Page 61 of Defying the Crown
"Let him decide," Caleb murmurs, squeezing Jayda's shoulder.
"What do you want?" My voice is rough from disuse.
"I want you to listen." Ella steps forward, and despite her size, her presence fills the room. "My brother is in the hospital. Again. He's not eating, barely sleeping. He's..." her voice catches. "He's destroying himself."
I stare at Ella, trying to make sense of her words. Harald? In the hospital? A part of me wants to tell her it's not my problem anymore, but something in her desperate expression stops me.
"He lied to me," I say, my voice barely above a whisper. The words taste bitter on my tongue. I clench my fists until my knuckles ache, trying to anchor myself against the rising tide of betrayal flooding my chest. "He let me believe he was just...normal. Not a goddamn prince." I nearly choke on the last word, the absurdity of it all hitting me anew. All those quiet moments, those shared secrets—and he'd been hiding the biggest secret of all. The memory of his gentle smile twists something painful inside me.
"He is normal," Ella insists, taking another step toward me. "That's what you gave him—the chance to just be Harald, not the Crown Prince, not the heir, just... himself."
Jayda scoffs, crossing her arms over her chest. The black polish on her nails catches the light as she drums her fingers impatiently against her forearm. "Very touching," she says, voice dripping with sarcasm that I've grown all too familiar with over the years. "He still deceived Daniel." The way she says my name—protective, fierce—makes my throat tighten with emotion.
Ella's eyes flash with an intensity that makes me take a half-step back, her small frame suddenly radiating an almost palpable energy. Her blonde hair catches the light as she tilts her chin up defiantly.
"And what would you have done? Tell a stranger you just met online that you're royalty? Who would believe that?" She spreads her hands wide in frustration, her voice rising with each question. "Who wouldn't immediately change how they treated him? Do you have any idea what it's like for him? Everyone—absolutely everyone—wants something from the Crown Prince. Nobody sees Harald, just the title."
I feel my jaw tighten as her words hit home, conjuring unwanted images of Harald alone. Even as my stomach churns with anger, I can't completely silence the voice whispering that I might have done exactly what she's describing—treated him differently, or worse, assumed he was playing some elaborate joke and ignored him from the beginning.
I sink onto our couch, suddenly exhausted and feeling lost. "How bad is it?"
"They've put him on IV fluids." Ella's voice trembles. "He's lost so much weight. The doctors are talking about feeding tubes if he doesn't improve soon." She pulls out her phone, taps a few times, then hands it to me. "This was taken yesterday."
The photo knocks the wind out of me. Harald—my Harald—looks like a skeleton. His cheekbones jut out sharply, dark hollows beneath his eyes, his hospital gown hanging off his frame. He's staring out a window, not even aware of the camera, with such emptiness in his expression that my chest tightens in physicalpain. I can't reconcile this gaunt figure with the man whose smile lit up my screen for weeks. His once vibrant eyes seem sunken into his skull, lifeless and dull. My fingers tremble against the phone screen as I trace the outline of his face, fighting the urge to pull the image closer as if I could somehow reach through it and touch him. The same hands that held me close in bed now lie limp and thin against sterile white sheets. My throat constricts around a sob I'm desperately trying to hold back. This isn't just weight loss—it's like he's disappearing altogether, fading away while I sit helplessly an ocean apart.
"Jesus," Caleb mutters, looking over my shoulder.
"Please, Daniel," Ella kneels in front of me. "I'm not asking you to forgive him. I'm not even asking you to love him. I'm just asking you to talk to him. To tell him to his face whatever you need to say, even if it's goodbye. Because right now, he's just... waiting to die."
"That's not fair," Jayda protests, her voice rising as she steps between Ella and me. "Danny's not responsible for—"
"I'll go," I cut her off, still staring at the photo. My voice comes out raspy, barely audible even to my own ears. The image of Harald—so frail, so utterly defeated—burns itself into my retinas. I swallow hard against the lump forming in my throat. "I'll go to Denmark."
The words hang in the air between us, surprising even me. After everything that's happened, after all the pain and betrayal I've suffered, here I am volunteering to fly across the ocean for someone I barely know. But that hollow-eyed ghost in the hospital gown isn't a stranger anymore. He's someone who understands the darkness I've walked through, perhaps even better than I do.
"Daniel, are you sure?" Caleb asks gently.
I look up at Ella, seeing Harald in the determined set of her jaw, the pleading in her eyes. The family resemblance strikes me so forcefully it's almost painful—that same Nordic stubbornness etched into the corners of her mouth, the identical shade of vulnerability swimming in her blue eyes. Even the way she holds herself, shoulders squared against invisible burdens, mirrors her brother's posture on better days. Before the hospital. Before the darkness dragged him down into that hollow shell I saw in the photos.
"When do we leave?
As I pack, I hear the conversation continue in the living room.
"I still don't trust this," Jayda says. "How do we know this isn't some elaborate trick?"
"You think I faked these hospital photos?" Ella asks wearily, her voice tinged with a blend of exhaustion and disbelief. "That I came all this way to hurt him more? Flew across an entire ocean just to pile on additional trauma?"
I pause my packing, straining to catch every word. The way her accent lilts slightly on certain syllables reminds me of Harald, her heightened emotions causing the accent to strain through. Something in her tone—a raw, protective quality—resonates with me.
"Jay," Caleb's voice is gentle, carrying that rare tone he reserves for moments of genuine concern rather than his usual sarcasm. "Look at Daniel. Really look at him. When was the last time you saw him smile? When was the last time he even left his room? He doesn't eat, and he's losing weight too. Soon enough he's going to look just like Harald does, and then what are we gonna do? He doesn't have a job, no health insurance, just us and nothing else...he'll die."
I freeze mid-fold, a shirt crumpled in my hands as his words pierce through me. The quiet tenderness in Caleb's question makes something in my chest constrict painfully. Even from the hallway, I can feel the weight of what he's asking Jayda to see—to really see me, not the version of myself I've been desperately trying to project. It's terrifying being dissected like this, having someone point out the emptiness I've been trying to disguise with snark and attitude. The fact that hipster-boy Caleb, with his ridiculous beanie and ironic t-shirts, can read me this clearly makes me want to crawl under my bed and disappear. But there's something almost relieving about being seen, truly seen, even as I continue pretending I can't hear them discussing me like I'm some fragile artifact on the verge of shattering.
"I just..." Jayda's voice wavers. "I can't watch him get hurt again. I'd never allow him to harm himself that way, you understand, right? If it came down to forcing a feeding tube into his mouth myself and restraining him to the bed, you know I wouldn't hesitate for a second."
"Then help me fix this," Ella pleads, her voice cracking with emotion that makes my chest tighten. "Because right now, they're both hurting, and it's killing them both. I can see it eating away at Harald every day, and Daniel—" She gestures in my direction with a helpless wave of her hand, "—Daniel looks like he hasn't truly slept or eaten in weeks."
I hear Jayda sigh. "If this goes wrong..."
