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When I hesitate, he charges ahead.
“You look even more beautiful than I remember, Josephine.”
I barely control the urge to gasp at that. I was not ready.
And yet, now I remember how easy it was to fall in love with him all those years ago.
Today? Jakob has no idea how much more attractive he is to me, in every way.
4
Jakob
Seated across from each other in the cozy train station café, Jo cradles her cup of coffee in her hands, her eyes fixed on me.
She blushed when I blurted out how beautiful she looked, and her cheeks are still pink from it. I quickly pivoted to asking if she wanted to sit down and have something when I spotted the mostly abandoned café. Jo had seemed relieved at my suggestion.
I think we both are happy to have something to do with our hands. I want desperately to hug her, clasp her frame against mine, but I can tell that’s too much for her right now.
The atmosphere here is better. Intimate but with the noise of the station filling in the gaps in our conversation.
“Tell me everything,” Jo asks, leaning forward over the table intently. “And don’t worry if you overlap with what I read in the letters. I’m just happy to listen to you talk to me again.”
She listens with rapt attention as I recount everything that has happened to me since we were 14.
I talk about the group home, and friends, and rugby, and art. I wasn’t much for school, and now I’m not much for parties. But I do haunt the streets and back alleys of the city, looking for discarded objects to include in my art.
“Discarded objects? Like trash?” Jo asks, enraptured as she sips her coffee.
“Sometimes. Other times it’s little artifacts.”
And before I can stop myself, I’m telling the complete story of what happened on the day of Prince Torben’s 35th birthday. I’d been in the plaza, picking up beer cans, streamers, noisemakers. I was thinking about how I could make the things filling my pockets and backpack into some kind of cohesive sculpture, and then my mind got lost in the idea of making a tribute to the prince. I thought maybe I could somehow get it in front of the right person and word would get to the prince, and he, being the kind of prince he is, would display it at the palace, and that would kick off a real career. And then my mind wandered into just how I was going to do that, since I don’t love drawing attention to myself in the first place. Before I knew what was happening, a commotion had started up all around me.
“I look up,” I tell Jo, “and there’s Princess Flora, hanging from the damn balcony by a string. A string!”
She nods, her eyes wide. “I remember.”
“Everyone around me was panicking. Not a single member of the palace guard in sight.”
“That must have been terrifying to be so close to the action not knowing if anyone would save her!” Jo says, on the edge of her seat.
“But she wasn’t hurt. Everyone was rushing around and shouting, and I set her down. I made sure she was physically fine, and then I got lost in the pandemonium.”
Josephine’s brow furrows in curiosity. “But why don’t you come forward? You deserve recognition for what you did. The princess is offering a reward.”
I sigh, my gaze flicking down to Jo’s hands. Such soft-looking, lovely hands.
“What is it?” Her hazel eyes lock on to mine like they did the moment I stepped off the train.
I shouldn’t hope for a connection with her that goes beyond friendship, but the second I spotted her at the station, with her short, tousled auburn hair, sprinkling of freckles and curious eyes, I knew I was about to get my heart broken into a thousand pieces.
She leans in slightly, and her faint floral perfume fills me with an ache I can’t describe. “Tell me, Jakob?”
I take a deep breath, my fingers tapping lightly against my coffee cup. “I never told you about my mother,” I say.
Jo is confused. “Of course you did. She gave you up when you were very small.”
I nod. “That’s not all of it. I know I told you she was troubled. But what I didn’t tell you was that I think…I think I remember seeing the king at my house.”
