Waiting for Prince Harry

by Aven Ellis

  Harrison puts me down and cups my face in his hands. “I can’t wait for that either. But we do have a dilemma to face now.”

  “What?” I ask, resting my hands on his chest.

  “Training camp starts September 15. So we have to work really hard to finish the main house before I leave.”

  I juggle the tray of ridiculous Starbucks orders as I walk to Boutique Dallas on this hot September day. I grimace. Harrison is with the rest of the Dallas Demons, constructing a playground for underprivileged children this morning, and I know they must be trying to get everything done before the heat is unbearable.

  And then, within two days, he’ll be leaving for training camp in Vail.

  I can’t believe how much we have accomplished with the house in the past few weeks. Appliances are being moved into the kitchen this week, and the dream culled from my folders will be complete. So will the rest of the house—freshly painted, new fixtures, new floors and tiles . . . I swear I’ve never worked so hard in all my life.

  Nor have I enjoyed anything more, or had such a sense of ownership and accomplishment as I do now.

  I enter the store, and I see Mona and Laurel at the front counter, staring down at Laurel’s iPad. They look up and see me, and both of them have odd expressions on their faces.

  I furrow my brow. Okay, why are they looking at me like that?

  “Kylie, I need to talk to you,” Laurel says urgently.

  “Okay,” I say, concerned. “Is something wrong?”

  Laurel swallows. “You need to be aware of something.”

  My heart freezes in my chest. “What’s going on?” The last time people acted like this at work Harrison was missing. Oh, God. Has another accident happened? On the playground? I feel panic sweep through me. “Has something happened to Harrison?”

  Mona walks over and takes the tray from my hands. I notice Bradley and Alyssa are watching us, too.

  “Kylie,” Laurel says slowly, “I know you have removed yourself from social media.”

  I nod. “Yes, I don’t need to see what people are saying about me or Harrison.”

  “I think there’s something you do need to see,” Laurel says slowly, picking up her iPad.

  My stomach begins to churn. Oh God. She’s about to show me something awful. I can feel it in every fiber of my being.

  “Kylie, you know I tweet the things that Harrison has bought from our store,” Laurel says softly. “And I like to see our reach, so sometimes I’ll do a #HarrisonFlynn search to see what random people are saying. And I stumbled on this.”

  Laurel turns the iPad toward me. I glance down at the Twitter feed, which has a video of me and Harrison kissing in his swimming pool. A video!

  I gasp for air as a wave of nausea washes over me. I stare at the video, in shock. Then I force myself to read the tweet:

  Watching #HarrisonFlynn make out with his girlfriend. Again. #Exhibitionists.

  “Oh my God!” I cry, tears of humiliation filling my eyes. “His neighbor . . . His neighbor has been recording us?”

  I turn to my coworkers, who all look back at me with nothing but pity in their eyes.

  Then I realize we have been in that house a month and a half now.

  “How . . . how many of these tweets are there?” I whisper.

  Laurel bites her lip, hesitating before answering me.

  “You don’t want to know, Kylie,” she says quietly. “You don’t want to know.”

  Chapter 27

  The Pop Quiz Question: You and your man are about to face your first true crisis together. How do you cope?

  A) It’s hard to face a crisis when you are nothing more than hookup buddies.

  B) I see it as a test of how we are compatible . . . or not.

  C) Of course we’ll cope. Love can see us through anything . . .

  I run to the restroom and lock the door behind me. I can hear Laurel and Bradley calling my name, but I don’t care. I sling my tote and purse on the floor and scramble to get to the toilet. I kneel down in front of it, grab my hair with a shaking hand to hold it back, and immediately throw up.

  Oh God. Oh God. This isn’t happening. Please let this be a dream. Please. That video . . . those tweets . . . for the entire world to see . . .

  I push myself back and stand up on shaking legs. I flush the toilet, wash my hands, and then splash cold water on my face. I can barely see the mirror through my tears. I’ve never felt so violated and exposed in all my life. My most private moments—my most sacred times—splashed all over social media? It is so horrifying I can barely wrap my head around it.

  I collapse against the door, sliding down to the cold tiled floor. I fumble for my phone and call Harrison. I get his voicemail, as I know he’s working outside on the community playground, and the second I hear his voicemail greeting, I burst into tears.

  “H . . . Harrison,” I sob after the beep, “. . . the . . . the . . . nei . . . neighbor has b-b-been posting videos of us,” I cry. “Private things. They are all over Twitter!” Now I’m really sobbing and no more words can get out. I end the call and throw the phone back into my bag.

  “Kylie!” Alyssa shouts, pounding on the door. “Kylie, please come out. Please. We all want to help you. Please.”

  I don’t answer. Nobody can help me. My private life has been splashed all over the Internet. There’s no going back. I’m humiliated and ashamed. I want to curl into a ball and disappear. How can I go out now, with the world having seen God-knows-what?

  I bury my face in my hands, my sobs racking my body so hard I can’t breathe.

