Red, White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston Page 0,17
says. He clears his throat. “I didn’t realize you’d heard that.”
“I feel like you’re missing the point,” Alex says, “which is that it’s a douchey thing to say either way.”
“That’s … fair.”
“Yeah, so.”
“That’s all?” Henry asks. “Only the Olympics?”
“I mean, that was the start.”
Henry pauses again. “I’m sensing an ellipsis.”
“It’s just…” Alex says, and as he’s on the floor of a supply closet, waiting out a security threat with a Prince of England at the end of a weekend that has felt like some very specific ongoing nightmare, censoring himself takes too much effort. “I don’t know. Doing what we do is fucking hard. But it’s harder for me. I’m the son of the first female president. And I’m not white like she is, can’t even pass for it. People will always come down harder on me. And you’re, you know, you, and you were born into all of this, and everyone thinks you’re Prince fucking Charming. You’re basically a living reminder I’ll always be compared to someone else, no matter what I do, even if I work twice as hard.”
Henry is quiet for a long while.
“Well,” Henry says when he speaks at last. “I can’t very well do much about the rest. But I can tell you I was, in fact, a prick that day. Not that it’s any excuse, but my father had died fourteen months before, and I was still kind of a prick every day of my life at the time. And I am sorry.”
Henry twitches one hand at his side, and Alex falls momentarily silent.
The cancer ward. Of course, Henry chose a cancer ward—it was right there on the fact sheet. Father: Famed film star Arthur Fox, deceased 2015, pancreatic cancer. The funeral was televised. He goes back over the last twenty-four hours in his head: the sleeplessness, the pills, the tense little grimace Henry does in public that Alex has always read as aloofness.
He knows a few things about this stuff. It’s not like his parents’ divorce was a pleasant time for him, or like he runs himself ragged about grades for fun. He’s been aware for too long that most people don’t navigate thoughts of whether they’ll ever be good enough or if they’re disappointing the entire world. He’s never considered Henry might feel any of the same things.
Henry clears his throat again, and something like panic catches Alex. He opens his mouth and says, “Well, good to know you’re not perfect.”
He can almost hear Henry roll his eyes, and he’s thankful for it, the familiar comfort of antagonism.
They’re silent again, the dust of the conversation settling. Alex can’t hear anything outside the door or any sirens on the street, but nobody has come to get them yet.
Then, unprompted, Henry says into the stretching stillness, “Return of the Jedi.”
A beat. “What?”
“To answer your question,” Henry says. “Yes, I do like Star Wars, and my favorite is Return of the Jedi.”
“Oh,” Alex says. “Wow, you’re wrong.”
Henry huffs out the tiniest, most poshly indignant puff of air. It smells minty. Alex resists the urge to throw another elbow. “How can I be wrong about my own favorite? It’s a personal truth.”
“It’s a personal truth that is wrong and bad.”
“Which do you prefer, then? Please show me the error of my ways.”
“Okay, Empire.”
Henry sniffs. “So dark, though.”
“Yeah, which is what makes it good,” Alex says. “It’s the most thematically complex. It’s got the Han and Leia kiss in it, you meet Yoda, Han is at the top of his game, fucking Lando Calrissian, and the best twist in cinematic history. What does Jedi have? Fuckin’ Ewoks.”
“Ewoks are iconic.”
“Ewoks are stupid.”
“But Endor.”
“But Hoth. There’s a reason people always call the best, grittiest installment of a trilogy the Empire of the series.”
“And I can appreciate that. But isn’t there something to be valued in a happy ending as well?”
“Spoken like a true Prince Charming.”
“I’m only saying, I like the resolution of Jedi. It ties everything up nicely. And the overall theme you’re intended to take away from the films is hope and love and … er, you know, all that. Which is what Jedi leaves you with a sense of most of all.”
Henry coughs, and Alex is turning to look at him again when the door opens and Cash’s giant silhouette reappears.
“False alarm,” he says, breathing heavily. “Some dumbass kids brought fireworks for their friend.” He looks down at them, flat on their backs and blinking up in the sudden, harsh light of the hallway. “This looks cozy.”