Henry Hamlet's Heart

by Rhiannon Wilde

  This is the kind of dark spot Vince always finds at parties, to sit and quietly judge everyone.

  I picture an alternate version of this day. Everybody here, us together – friends. Nothing ventured and nothing ruined.

  I wait for him to kick us off with a platitude. That’s how proper goodbyes usually start, isn’t it? He knows better than I do.

  Len doesn’t do that, though. He sits down on the stairs, then almost immediately stands up again and paces.

  He doesn’t say anything for so long that I start preparing to farewell myself for him.

  Then he grabs my hand, so fast I don’t see it coming.

  ‘I miss you,’ he says, his voice a thin thread of sound.

  All of my internal organs jump into my throat. I look down at his fingers, those bloody elegant piano-player-looking fingers, holding mine.

  ‘Henry?’

  It hurts – the way my name still sounds possessive in his mouth.

  ‘I miss you too,’ I tell him unwillingly.

  He looks relieved again. That can’t be right.

  ‘There’ve been so many times,’ he says rapidly. ‘That I wanted to call. To talk. But I didn’t know if you’d want me to. I didn’t know what to say. I still don’t.’

  It’s okay, a part of me wants to say. But I’m starting to wish he’d just cut to the chase.

  ‘I’m bad at this,’ he apologises. ‘Ask anyone.’

  I raise an eyebrow.

  He laughs shortly. ‘Sorry. Bad joke.’

  There’s a flickering light on the wall next to us. Its beam glances off the side of his worried face, over his collarbones. His eyes are wide and bright. It’s an all-out battle, now, not to openly stare – a battle I’m losing.

  I feel the familiar heavy longing in the pit of my stomach. Time healing wounds is such crap. All of this hasn’t done anything at all to dull how much I want him.

  He’s still got my hand.

  I should pull away, but then slowly, carefully, he moves his other hand to touch my palm. My breath hitches.

  His eyes search me – to check if this is okay, I think fleetingly – but he doesn’t look unsure.

  He starts tracing the veins in my wrist with the tip of his middle and index fingers, feather-lightly. I stop breathing.

  He pauses, testing. I don’t pull away.

  His fingers follow the pattern up my arm, into the crease at my elbow. He keeps doing it, back and forth, mapping, leaving a trail of fire.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he repeats.

  I gulp. ‘Sorry for what?’

  Len pushes at the front of his hair, so that it sticks up on one side. ‘I’m sorry I had to figure some stuff out. But you and me …’

  Everything in me clenches like I’m waiting for gunfire.

  ‘If you’re about to say you want to be friends again—’

  ‘Shut up for a second,’ he begs.

  I do.

  ‘I—’ He takes a breath. ‘I’m saying I’m in love with you.’

  (Stop, rewind, replay. There is no way he just said that.)

  ‘I love you,’ he says it again. ‘So bad. God – so bad, Henry.’

  I can’t speak.

  I’m actually speechless.

  He mistakes my silence for trepidation, and ploughs on. ‘I want to do this. If you still do.’

  When I flick my eyes up, he looks like that’s it. Like please.

  I step forward, then I kiss him. And kiss him. Until his face loses its surprise and he kisses back, his body opening up and wrapping around mine.

  Len sighs into my mouth and I swallow it. He grips my shoulders, knotting in the fabric of my shirt. He tries to say something else – I swallow that too.

  I twist my fingers in his hair, because I can. I push him against the wall. He pushes back, neither of us giving in, lips shaping searching finding.

  Len’s hands are everywhere, under my clothes and under my skin and I can’t – won’t – breathe because that would mean letting him go.

  His mouth is so serious on mine too. Heavy with everything we wouldn’t say before. He bites down on my lower lip, and it takes every ounce of my (rapidly dwindling) self-control not to groan.

  Len pulls away first, leaning his head back and breathing hard.

  He’s staring at me. I stare back. His pupils are blown-out, only a rim of grey visible around the black.

  ‘So,’ I say.

  He smiles slightly. I can see where his pulse is hammering at his neck.

  ‘You literally can’t even stay quiet long enough for us to have a moment, can you?’

  I like the way he says ‘us’.

  ‘So …’ he picks up, after a minute. ‘Wow.’

  ‘Oh!’ I realise suddenly. ‘Me too. In case it wasn’t obvious.’

  ‘I did kind of figure.’ His tone is sarcastic, but he’s glowing.

  ‘I love you too.’

  Len lets out a long breath.

  ‘Very bad,’ I say without irony. ‘Even though that’s not technically grammatically correc—’

  He cuts me off with his mouth, dragging me down onto the stairs and holding my face in his hands.

