Another way (Young Royals)

The surprise party

I had never spent my birthday in a better way, I was pretty sure. It was raining outside and we were sitting on the sofa in Simon's house, close together watching movies and eating chocolates and grapes. I held his hand. I did remember the night when I first held his hand. It was at the movie night at school. I hated horror movies, and only went because of him. I still remembered the rush of adrenaline from the movie and how it just exploded when I put my hand on his thigh and he took it. It had caused me to panic and leave the room. Now our intertwined hands felt like the most natural thing ever. I just wanted to be close to him, always. The truth was that I felt anxious whenever he was not around. I had felt so anxious about my mother trying to get me back. I did not want to go back. I was at home here. Simon loved me for the person I was. My mother loved me, but that love came with conditions. Conditions like "live your life as you are supposed to and do not step out of the little box we have created for you" and "behave as a prince". And I was not like them. I did not fit into the box they wanted me to be in. And I did not want to. I just wanted to be the person I was. And the best version of myself was when I was with the boy sitting half in my lap, half on the sofa. He leaned his head against my shoulder. I looked over at him and wondered how I had ended up there, with the prettiest human being in my arms. I was so happy with him and I could not imagine a world where it was not us. Where we were not meant to be. I loved him. His thoughtful little birthday celebrations for me, just because I had never got to celebrate my birthday for real. Not in seventeen years. So he knew how much it meant to me. I felt a little bit tired and to be honest I wanted him to myself for a while. I asked him if he wanted to go into his bedroom. He got a grin on his face. He had no doubt plans he had not told me about.

"We are actually going somewhere and I am going to ask you to put on this blindfold," Simon said and pulled out some kind of fabric out of his pocket on his purple hoodie.

"Then I am going to change, because I am not going somewhere in sweatpants," I replied. That made Simon giggle and teasingly call me princey. I wrestled him on the couch and kissed his lips. I felt Sara and Linda's eyes on us. They just smiled and looked at each other.

"Have a nice night and be responsible, okay?" Linda told us. "Both of you." I think the latter was directed more at me. Simon was proper and did not do things he should not. But I had at least a history of being a party prince.

"Yes mom, I promise we will," Simon said and kissed her cheek. I went into his bedroom and changed into nicer jeans and a button up shirt. I heard Simon come inside and felt him hug me from behind.

"Happy birthday, sweetheart," he said. He kissed my neck and I felt thrills through my spine. I just wanted to turn around and kiss him back. But I knew we were going somewhere and that we had to go pretty soon. Simon blindfolded me and guided me outside and helped me into my shoes and a jacket. He then put on his own shoes and a jacket and pulled me by the arm outside. Before I knew it, I sat in a car and I did not know where we were headed.

**********
Someone opened the car door on my side of the car. I was still blindfolded and could not see who it was. I had a guess it was a friend, but I did not know who. Simon got out on the other side and soon he was on my side of the car and helping me out. He and the other person held me on each side and guided me up to some stairs. We got inside what I guessed was a house of some sort.

"Can I please take this blindfold off now, Simon?" I asked. I heard him giggle close to my ear.

"Just wait a little bit baby," he said. He led me into another room and then I felt his fingers at the fabric on the back of my head. "You can watch in three, two, one." He counted down as he took off the blindfold of my head. When I opened my eyes I saw none other than all of our friends. And Erik. Erik was standing right there. They were all wearing party hats and there were decorations everywhere. I smiled. I had never had a birthday party. Not a real one. Just for family friends and they were never very fun. It was mostly adults talking about boring stuff that I had no real interest in.

"Happy birthday Wilhelm," they all said. Felice was standing next to my brother and Sara and the other girls were there next to her. The old third year boys were all there. Well not August, but that was for obvious reasons. I smiled so big. They had done this, for me? And Simon had been able to keep it a secret. I understood he had plans when he wanted to blindfold me, but I had not imagined this.

"Thank you guys," I said. Erik came up to me and gave me a big hug. I held on to him, like I would not hug him ever again.

"Happy birthday little brother," he said. "I can't understand you are seventeen now. You are still twelve in my mind." We both grinned. It had been a while since I was twelve, after all. And if I was twelve, he was just seventeen himself.

"I have to tell mom to take back your car then. You can't drive a car if you are just seventeen, Erik," I replied. Erik patted me on the head.

"Let's not do that. It is a secret that we are now the same age," he joked. "I have missed you so badly, Wille." I got teary eyed. I had missed him so badly.

"I have missed you too," I said. "I hope mom has not made your life into hell because I left." Erik laughed.

"Don't worry about that. I can handle it," he said. "Let's have fun tonight and not think about her, okay?" I nodded. I went around the room and hugged everyone who had made this for me. And then I kissed Simon. He had organised this with Erik, I was pretty sure.

"Thank you for the best birthday I have ever had," I said. Simon smiled big. Proud to have made something that made me into the happiest seventeen year old in the entire country. 

Author's note

I am back here for a moment. I have had my first weekend free from studying in a month and decided to write something little for this story. I hope you like it!  I have had a crazy month in school and I have studied between 12 and 16 hours every day to get our  two 25 pages long legal submissions for a (fictive) case we are working on in order to send in. It has been exhausting and I have had no time to do anything else than eat, sleep and study basically. The second stage of this course begins tomorrow evening (and I am still so tired that I would need a week's break). But  I just need to survive another month and then I am finished for this semester and will have a summer break until September to look forward to where I hopefully will have more time to write. 

- A.A.