Chapter Three: King for a Day

The heart is the best teacher.

Its lessons can be hopeful, messy, clear, and occasionally so painful you’re sure it will stop beating altogether.

This wasn’t my Great Love. That comes later. This was my first real heartbreak — the moment my sense of self cracked for the first time, and something wild and still-alive slipped through the fracture.

The first of those lessons happened with a man I’ll call Steady But Reserved. We met after I’d been seeking solace from heartbreak born of betrayal in a verdant beer garden in Islington. That day marked the beginning of a three year arc that I thought would last for a lifetime. The white-picket-fence kind.

I’d bought a house for us, in a quiet suburb outside London called Berkhamsted. It was beautiful — absolutely idyllic. I could picture myself there: planting flowers in the garden, walking along the canal, stopping by the pub, getting a dog, growing old with him. I wanted a simple life. And for a while, I thought that’s what I was getting.

But life rarely follows our blueprints. One day, he and I had a conversation that, in hindsight, I should have seen coming. The gist of the message was simple — and devastating: 

“I don’t really find you attractive anymore.”

Something in me cracked. We rarely fought; things felt simple. I mistook lack of conflict to mean things were strong. But then the bottom fell out of everything—the relationship, my life, my heart. 

Heartbreak — especially the kind that makes you question your basic human worth — leaves you strange. After mine, I stopped making plans. I just said yes — to everything.

One of the people who refused to let me disappear during that time was my friend from a London queer chorus — my Fairy Drag Mother. She was all lights and wisdom, a force of nature wrapped in eyeliner, and she had made it her personal mission to reintroduce me to joy. When she texted, “Brighton Pride. It’s Britney Spears. We’re going — and no, that’s not a question,” I knew better than to argue.

That day, the sky blazed. Sixty thousand people filled Preston Park, sequins winking like tiny mirrors. The air smelled of beer, sunscreen, and something that felt like hope. I remember thinking: Maybe if I stand in enough light, some of it will stick.

We wandered through tents until the heat forced us to collapse onto a patch of grass near a circle of strangers, trading jokes and paper fans. And that’s when I saw him. Prince Charming. That’s what I’ll call him, because for one glorious day he was exactly that — handsome, mischievous, radiant in the way people are when they don’t know they’re saving someone. He isn’t the love story in this book — he’s the spark. He was the mirror that showed me I could still feel alive.

He turned to speak to me and I can’t even remember what he said — I was so starstruck that all thought evaporated. He asked to borrow the rainbow face-paint marker my friend was using, and when I handed it over, he grinned — the easy, confident grin of someone who’s never doubted they belong. For the first time in months, I felt curiosity instead of grief.

He joined our circle, and conversation bloomed as if it had been waiting for us. He told me it was his first Pride, that he worked in PR, that he’d never seen so many people this happy at once. I told him I’d been through some things — that I was still learning how to be someone new. He smiled. “Well, today you’re whoever you want to be.” I didn’t know yet how true that would become.

We drifted from tent to tent, the park pulsing with anticipation. Somewhere in the distance, Britney Spears was scheduled to appear, and the whole city felt like it was holding its breath. Then my friend asked Prince Charming for a bit of what he had. He handed over a small capsule, cheerful and careless. She pressed it into my palm and said, “Take it,” in a tone that wasn’t up for debate.

I hesitated. I’d drawn hard lines my whole life — no drugs, no risks, no chaos. But heartbreak had already burned those rules down. I had reached a nadir I didn’t know how to climb out of. Before that day, I wasn’t sure there would even be a tomorrow. What had gotten me this far — materially successful, but emotionally hollow — clearly wasn’t the way forward. So I decided to do something different.

Standing there, with the sun melting into music and my heart cracked open just wide enough for light to enter, I thought: Maybe this is what saying yes is for. So I did.

This isn’t an advert for chemicals; it’s an admission. I needed a door. That day, this was the one I found.

At first, nothing. Prince Charming kept glancing over, teasing: “Feel it yet?” I didn’t. Sitting cross-legged on the grass, I half-convinced myself I’d swallowed powdered nonsense. Then Fairy Drag Mother announced she wanted another drink, and I volunteered — anything to move, to do something besides wait.

So I wandered toward the drink stand, weaving through a sea of sequins and laughter. That’s when it began. A slow warmth spread through my chest like sunlight filling a glass. The air itself shimmered. Every sound — laughter, music, footsteps — suddenly had depth. Colours sharpened. The world began to breathe. And I thought: Oh. So this is what being alive actually feels like.

I laughed quietly to myself in the queue, caught between awe and disbelief. The line crawled forward, but time had stopped meaning anything. Every person, every note of music, every scent of cider and grass felt part of one vast, benevolent rhythm.

By the time I made it back with the drinks, I was smiling so hard my cheeks ached. Fairy Drag Mother raised an eyebrow. “Oh, it’s definitely hit,” she cackled. Then she leaned closer and whispered something that sliced through the high: “By the way — your Prince Charming? He’s got a boyfriend. That one —” she nodded toward the man sitting two people down, watching him dance, “— that’s him.”

It felt like a record scratch inside my chest. The boyfriend had been there the whole time. Somehow I hadn’t noticed. Suddenly, all the flirting, all the warmth — it was complicated now. Part of me wanted to vanish. Another part — the one that had finally woken up — refused to hide again. So I stayed without pursuing—just to exist in the moment. Not to chase. Not to flee. 

