𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐨𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐚𝐧, young royals

Chapter 6: Simon

Made of Stones,  Matt Corby

6: Simon

It wasn't like me to hold grudges.

Not with family, anyway.  Too forgiving, some would say. But something Wilhelm had said at the palace sort of stuck with me, playing on a loop in my head.

I wish he'd met you. Because his brother had been stolen from him, whisked away swiftly as the breeze picks the leaves off the ground. And there must've been hundreds of things he had yet to say to him, thousands of smiles he had yet to share with him, billions of seconds he had yet to run through with him. There are things he was probably beginning to forget, like which of his teeth were chipped, which leg he leaned on when he was standing for too long, or which side of his smile was slightly lopsided. There are things that will likely never stick around, like scents on his bedroom sheets or the sound of his voice, because existence is only ephemeral, and every nanosecond of it should be savoured while it lasts. I'd squandered and misused a lot of my time already, I thought. Too much of it.

At home, I watched my sister through the entrance to the living room. My sister, my beautiful, foolish sister. I don't know how long I stood there, listening to the buzzing of the television, thinking. Thinking of words, flooding me, rushing in my brain. Thinking of her betrayal and my anger, my sorrow, my disgust. Just emotions, nasty emotions, not concrete, impalpable. Like a sort of mist, clinging on to my flesh without ever letting me swab myself clean of it. Had these feelings been worldly enough, I'd had tied them in rope and smothered them in my bedsheets. I'd have captured them in a jar as a child would a firefly and hurled it into the ocean. I'd have done anything and everything to make my mind utterly and perfectly quiet, even just for a second.

Because it had always been me and my sister against the world. In a way, we were all we really had, all that was real in this world. When Mom was daunted, working day and night, and Dad was stoned and beer-soaked, crashing at a friend's house. When kids were cruel and vile, stomping us to squash, and no one else was there to pick us up.

Somewhere in my musings, I dragged my feet into the living room and sat down next to her.

I didn't look at her yet. Shocked, she blinked at me, open-mouthed. And we were silent for what felt like an eternity.

"How was the meeting?" she queried meekly, hesitant.

I breathed in. "Okay."

"Will you be going back?"

"Wilhelm's making a statement on the jubilee tomorrow.  I'll go back to be with him."

Silence fell again, languid and lazy, like maple leaves on tardy days of summer.  I pulled my feet on the couch, falling back into the cushions. I couldn't pick apart my feelings, tell the bad ones from the good, pluck the pestering weed out of my sentimental garden.

"Remember when we were kids," I mused, staring at the flashing television screen, "and Mom took us ice skating every Christmas? It was our first real holiday without Dad, and all of our skates were out-grown and run-down, and they ached our feet and gave us the worst splinters. You got mad at Mom because you wanted a new pair, but we couldn't afford them." From the corner of my eye, I saw her flinch, but I kept going, "You called her the worst Mom ever."

"I remember," she murmured, fiddling with the hem of her shirt.

"You came to my room that same night, crying. You felt bad, said you'd ruined Christmas," I spoke, still not looking at her. "I told you that it didn't matter what you did, as long as you found a way to fix it. As long as you didn't repeat those same mistakes. So, the next year, you saved as much money as you could, and you bought Mom a new pair of skates for Christmas."

I let my words marinate in the air, impassive, and she let them sink into her. "I really am sorry," she whispered after a few minutes.

I looked at her.  "I know."  I let a couple of seconds trickle by before adding, "I'm still angry.  You're my sister, Sara.  I expected you to support me through this.  Not to get all these things for yourself out of my fucked-up situation."

She bit down on her lip, tears welling in her eyes.  "I know," she whispered, nodding, and reached out to dry her eyes with the sleeve of her sweatshirt.  "I'm sorry."

"Stop saying you're sorry," I said, sedate.  "Actions, not words, Sara.  And by that I don't mean going around flipping tables to try and fix your mess.  You should've talked to me before reporting August."

She nodded again, sniffling.  "Thank you for talking to me."

I nodded.  But before I could say anything else, her phone buzzed, the screen lighting up in her lap.  Somewhere in the kitchen, I heard my phone buz at the same time, making a strange coincidence.  She picked it up, rubbing her damp eyes, and a shadow skimmed across her face.  Her lips parted, and she straightened up, pushing herself up on the palm of her hands.  Looking up at me, her eyes were distressed, her face freakishly pale.

"What is it?" I asked, frowning. 

For a moment, she didn't answer, perplexed and scared. 

I insisted, "Sara, what is it?"

"It's... Dad."

tw: short chapter