  Alyssa tries a few more times, then Bradley speaks to me, but I don’t answer either of them. Finally they give up and leave me alone.

  I sob until I can’t cry anymore. I get up, grab some Kleenex, blow my nose and toss the crumpled paper into the trash.

  I know I can no longer live in ignorance of what’s going on social media sites. Harrison fought me every step of the way on this, overprotecting me, and look what happened. My reputation has been destroyed, and this is just one tiny fraction of it.

  So with a shaking hand, I fish out my iPad and log on to the Internet.

  “Kylie!” I hear Harrison pound his hand against my apartment door. “Kylie!”

  Gretchen leaves my side to go let Harrison in. I’ve been curled up in a ball on the sofa ever since Gretchen came and brought me home from Boutique Dallas. Harrison has been calling, then Brandon, leaving me message after message that they are getting this all sorted out and the neighbor taken care of.

  But I couldn’t talk to anybody.

  Not after what I have read about myself today.

  So Gretchen called both of them, relaying updates, and trying her best to make me believe that this was not the end of the world, people will barely remember it. I’m not famous so this, too, shall pass.

  If only I could believe that.

  As soon as the door is opened, Harrison sprints to my side.

  I push myself up to a sitting position, and Harrison immediately takes me into his strong arms, holding me tighter than he ever has before.

  “I’m so sorry, Kylie,” Harrison murmurs, his voice thick with emotion. “I’m so, so sorry. I’m taking care of everything. I promise you I am.”

  I push myself away from him. “How can you?” I blurt out. “How can you fix this? My privacy has been violated in social media. You can’t fix this, you can’t!”

  “Um, I’m going out,” Gretchen says quietly, picking up her purse. Then she quickly leaves the apartment, shutting the door behind her.

  I see nothing but panic on Harrison’s face.

  “Kylie,” Harrison says, his voice taking on a desperate edge as he puts his hands on my face, “I’ve been working with Brandon and the police. It was t
he neighbor’s seventeen-year-old daughter. She was doing this because it made her feel important, to have info others didn’t have and get followers by tweeting about me. Everything has been removed. It’s all gone. And Brandon made it very clear what would happen if anything remotely close to a mention of my name comes about again. She apologized profusely, and her parents are mortified. Trust me, she won’t be spying on us ever again.”

  Suddenly two months of frustration and anger about being in the spotlight come raging to the surface. And for once in my life, I can’t physically hold it in.

  I leap off the couch and whirl around to face him.

  “Do you think she’s the only one?” I scream, tears streaming down my face. “I went online, Harrison. Do you know what people are saying about me? Do you have any idea? Well, I’ll tell you. I’m one of the lowest-ranked girlfriends on a ‘Rate The Athlete’s Girlfriend’ site. I got a C because my boobs are too small. Do you have any idea how this feels? Do you? I feel like I’ll never, ever, be good enough for you!”

  Harrison’s eyes are wide. He looks as though I have hauled off and slapped him across the face.

  “You . . . you went on the Internet?” he asks quietly.

  “Of course I did!” I scream at him. “You’ve tried to protect me, but you can’t. You can’t! And the Flynnbabes think I’m not worthy of you, by the way. On the Rank the Girlfriend board they’re amazed because your previous girlfriends are way hotter than I am. And the most painful one—that you’re ready to settle down so that is why you have gone with someone as boring as me.”

  Harrison turns away from me for a second. Then he looks back at me, a pleading expression in his eyes.

  “This,” he says slowly, “is exactly why I told you to stay away from it. Because of utter bullshit written by people hiding behind their fucking keyboards.” Harrison closes the gap between us, putting his hands on my arms. “None of that is true. And none of it matters, Kylie. None of it.”

  “It does!” I cry, jerking away from him. “Do you know how violated I feel right now? Do you know how badly I hate that if we go out women are asking you to sign their chests? That I feel uncomfortable with the paparazzi stalking me at work and shoving cameras in my face? It’s horrible, and I hate it!”

  Harrison stands very still, almost as if the wind has gone out of him. He exhales, absorbing my words as if he was absorbing a punch. “So . . . how long have you been feeling this way, Kylie? How long have you been lying to me?”

  “I didn’t lie,” I sob. “I never wanted to bother you with it. I always thought I’d bring it up later, when—”

  “Bullshit!” Harrison yells, his temper exploding. “You were never going to tell me how you felt, even though I fucking begged you to! You just didn’t want to deal with an uncomfortable conversation!”

  “What? No, I just didn’t want to upset you—”

  “Not true,” Harrison interrupts angrily. “You run from confrontation. You have your whole life. You ran from the Parsons fight with your parents. You run from Mona and Laurel at work. And now you just ran from me. That’s why you turn to the future. That’s why every plan in your folder, every uncomfortable thing you face, you simply shove in a drawer and say, ‘Later!’ Either because you’re afraid of standing up for yourself or afraid you’re going to fail. Well, we are dealing with this right now. I live in the now. And if you’re going to be with me, you have to as well.”

