Young Royals: What...now?

The morning after, Part 1

Simon

The rest of the evening was an absolute haze. Nobody really paid much attention to Wilhelm (the hoodie and glasses worked as a good decoy, apparently). However, people flocked to Simon like fireflies to a light. Everybody was giving him high fives, hugging him (hugging him?!), congratulating him. One guy even came up to him speaking in Spanish! He could barely pay attention to the other contestants. 

I guess Santana was a good choice after all, he thought, in amazement.

Finally, it was time for the judging. The club sent everyone who had bought tickets a text message to vote for their favorite contestant.

The MC started up. "In 3rd place, with 194 votes, we have...Mari-slay-nator!"

The crowd went wild. Her friends started cheering, "SLAY-NA-TOR! SLAY-NA-TOR!"

"In 2nd place, with 243 votes, we have Carlos Not-Santana!"

Simon could barely feel his legs. He got 2nd place?! What?! He didn't even think he had a chance of placing, not in his first competition! Wilhelm grabbed his face and yelled, "You're the runner-up, Simme! The runner-up! Holy shit!"

Linda gave him a huge hug, "Simón! Oh my god!" Her eyes radiated with pride, and a tear was threatening to roll down her cheek before she quickly batted it back. 

Rosh held his hands jumping up and down with him until Ayub grabbed him and put him on his shoulders, while everyone around him gave him high-fives.

You would have thought he'd won the thing, given all their reactions. They were all so excited for him, for him, that they were bouncing up and down acting like maniacs. They didn't even hear who was announced the winner with all of the fanfare his group put on him.

I am so lucky, Simon thought to himself, looking around at all his crazy family and friends. Sure, he hadn't had the most fabulous childhood. Yeah, his dad was a junkie. But, how many people could say that they had 6 people who would spend a Friday night at an air guitar competition, just to support them?

As he basked in the wave of love around him, his eyes fell on Wilhelm. 

Wilhelm.

Wilhelm was right there with the rest of them, jumping and cheering. And it just felt right. Of course he should be there. 

Because he's...

What? 

What was he?

His boyfriend? No. 

His friend? Maybe?? In some universe, maybe???

A classmate? No, more than that.

His labmate? Yes? 

Simon couldn't really the answer the question. 

--

The next day, Simon had planned to sleep in and revel in the (sort-of) win from the night before. He turned off his alarm, closed his blinds all the way so no light would wake him up, turned on the sound machine app to drown out any noise from his mom and sister. 

When Simon awoke the next morning, he looked at the clock. 7:32am.

Fuck, Simon thought. NOT what I was going for. 

Simon rolled over, trying to force himself to sleep. But when he started replaying all the events from the previous night in his head, he realized that that was a pipe-dream. No way was he going back to sleep.

His thoughts went to the performance. How he almost tripped on the floorboard backstage before going on, how he looked out and saw hundreds of faces, how he felt a sense of calmness flow through him as the music started, how Wilhelm's lips felt on his when he came off the stage, how his heart surged when Wilhelm had said he loved him and how he had said "I love you" back.

Simon shook his head, trying to erase those final memories. 

What had he done?! Simon groaned and put his pillow over his head. He had made one rule with himself. He was supposed to play his cards close to the vest. 

Saying "I love you" was the absolute antithesis of close to the vest. 

"Ughhh," groaned Simon. What had he been thinking? He just got too wrapped up in the moment. Simon was amped up, Wilhelm was there, Wilhelm kissed him, and Simon...just couldn't help himself.

"Damn adrenaline," Simon muttered to himself as he flopped over to grab his cellphone off his nightstand.

When he opened the lock screen, a notification popped up.

3 messages from ~Felice~. 

(She had put her number in his phone months ago with Sara. Girls and their name stylizations...)

~Felice~: Hey! Congrats on last night! You were amazing! 

~Felice~: If you want to talk about, you know, the other thing that happened last night, you know you can trust me. 

~Felice~: But, like, no pressure or anything. I just know what it's like. 

 Simon read each message a few times. The realization dawned on Simon. She must have seen the kiss. 

Of course she had seen it. She probably saw the guards when he went in and just wanted to make sure everything was okay. I mean, the walk from his group where she had gone to join Sara to the backstage door was less the 10 steps away. It wouldn't have taken her more than 30 seconds, even in a club full of people.

Simon grabbed his blanket and put it over his head. Kill me, he thought. He was never going to live this down. Because, if Felice knew, then Sara knew. And if Sara knew, then Mom knew. 

Play your hand close to the vest, he screamed at himself, inwardly.

 Simon decided, to hell with it, and picked up the phone. If she was offering, then who was she to complain about a 7:45am phone call.

"Hello?" Felice answered groggily on the third ring.

"Hey, Felice. You said I could call?" replied Simon.

"Um...yeah. Yeah, you can call. But, you know, it's like dawn now."

"Yeah, I know."

"Uh, yeah. So, why don't we meet in town for coffee at, maybe 9am? Does that work? Maybe at Drop Coffee by the pizza place?" said Felice, obviously still not fully awake.

"Sure, that's fine. See you then."

"Ok, see you then. Bye," she said as she hung up the phone.

"Bye..." Simon said, in the end just to space.

What did I just do? Simon thought. Now he was going to actually have to talk to her about it. He thought about how at night, things don't feel real. It just feels like a dream world where nothing real counts. Once you bring it to the light of day, all that stuff that happened in that nighttime dream world? It started to have repercussions, for real.