He glowers down at the bit in his hands. “Does it really matter to you? Herre High and Mighty.” He makes a sour face and looks at my shirt. Then he shakes his head, setting the bit aside and picking up the bottle again. “You look like a poor man masquerading as one of them royals.”
My neck heats. I want to fuss with my shirt, but I don’t. Instead I paste on a smile. “You made that choice for me, far. I was barely out of diapers. You’d driven mor away…”
My father grinds his teeth. “It’s not my fault that your mother left, okay? And I was just trying to scrape by.”
I level a look at him. “You made enough money. That’s never been the issue between us.”
My father takes a swig from the bottle and narrows his eyes at me. “I’m not saying you was at fault then. You was little. But when I told my troubles to King Goran… and he offered to take you off me hands… well, I never expected him to turn you into that little prince’s shadow. I thought…”
He trails off, wiping his chin with the rag. I fold my arms across my chest. “I didn’t come here for this.”
My father looks up at me, his hazel eyes pinning me in place. “What did you deign to come all the way down here for? The royal palace is only five minutes away, but it must be too comfortable to leave. Even to visit your own flesh and blood…”
Taking a deep breath, I brace my fingers around the bridge of my nose. “And why would I not visit more? I can never get enough of your gruffness.”
My father narrows his eyes at me. “I’m just telling the truth.”
My hands form fists. I want to hiss with rage and turn this fucking table over on its side. But I don’t.
Instead I school my expression into a bland mask. “Let’s change the subject, dar.”
He shakes his head, looking down at the bit in his hands. “I imagine when you find a girl and settle down, you two will just move away and leave me here. Won’t you? Better to start over, without an old man weighing you down.”
His tone is self-pitying, an abrupt switch from his accusations just moments ago. I am ready for it, though. He usually vacillates between the two the entire time I visit.
I turn my head, stretching my neck. “I don’t know, dar. That’s years down the road, if ever.”
What I don’t say is that I’m absolutely certain that he screwed me up so badly that I’ll never be able to love another person. At least not anyone other than Stellan, who I feel a bittersweet mix of love and envy toward.
He grunts. “Is this when you tell you’re a fairy, boy? I’ll tell you this right now, there’s no use in you pining away over that prince of yours.”
My muscles tense. “We’ve had this conversation. I’m not gay. I am not in love with Stellan. End of story.”
My father throws down the bit and the rag with a thunk. “Then why haven’t you got a girl? Hmm? When I was your age, I was already married. Come to think of it, you had already arrived.”
I notice that he just avoids talking about my mother altogether, as though I simply appeared on his doorstep one morning.
I force a hard smile. “Romantic love just seems… messy. You should understand. You and mor couldn’t make it work— “
He shoots to his feet. “Her leaving was your fault, Erik. Before you came along, she was happy. It wasn’t until you were born that she… she…”
I stand up. “What? She couldn’t stand to be in this house, belittled by you day and night. I’m not surprised that she left, dar.”
He turns red. “Get out of here, Erik. You don’t want to be here anyway. According to you, I treat you and everybody else so terrible. So, I’ll say it again, get the fuck out of here.”
Shaking my head, I walk toward the door. “Gladly, old man.”
He sits down, picking up the horse bit and resuming polishing. “No son of mine would treat me so bad, I’ll tell you that much.”
I shake my head, pushing out the door of the cottage with a bang. This. This feeling right here, this ball of black hate right where my heart should be?
This is why I don’t visit my father, even though he’s so close. Even though he’s the only family that I have left.
As I storm up the little lane, the birds chirp and the sun still shines. But I’m far too wrapped up in my angst for them to make me feel any better.
9
Annika
I stare at the tabloid newspapers spread out on the table before me, horrified. The headlines are a variation on the same theme.
PRINCESS ANNIKA PIGS OUT (AGAIN)!
Followed by pictures of me in an unflattering royal blue dress, about to take a bite of dessert. My eyes gleam like that bite of dessert is the apple of my eye. In the insets are half a dozen other photos from the same event, with me trying different desserts.
What they don’t mention, of course, is that I was the royal assigned to attend a dessert competition. They also neglected to mention the fact that I went hungry for two days leading up to that to save up a bank of calories just for that event.
All I had for forty-eight hours was unlimited water and a handful of my favorite hard candies. I wish I could scream that fact at the paparazzi that snap my photos… but they don’t really care.
No one cares about the work that I put into being perfect except me.
I tilt my head, surveying the photo closest to me. I’m wearing a shapeless dress with bell shaped sleeves in the picture, which isn’t really even that unflattering. I just look like a person who’s eaten thirty bites of cake, which is exactly what I was at that moment.
Standing up, I grab a waste bin and sweep all the papers into it. Then I stomp to the door of my parlor, putting the waste bin outside of it.
I breathe, trying to get the image of me and the words PRINCESS PIGGIE out of my head. But I just can’t. Later when I’m done getting dressed in my room, I still hear the words to a particularly cruel song in my head.
A small choir of children happily croon: Princess Piggie, Princess Piggie. Eats her weight in toast smeared with figgie…
Kids used to sing that old nursery rhyme when I was in earshot, knowing full well that it would make me die inside. Like everyone else in the world, I went through an awkward stage from age ten to fourteen. But unlike the rest of humanity, my awkward stage was caught on film and celebrated throughout Denmark.
I can picture myself now, being twelve and trying not to eat in front of anyone, because I would feel judged later. My expression hardens as I march out to the huge three-way mirror in the corner of the parlor.
Standing as straight as I can, lifting my ribcage and posing just so, I look at myself. The girl that looks back at me isn’t fat. If anything, she’s a little bit too skinny to really be what anyone would call beautiful. I turn and angle my body this way and that, reposing my arms dozens of times.
If only I could control what people saw when they looked at me… but I’ve long since learned that I can’t.
It doesn’t matter that I have a designer white lace dress on. It doesn’t matter when the last time was that I actually ate a full meal. It doesn’t matter to the paparazzi that I’m a real person with tender feelings.