapter 1: Wilhelm

*thoughts in the car*

'Have a nice Christmas break? That's it? Well, I guessed I deserved that. Everything he said was right, especially about me expecting everyone to live on my terms. I had been calling the shots so hard in this relationship thus far.

I mean, seriously, did he want to keep this whole thing a secret from the beginning? Honestly, I hadn't even asked.

God! Who doesn't even ask?! It was just what I wanted, and I never gave him a chance to even voice his opinion on the matter. Hell, I don't even know if he was out.

Maybe when he half-jokingly asked to go to breakfast that time he slept over, we should have just done it. We could have walked in, holding hands, let the (true) rumors circulate, then come out to my family, and ciao. Done. It could have been sooo easyyyy. Sure, it would have sucked in the moment, but, hell, compared to this chaos, it would have been a piece of cake.

Instead, I have a fucking sex tape literally circulating the internet. A sex tape. Me! I haven't even had sex. And I have a sex tape. Shoot me.

And on top of that, Simon is barely talking to me. Which, as I said, I totally deserve. How did I ever think this was gonna work out?! What was I thinking being led into the interview?! Why did I follow the script?! I'm a fucking idiot.

What the hell am I gonna do? How the hell am I gonna fix this?! I'm 16 years old, for God's sake. I am so not old enough to deal with this.

Erik would have told me what to do. He would have known.

God, Erik.'

At the thought of Erik, Wilhelm's eyes teared up, his breathing became ragged, and his lips started to quiver. He looked up to see Malin looking at him through the rearview mirror. Keep it together, keep it together, he thought.

Fuck it. He couldn't. He put his head in his hands and began to sob. This year, he had left all his friends to move into a fucking boarding school, made exactly one friend, found out he was gay, had his brother die, made out with said one friend, got outed by his cousin who was supposed to be there for him through a sex tape no less, had to go in front of the nation and lie about said sex tape, and then had his friend tell him he had to work out his shit. And then he'd gone and hugged the bastard in front of everyone and told him he loved him.

God.

Could it literally get any worse?

Thankfully, his parents had taken this opportunity to go on some state business in Russia right before the holidays, so when he entered the house, he got to just crash in his room without having to answer the litany of small-talk questions that always came. Thank God for the small mercies.

He picked up his phone to text Simon but put it down. No. Now was not the time.

Instead, he got some Nutella and bread out of the fridge, made himself a quick sandwich, and, turning on his computer, opened Reddit. As he thumbed through banal posts from normal people doing normal things, he thought, What I would do to just be normal.

This was gonna be a shit break.