  “What about you, Harrison?” I cry angrily. “You’re so afraid of the future that you can only deal with the now!”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Is it?” I challenge. “You’re terrified about your life after hockey. That’s why this labor issue freaked you out. You’re afraid of taking steps for your post-hockey life. You could go to college. But you’re afraid to.”

  “Not true,” Harrison says, his voice shaking.

  “It is,” I cry, the tears continuing to fall. “You’re brilliant. You could easily go to college and become a psychologist. Or you could be a life coach for young athletes. But you’re too scared to deal with your future to even see it.”

  An awful silence falls between us. I feel nothing but tension and hurt and I don’t know where we even go from here.

  “I think,” Harrison finally says, his voice shaking, “you need to decide if you want to be with me, Kylie.”

  I gasp aloud. “W-what?”

  “You need to decide if you want to be with me, and all the crap that comes along with being with me. That I’ll never have a college degree. That I’ll be photographed and approached for autographs when we go out. And you’ll be discussed on Twitter and forums because of me. Personally, I don’t give a fuck about what anyone says about me online, Kylie. You just need to decide if you can do the same.”

  “Are you seriously suggesting that I don’t want to be with you?” I cry, incredulous.

  “Yes, I am,” Harrison says. “I chose you, Kylie. You, just the way you are. But if you can’t believe that, I don’t know how we have a future.”

  “A future? Maybe you need to think carefully about that word,” I say, my words barely coming out over the lump in my throat. “Because how can we have one if you can’t even face it? And, Harrison, I do choose you, just the way you are. But I can’t help you if you believe having a degree matters to me when it doesn’t. It matters to you, Harrison, not me. But you can’t face that, so it is easier to make this my issue when in reality it’s yours.”

  Harrison draws a sharp breath of air and I know my words have hurt him.

  We don’t speak. I ache to throw myself into his arms and just say none of this matters.

  But it does.

  Harrison clears his throat. “I’ll be in Vail for the next two weeks,” he says softly, so softly I can barely hear him. “We should take that time to decide if we are meant to be together, Kylie.”

  His words shatter my heart. I can’t even reply. Tears fall down my cheeks, and I watch as Harrison swallows hard.

  “I’ll let you know when I’m back,” he says.

  Oh God. He doesn’t even want to speak to me for the next two weeks? Is he seriously going to consider if he wants to break up with me? Panic surges through me. I’m about to tell him we just need to take a moment to think, but Harrison turns around and goes out the door, shutting it behind him.

  Chapter 28

  The Pop Quiz Question: You and your man have just had an awful fight—one that could end the relationship. What do you do?

  A) Good Riddance. I didn’t like him that much anyway.

  B) Think about the fight and see if this is a relationship worth saving.

  C) It’s time to look in the mirror and hear what he is saying, and for him to do the same. But ending this relationship is not an option. He’s my true love. And he always will be.

  I cry until I’m physically incapable of shedding another single tear. I’m curled up on the floor in the living room, and I feel exhausted and heartbroken.

  I sit up and draw my knees to my chest. I close my eyes and think about everything that has happened today. From the awful discovery of the humiliating tweets to the forums to this horrible, gut-wrenching fight with Harrison.

  And it’s time for me to think about what he said.

  I hear his voice in my head, accusing me of using the future as my protection from confrontation and failure.

  He’s right, I think slowly. Harrison is right.

  I think about my past and how I fell into this pattern early on. Afraid of upsetting people. Afraid of disappointing them. Afraid of being yelled at. Afraid of not being good enough . . .

  And what has this practice done for me? Yes, it has spared me confrontation, disappointing people, and failure.

  But it has cost me so much more.

  It has cost me t
he opportunity to attend Parsons and follow my dream of becoming a designer.

  It cost me the opportunity to try my hand at creating my own business.

  It has cost me the ability to implement my own displays at work and have them shine as I intended, with no modifications.

  But most of all, it might have cost me the love of my life.

  I jump up and begin to pace. I think about the things that come along with dating Harrison—the intrusions with the public, the lack of privacy, the picture taking, the online gossip.

  Obviously I don’t like any of that. I hate it.

  But standing here right now, with Harrison thinking God knows what back home—it seems like a very small price to pay to be with the man that has changed my life. I know, without a doubt, I would deal with all of that every day for the rest of my life if Harrison would be a part of it.

  If I would have dealt with Harrison head on about it, he could have helped me cope with the intrusions. He would’ve been by my side, supporting me, coaching me through this new world I live in.

  Just like he always does.

  He’s right, I think, my mind racing. It doesn’t matter what people say. What matters is what we have. And that is real. He is my soul mate.

  A weird feeling sweeps through me. Suddenly I feel inspired. I feel free. I now realize holding everything in has done nothing but hold me back.

  Sometimes you have to have courage. Sometimes you have to take a chance. You have to live in the now, not the future.

  I don’t know what Harrison is thinking right now. But I know I have two weeks to become the person I’m destined to be. Not because Harrison demands it, but rather because I’m ready to have that life.