You are right about that much. But my grandmother made it clear to me that I shouldn’t talk about my feelings. It’s bad for the royal brand.”
A strange feeling blooms in my chest. “Did… did somebody at the school hurt you?”
She opens her eyes and chuckles. “No. Nothing like that, Erik.”
I sigh, letting out a breath I didn’t know I held. “What’s your issue, then?”
She rolls her eyes over to me, then turns her body toward me, shifting her knees up onto the seat. “Being Princess Annika is great. Except for rare instances… like being trapped at a Swiss boarding school with seventy other twelve-year-old girls. Almost everyone had pedigrees, lineage, and all of them had already decided before they even met me what I was like. They read the tabloids and they decided that I was cold and aloof. So, they treated me like an outsider.” She crinkles her upturned nose. “Except Kal, of course. If there is a god, I seriously have to thank him for assigning us to live together. She was my refuge.”
I tilt my head. “But everyone else… didn’t warm up to you?”
A bubble of laughter escapes Nika’s lips. “That would be putting it mildly. The whole time I was there was wretched. My locker and gym clothes were trashed once a week. I would find huge blown up pictures of myself eating pasted all over the school, with and without pig ears and a pig snout. I’ve lost count of how many times I was intentionally locked out of my dorm building or came back to my room find that all of my clothes were gone.”
I give my head a soft shake. “So, you are saying… your classmates bullied you? You’re the princess of Denmark, Nika. You should’ve been able to snap your fingers and put them all in their place.”
She sighs, looking away from me. “The girls at St. Xavier’s were cruel. And no amount of adult attention or intervention did anything to put a stop to it. I figured out quickly that when I went crying to the house mother or even the dean, that just told everyone that their tactics worked.”
Her hands close into fists. I look at her, at how angry she still is. And that anger echoes around inside of me, finding the darkness in my heart.
I know what being told that you’re not good enough is. I have been told that practically my whole life, although it was more subtle than what Nika is describing.
I want very badly to touch her. Embrace her, tell her I’m sorry. Tell her that it’s over.
But I don’t know that I can do that and still maintain the distance between us.
“I’m sorry,” I grit out. “That shouldn’t have happened to you. And you shouldn’t have to sell the school after the experience you had.”
She gives me a humorless smile. “I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. But I did get out. And now I’m just trying to look forward.”
Her eyes sink closed. It’s just as well, because I’m not sure what to say.
Annika being bullied for simply existing? That doesn’t sit right with me. It makes me wish that I could draw her close and protect her.
That’s not my job, of course. But it has to be someone’s duty to look out for her… doesn’t it?
I look at Annika as she falls asleep. Her wavy hair is coiled like a mass of snakes. Her long, dark lashes rest on her cheeks, her skin looking as smooth and clear as skimmed cream. Her button nose is sprinkled with a few freckles. Her lush lips are just below, begging to be touched.
Not by me. I know that. We are from two different worlds, just by virtue of being born. But someone will come along someday…
Someone worthy of her.
Someone that’s not me.
I try not to think about the vague unsettled feeling that stirs within me at that notion.
Annika’s head falls down, gravity doing what it does best. And I can’t help but catch her as she slides toward me, cradling her like I’ve just been handed a delicate bird.
Nika’s eyes open for the merest second, their innocence pinning me in place. Then she stretches out in my lap, closing her eyes once more. She murmurs something.
It might be, “I hoped it was you.”
I go stiff and frozen, feeling very much like the new owner of a kitten who has fallen asleep in their owner’s hands. I shouldn’t be touching her like this, nor should