A Nordic King(3)

Helena just nods. She can’t even smile. She gets in the back seat and tells Nicklas to drive.

“I’m driving,” I tell her. “Nicklas is tired from traveling, I’m sure.”

“It’s not a problem,” he says but I wave him off and get back in the driver’s seat, letting them figure out where they want to sit.

Outside a breeze is picking up, and bigger drops of rain are starting to pool on the windshield, illuminated by the dull glow of the airplane hangar. The blood in my ears is a steady whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

Finally, Helena gets in the backseat, with Nicklas in the passenger seat. Either she’s so used to being driven around that sitting in the front seems uncouth, or she can’t stand me that much. I’m guessing it’s a bit of both.

The drive is silent. I have to force the conversation at the start, asking about the children, asking about the weather. I know for a fact that my aunt Maja is taking care of Clara and Freja right now but it’s funny how little Helena seems to know. Or maybe it’s not funny at all. Perhaps it’s just sad.

My heart clenches at the thought of what I’m about to do.

How I’m about to ruin it all.

I know what my father would say.

I know that he’d tell me that love was never part of the deal. Fuck, he’s the one who warned me from the start about Helena and how her school-girl crush was never quite what it seemed. That’s the one reason I was so hesitant about her to begin with. But she was beautiful and so devoted and made me feel like a king well before I ever became one.

This is my role, to pretend. This is the throne I sit on, one carved from lies, old as the ages.

But not anymore.

The last reasonable thought I have is of my children and how their world would be infinitely happier if I just pretended and pretended and pretended.

I should do it for them.

Everything for them.

Yet it doesn’t stop the words that grind out of my mouth.

“I know about the two of you,” I say.

We’re about halfway to the palace, the road climbing, the rain falling wildly in front of the headlights.

I’d think that neither of them heard me, judging by their lack of reaction, but Nicklas stiffens up just a bit. I eye Helena in the rearview mirror but can barely make out her profile. She seems to be staring out at the passing dark.

I can’t say I’m surprised. Denial is her favorite word.

“You heard me,” I say again. “I know.”

Finally, Nicklas says something. “Know what, sir?”

I let out a caustic laugh. “Sir? Really? You pretend to revere me as your King and yet insult me at the same time by fucking my wife.”

“Aksel!” Helena cries out. “Stop this nonsense. You’re crazy!”

“Crazy? I’m not fucking crazy. I’m not fucking stupid either. Everyone knows, Helena. Everyone. I suppose I was the last, and maybe that makes me crazy in your eyes, but everyone knows you’ve been a lying whore.”

“How dare you,” she seethes. “You crazy, jealous fool.”

My smile feels like acid. “I dare. I dare because I’m no longer the fool. I finally know the truth and I can’t ignore it anymore. I can’t pretend anymore.” Then something inside me feels like it’s breaking. The betrayal. The destruction of my heart that I know will never recover. “Don’t you feel the same?”

“I’m not discussing this,” Helena says, looking away, arms crossed in a huff. “And if that’s why you bothered to pick me up, then you’ve started the wrong war because I will fucking destroy you. You hear me? I will destroy you and take everything you love. Even the girls.”

“Motherfucker!” I yell, pounding my fists on the steering wheel, the car nearly going off the road. “You don’t give a shit about anything, do you? Just your image! Just what you can take! All you’ve ever done is take, take, take!”

“Aksel, please,” Nicklas says, his voice growing louder, nervous.

“Please?” My eyes bore into him just as I correct the car back onto the road. “Please? Your manners forsake you. You don’t give a shit about any of this. You’re only fucking her because you think it will spite me, that you’ll take my place. Guess what? She’ll ditch you as quickly as she ditched me! You think I’m some one-off victim, a fool she gets to blind? She went after me from the start! She pretended to want me, pretended to love me, all to get the crown. Now she has it. Now she has the crown and she’s pretending to want you, only to flaunt what a shallow, lying bitch she is!”

“The fuck you’ll talk to her that way!” Nicklas yells, punching me in the arm, trying to go for my face. It’s now that I know for sure that I’ve hit a nerve. You can’t hide love when it’s been insulted, threatened. He thinks what they have is genuine and real. Who’s the fucking fool now?

“Nicklas!” Helena yells, unbuckling her seatbelt and coming forward between the seats, trying to break us apart. “Stop it!”

“Oh, he knows, Helena!” Nicklas says, voice in anguish. “He knows, everyone knows. This is it for us. This is the end.”

“It’s not the end,” she snipes, and I can hear the panic in her voice as her hands slap against the side of my arm. “Oh fuck, oh fuck.”