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My left eyebrow rose. “You have an elocution coach?” The very idea was absurd. He spoke so…I didn’t even know the word. Pointed? Careful?
“I had a speech impediment when I was a kid,” he told me. His hand flew to the back of his neck like a nervous habit, and his gaze fell toward his feet like he was afraid to make eyecontact. Shit. It was obvious I’d touched a tender nerve. “It was cute when I was little, but it got less cute the older I got. Speech therapy was…a lot. And then I had a dictation coach, and an accent coach, and elocution coach.” He trailed off with a laugh, but he didn’t sound very amused. “It was like spending nine hours a week telling me what a shitty job I did at speaking. Which was kind of my whole job, so…yeah.” He breathed out, then clapped his hands, making me jump. “Anyway…”
His eyes didn’t quite meet mine when he looked up.
“So, a park,” I said.
“A park,” he repeated. This time, his tone was more sure. “You don’t mind the walk?”
I shook my head.
“Do you prefer someone call it a walk?”
“Let’s go for a roll sounds ridiculous,” I told him. I was grateful he didn’t fumble over his words this time when addressing my chair. I turned and gave my wheels a push. “Lead the way.”
“Uh. Well. It’s in this direction,” he called after me.
I corrected my mistake and caught up to him in three long pushes. The walk was silent most of the way there, but as we approached the roundabout intersection and stopped, I caught him staring at me.
“Ask.”
He flushed. “People stare. A lot.”
“That wasn’t a question.” He wasn’t wrong either.
“Does it feel like you’re on display?”
The crosswalk began to chirp, and I kept my gaze on the lines that crisscrossed over the roundabout. “Yes, but there’s also the whole royal thing. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if they stare more because I’m a prince or because I’m a prince in a wheelchair. I have nothing to compare it to. Before my accident,I spent a lot of years being trained to not notice when I was being watched or photographed or followed.”
“That seems…invasive.”
I couldn’t help a laugh as I rolled up over the curb. I could see the park just ahead. It was small, but there was a paved path that went around the fountain in the center. I understood why he picked it now. I could roll over grass easily, but I appreciated he’d kept me in mind.
That was…something.
“I was born into it.”
“So you just don’t notice?”
“IpretendI don’t notice. I feel it,” I confessed. It was weird to tell him all of this. It was like giving him all of my weak spots, and I didnotlike being vulnerable. Especially with strangers. “I’ve always felt their eyes on me. I used to cry when I was really little. I’d have these huge meltdowns after events. It was all so…overwhelming.”
“And as an adult?”
“Are you asking how I have tantrums now?”
He flushed again and shrugged, looking away as we passed the entrance gates. I immediately noticed a thick smell of blooming wildflowers, which were growing all over. It was wild and incredibly beautiful.
“I don’t think those should be called tantrums. I, uh…I get it, you know. How it feels.”
I was about to tell him to fuck off because how could he, and then I remembered he wasn’t just a child actor but a child star, and yeah, he did get it.
As much as anyone could, I suppose.
“How doyoudeal with it?”
“I used to drink,” he said with a tense laugh. “But being an addict, that’s pretty frowned upon.”
I halted my chair in front of him and spun so he was forced to stop and look at me. “Are you an addict?”