  If he cares that people could come out and find us here, he doesn’t let on. I certainly don’t care – the entire school could be sitting at our feet right now, and I wouldn’t see anything but him. The entire planet. Every twisting and far-flung galaxy, from here to always.

  ‘Well,’ I say later, when I’m pulling him to his feet. ‘I’m glad that’s sorted. Really didn’t take long at all.’

  I thread my fingers through his while he rolls his eyes.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘Everything else, Hamlet.’

  ‘Everything?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Acknowledgements

  The seeds for this book first planted themselves in my mind in 2015, then became corporeal after a cemetery visit in 2018, and were polished into a Proper Thing in 2020 during a worldwide pandemic. My heartfelt thanks to the following people for safeguarding my sanity, and allowing their jokes to be shamelessly mined, over the course of that journey:

  To my wonderful publisher, Clair Hume, whose warmth and love for Henry Hamlet’s Heart shone brightly from her very first read; I’m beyond grateful to have wound up in your hands.

  My brilliant editor, Felicity ‘Speedy’ ‘Stunning’ Dunning – where to begin? Thank you for thoughtful Zoom check-ins, quality Seth Cohen gifs, and completely reading my mind every step of the way when it came to these characters and their story. It is immeasurably better because of you.

  Thank you to the judges in my category of the Queensland Literary Awards for believing in the boys, and in me.

  Parental units, Ben and Michelle – thank you for reading all the books to your (quite) precocious eldest child, and encouraging her to imagine all the stories of her own.

  My beloved sisters: Caits, first and most enthusiastic reader of everything I write – you never doubted we’d one day be here, and therefore we are; and Mia, who grew up funnier than I am and patiently fielded editing questions prefaced with ‘as a #youth, what do you think of …’

  To my loud and hilarious extended family, for their robust support of my big little dreams.

  Thank you to Heather ‘Hector’ ‘The Oracle’ Ovens, who was there for every book phase with texts, love and memes when I needed it most. All the emo Easter eggs in these pages are for you.

  Thanks also to Izzy Harrison, for being a stalwart life and writing champion across ten years and the seas. Told you it could be a name.

  Sophie Morrison, for telling me to fight for this.

  Tom ‘McGraw’ O’Shea, for tangential discussions that made 2020 less of a hellscape: thank you, double also, truly.

  Rachel Partridge, for accidental
ly inspiring bits of Willa and your enduring enthusiasm for both Henry and me, despite that time I quit our shared profession.

  My own ‘Boiyss’ throughout high school, particularly Emilie, Morgan and Ashleigh, without whom 2008 wouldn’t have been the black-mulletted and glorious ride it was – thanks for the (ridiculous) memories.

  Sincere thanks to Will Kostakis for his apt and considered thoughts on an early draft that was, in parts, something of a garbage fire.

  To Jess Cruickshank, for creating the cover of dreams and somehow making it so intrinsically Henry-ish that I cried.

  And to Shannon Molloy, for offering such beautiful words to go on it that I cried again.

  Thank you to the entire UQP team, for all their many and varied efforts in launching my debut into The World.

  To all the students I’ve taught over the years for making me laugh, think and giving me an unshakably high opinion of teenagers (even when they are one hundred per cent eating up the back).

  James, to whom I dedicate this book because he insisted I could do it; thank you for being my heart.

  And to you, dearest reader – thanks so much for picking up my book. And for being you, exactly as you are.

  First published 2021 by University of Queensland Press

  PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia

  uqp.com.au

  reception@uqp.com.au

  Copyright © Rhiannon Wilde 2021

  The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

  This book is copyright. Except for private study, research, criticism or reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.

  Cover design by Jessica Cruickshank

  Author photograph by Jess Kearney

  Typeset in Adobe Garamond 11/15pt by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane

  This manuscript won the 2019 Glendower Award for an Emerging Queensland Writer, which is generously supported by Jenny Summerson. University of Queensland Press (UQP) launched the Emerging Queensland Writer Award in 1999. Presented as part of the Queensland Literary Awards, in partnership with State Library of Queensland, UQP is proud to publish the annual award-winning manuscript, and is committed to building the profile of, and access to, emerging writers in Australia and internationally.

  University of Queensland Press is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

  Excerpts from Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Stephen Mitchell, translation copyright © 1984 by Stephen Mitchell. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia.

  ISBN 978 0 7022 6314 9 (pbk)

  ISBN 978 0 7022 6480 1 (epdf)

  ISBN 978 0 7022 6481 8 (epub)

  ISBN 978 0 7022 6482 5 (kindle)