Page 55 of The Winter Princess
Both of Us
FREJA
I bury myself in our shared office for the rest of the morning, going over the calendar of events and social media releases for the coming season, carefully shifting my seat, the stapler, and a rolling pen away from the invisible boundary that divides the room into my domain and Oskar’s. I am adept at staying on my side, but such skill requires me to think about him.
After a couple of hours, I sit back, rubbing my temples. It was one kiss, Freja. It was one deeply unsatisfying kiss, and he didn’t even really want it. It didn’t mean anything. There’s not a prayer a Pavian non-citizen and a princess—my throat hurts and I swallow. It’s good that we both know better than to take it seriously.
I rub the heel of my hand over my heart and grimace, frowning at the empty expanse of his side of the office. Finally, I push away from the desk, looking for a distraction and finding it in front of the museum attendance temperature gauge hanging in the common area. Whoever is adding to it isn’t even bothering to use the same color marker, so each day’s totals look like sedimentary rock stripes. Up and up, one day at a time. We’re making slow and steady progress.
“Forgot yesterday,” Erik says, reaching past me to scrawl another strip, the tip of his tongue sticking out the side of his mouth.
All night and all morning I’ve been fighting the bizarre sensation that if I don’t talk to someone I’ll explode. I can’t talk to Oskar. He’s the root of this mess. My family is too close. They’ll remember things and follow up and worry. Erik won’t worry. His attention span resets every time someone new enters the room.
“Erik,” I say, drawing his name out in the event I think better of this madness. “I have a question.”
“Hit me.”
“What does it mean,” I ask, “when someone tells you that something didn’t mean anything, but you’re almost sure it did mean something…to them?”
He taps the marker against his lips. “Oh,” he brightens, “like gaslighting?”
“What?”
“Gaslighting.” The word sounds like a question and carries a whole raft of judgmental surprise. “It means that someone is trying to get you to go insane and ignore what’s in front of your face. Like, there was this one time my friend was all, ‘Hey, wanna go get kebabs?’ and I was all, ‘Yeah, sure. I’ll cancel all my plans.’ So I did but then he was like, ‘I never said that. You’re dumb and I hate you. It’s your own fault you’re destined to own a million cats and die alone.’” He spins his hand out, as though this explains all. “You know. Gaslighting.”
My brow furrows as I remember the kiss, trying to find the moment when Oskar acted like it didn’t matter. Maybe when he tossed off his Pavian phrase. Not when his breath caught. Not when his gaze drifted to my lips.
I close my eyes and it’s there, playing against my eyelids. His hand at my waist was light and the contact of our lips too brief, but it made me feel like the first time I took a bite of Minty’s warm salted caramel custard—delighted something so delicious exists. Desperate for more.
“Restoration wants me to film the interview this week,” I tell Erik. Restoration. Like that’s his name. Like his job title will keep us at a distance. “Let me know what the specs need to be.”
“Your phone is good enough, only give me at least an hour of footage. We can edit out the boring parts.”
I quash a sudden flare of irritation. Despite all expectations to the contrary, Erik the Kebab Enthusiast is going to save us all.
After lunch, I head over to the jewelry raffle to draw a winner on Pixy Live. I miss Oskar’s steadying hand, but I smile into the camera as I read the slip of paper. “Agneta Rasmussen from Aarlo. She’ll be photographed wearing the Nedeweiss Peridot Necklace, 1832. It was gifted to the young Queen Magda’s chaperone on the occasion of her charge’s marriage.”
Based on the size of the stones, I wonder if the young queen had been tying bedsheets together and trying to rappel down the palace walls. It must have been quite a lot of work keeping Magda out of her lover’s arms until the wedding night. One doesn’t give jewels like that for embroidering handkerchiefs and sleeping on a truckle bed.
At the end of the day, I return to the palace, crunching through autumn leaves littering the path. I hang my keys upon the hook by the door and pause, reaching toward the wall where Oskar leaned. I snap my hand back, frowning.
“Really,” I admonish. It was the same hand that curled around his coat lapel.
A noise at the door signals the arrival of my sisters, and I whip my hands behind my back.
“Were you walking without me?” I ask, on the principle that the best defense is a cracking offense.
“Clara and I went out to visit Lady Greta. We played Fast Blintz and listened to old records.” Ella’s eyes gleam, her nose pink with the cold. “Are you going to forgive me?” she asks, bumping my arm.
“What are you going to forgive her for?” Clara asks, shaking out her strawberry blonde hair. I like that forgiveness is a foregone conclusion. I wish our parents felt the same.
“Nothing. There’s nothing to forgive.”
Ella wiggles her brows. “I interrupted Freja and her boyfriend while they were making out.”
I gasp but Clara squeaks. Clara is in love. She wants everyone to be making out. Clara is an idiot.
Ella goes up on her tiptoes and throws an arm around my shoulders like I’m a sideshow attraction. She has to entice the crowds to spend their money with a salacious story. “Imagine it. The art guy she swore she didn’t like—disheveled, tie undone, igniting the very air with his hotness—was propping up this very wall, sexy-breathing and looking at our sister from under hooded eyelids .”