The music shifted, rippling through the crowd. Britney was coming. The field surged forward. Ecstasy pulsed through my veins like starlight. Prince Charming found me again, smiling that same reckless, dazzling smile that made the world go soft around the edges.

Then she appeared — Britney Spears, sequined and radiant, gloriously unpredictable. She waved, paused, and said, “Hello…” then turned to her dancers and whispered, “Where are we again?” They shouted, “Brighton!” She beamed. “Hello, Brighton!” The crowd erupted.

“I can’t see anything!” I shouted. Prince Charming turned. “Don’t worry. I’ve got you.” And before I could react, he lifted me up onto his shoulders. The field exploded into light. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t small or unseen. I was visible — above the crowd, the bass in my bones, his hands steadying me. I felt untouchable — free and connected all at once.

Britney shouted, “Are you ready?” Sixty thousand voices answered yes. That was the moment the world opened — heartbreak and healing, joy and ache, all braided into one dizzying blur. The kind of moment that makes you believe in magic again.

⸻

When the lights dimmed after Britney’s final bow, the spell didn’t break — it just shifted hue. The crowd shimmered with afterglow, dazed and laughing. Prince Charming and his boyfriend spoke quietly nearby; Fairy Drag Mother fanned herself dramatically and declared she needed both a cigarette and an exorcism.

We laughed, but beneath it I could feel the change. The high was still alive in my chest, but now it carried edges — the bittersweet kind. Prince Charming caught my eye and smiled again — that same dangerous, effortless smile. He didn’t seem guilty — just untethered. Maybe that’s what drew me to him — we were both drifting, two comets brushing too close.

I’d already offered them a place to stay that night, back before I knew. It had felt like kindness — Brighton hotels were impossible during Pride, trains back to London were worse. So there we were: four near-strangers loosely orbiting one another, the night still humming.

“Let’s keep dancing,” he said. And because my body was still full of electricity, I said yes.

We went to Horse Meat Disco — Brighton’s temple of queer joy, chaos, and bad decisions. It was everything the name promised: dark, humid, pulsing. The air thick with cologne, poppers, and cheap gin. At first, everything felt golden again. We danced, lost each other, found each other.

But then the energy began to twist. Prince Charming danced with everyone — men, women, anyone who glowed like freedom — and I could see his boyfriend folding in on himself, trying to smile through it. Fairy Drag Mother caught my eye across the floor and mouthed, This is not good. It wasn’t jealousy I felt; it was empathy. His boyfriend looked like someone trying to hold back a dam with their hands.

And then, as if the Shimmer itself decided to intervene, Prince Charming found a new dance partner — a tall, silver-fox type with calm eyes and an easy smile. That was him. My next chapter, standing right there, perfectly out of place and exactly where he needed to be.

Fairy Drag Mother appeared at my side, still fanning. “We need to de-escalate this situation.”

“How?”

“Simple. You’re the distraction. Go talk to the new guy.”

“Are you kidding? I’m terrible at that.”

She rolled her eyes, grabbed my wrist, and marched me straight toward him. “It’s showtime,” she said, and shoved me forward.

And that’s how I met my Good On Paper — in the middle of a disco rescue mission. I introduced myself, and within seconds the chaos softened. He was calm in a way that made me calm. We talked about nothing — the absurdity of the day, the night, how Britney had all the gays in a trance despite clearly not knowing where she was. He admitted he’d actually skipped her set on purpose. I laughed, half in disbelief, wondering how anyone could resist that tidal wave of glitter and nostalgia. He told me he was a chemistry teacher from Devon. It felt poetic — chemistry had, indeed, begun.

We exchanged numbers. I couldn’t believe my luck. I’d started my day feeling invisible, and now I felt like the source of all light. When the night finally wound down, the four of us stumbled back to the hotel — a sleep-deprived jigsaw of limbs and laughter. Somehow, despite the mess of it all, there was tenderness in that exhaustion.

⸻

The next morning, as the train pulled away, I watched Brighton shrink through the window — the sea flashing silver in the distance — and realised something simple but enormous: that day had been a mirror. Prince Charming showed me I could still be desired. His boyfriend reminded me that boundaries matter. Good On Paper — calm, steady, unexpected — showed up right as my heart started to defrost. And I, somewhere between ecstasy and comedown, remembered who I was when I wasn’t protecting myself.

Sometimes life rearranges itself in one single day — heartbreak, euphoria, moral ambiguity, and serendipity — and calls it a lesson. That day in Brighton was mine. It was chaos wrapped in sunlight, heartbreak wrapped in laughter. It was the first time I believed again that life — messy, unfair, dazzling — was still worth saying yes to.

Because maybe we all get to be king for a day, just once — and if we’re lucky, that’s enough to make us brave for the rest of our lives.

Brighton didn’t fix me; it reminded me I was fixable. The numbness had cracked. The silence had broken. What came next wasn’t about parties or people — it was about learning what that yes actually meant.

Sometimes awakening isn’t a thunderclap. Sometimes it’s a slow rebuild — breath by breath, muscle by muscle — until the body remembers how to trust again. Mine remembered through motion.