Page 12 of Scars and Crowns

Barely louder than a whisper.

It isn't a choice. It's instinct. It's the name my heart learned before it learned how to let her go.

I haven't spoken that name aloud in eight years. I've written it. Hidden it inside journals no one has ever seen. Thought it on birthdays. On festivals. On nights when sleep refused to come.

But never aloud. Never into a room where she could hear it. Now it hangs between us.

Fragile.

Unprotected.

Real.

Her breath catches. I see it before I hear it. Her shoulders rise ever so slightly. The tray trembles. Only for a second. She tightens her grip before the porcelain cup can rattle again, pulling the tray closer to herself like it's the only thing keeping her standing.

Our eyes meet.

God.

They're shining. Not with happiness or surprise. With the exhausting effort of holding something back.

She blinks once. Then again. The way people blink when tears have reached the edge but permission hasn't.

Something inside me cracks. Not loudly. Quietly. Like ice giving way beneath too much weight.

I don't move toward her. Every instinct inside me screams to. To cross the room. To make sure she's real. To hold her before she disappears again.

But I know myself.

If I take even one step . . . I don't know if I'll stop.

Seven years. Seven years of teaching myself restraint. Seven years of becoming the man this palace needed.

Measured.

Composed.

Untouchable.

None of it survives the sight of her standing in my doorway.

Somewhere inside this room . . . The King disappears.

All that's left is the twenty-three-year-old man who stood on a railway platform with a silver daisy in his hand and watched the only person he'd ever loved board a train.

She gathers herself before I do. She always could. Even as children.

If we both fell, she'd stand first then offer me a hand.

She lowers her gaze. One careful step. Then another. She walks toward my desk with controlled, practiced movements, every bit of attention fixed on the coffee balanced in front of her.

Not on me.

She doesn’t look at me at all, and it . . . hurts. She places the cup gently on the polished wood. Steam curls lazily into the air between us.

"Your coffee, Sir."

Sir.