Cael Gray (winsome_wizard) wrote in valesco,
@ 2011-11-15 03:51:00

Entry tags:

Cecilia
Cael couldn’t remember the last time he wanted a drink so badly. He had been out of the house while he was talking to Cecilia, needing to pull himself away from the blueprints he had been going over just so he could finish the conversation and figure out some sort of excuse to tell his boss so he could get out of work. He wound up going with some bullshit excuse about how he felt like he was getting sick from lunch, and despite the glare of death he got, he packed up his things and headed home.

She was engaged. Her parents had arranged for her to be married, and now she was engaged…

He wound up taking a cab, instead of just apparating, needing time to himself to sort through what he was going to say when he finally got there – when he finally saw her, and the reality of the situation really sunk in.

When the vehicle finally stopped in front of his house, Cael hesitated before finally climbing out of the car, paying the driver, watching him drive off, leaving him standing in the bitter cold autumn weather.

He couldn’t remember the last time he wanted a drink so badly.

Stepping to his front door, he pulled it open, expecting to be greeted by Karma as he usually was when he came home from work. But she never came. His brows stitched together in confusion, but it wasn’t until he hung up his coat and walked upstairs to his room, where Cecilia had been sleeping since a few days after she had arrived, did he understand why the dog hadn’t given him her usual greeting.

Instead, she was seated outside of the closed door, whimpering and nudging her nose against the doorknob. She could sense something was wrong with the girl who was sitting inside. She turned to look at him over her shoulder, and Cael let out a sigh, stepping forward to rub her behind the ears.

“Good girl.”

He spoke quietly to his canine companion, and then finally braved reaching for the doorknob to open the door. Karma trotted in first, lifting her front paws up onto the bed. Cael stepped forward, bringing himself closer to the bed. He didn’t know what to say, so he said the first thing that came to his mind.

“…she’s taken a liking to you.”

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cecilias
2011-11-15 07:29 am UTC (link)

Was it so late already?

That trivial thought was the only thing she could bring herself to worry about as she sensed the man -- her boyfriend? Was he that still, now? -- enter the room and make his way towards her. Curled up with her knees to her chest, Cecilia sat pathetically against the pillows and headboard, staring emptily at the far wall with red-rimmed but dry eyes.

Was it so late already?

She hadn't even made dinner.

Should she make dinner? She was engaged. Maybe she shouldn't. She shouldn't be playing house with another man now.

Next to her foot, her fingers fiddled with the platinum band, flipping it around on the comforter in an idle but nervous manner.

No, he was probably hungry. She should still make him dinner.

Cecilia took a deep breath and her hand closed suddenly around the ring snatching it out of sight as she pushed herself up from her sitting position and set bare feet down on the floor. "I'm sorry!" she chirped, shooting Cael an over-exaggerated smile that seemed to come out of thin air. She could barely stand to look him in the face at the moment, but what else could she do? That was the problem-- she didn't know what to do. "I didn't realize time had flown by so fast. I'm not hungry, but I can throw something together for you if you give me a few minutes!"

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winsome_wizard
2011-11-15 07:50 am UTC (link)

Her sudden apology was not nearly as unexpected as the smile she was wearing when she finally turned to face him. He didn’t know what he was expecting to walk into, but this definitely hadn’t been it – what was she doing? Was she honestly going to try and act like everything was okay, and pretend that her not having dinner put on the table was the biggest concern he had at that moment? Food was the furthest thing from his mind, and he shook his head as he took a few steps closer to the bed.

“No, it’s…fine.” There was a beat of silence before he cleared his throat, attempting to smirk, but what appeared on his features was a pathetic excuse. “I’m not hungry either.” He gnawed at his bottom lip, looking down at his shoes before he let out a long exhale, reaching up to rub at the back of his neck.

“How long have you been in here?”

His eyes lifted to focus on her again, wondering what kind of answer he was hoping for. He’d be wondering where else she had been if she told him that she hadn’t been in his room, on his bed, for very long. It wasn’t even about him not trusting her, that wasn’t the issue at all…it was just knowing that if she wasn’t there, she was probably with her parents…with her new fiancé.

The whole thing made his head hurt, and his chest ache.

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cecilias
2011-11-15 08:14 am UTC (link)

No, avoidance wasn't how she meant to meet this, it was just that she was so lost. If there was a proper response to this sort of situation, Cecilia would have very much liked to know what it was, because at the moment there seemed to be little middle ground between raging about the unfairness and grabbing onto him and bawling her eyes out some more.

She wanted to do neither. She wanted to talk to Cael, have him tell her what to do and make her believe that this wasn't a big deal and everything was okay, but the logical part of her brain told her that wasn't about to happen. He wouldn't tell her what to do because he was too nice of a guy, and he wouldn't tell her it wasn't a big deal, because it was the biggest deal. He might try to tell her everything would be okay, but then she would never believe him--

She was engaged to be married and dating a halfblood and there was no way she could win. No matter where she turned or what she did, she was going to somehow lose. The old feeling of being trapped in a cage that had managed to vanish for the last few months with him had quite suddenly clamped down on her again, and it was maddening.

Cecilia could not believe that things ever just got better. Everything about her life for the past several years had been one disaster after another, and this one was just popping up to prove it to her one more time.

Deflated once again and the fake smile long vanished, she fell back onto the bed and covered her face with her hands, letting the ring fall away... somewhere, she didn't care. "I don't know," she answered honestly. "Since I got back from my parents'. I don't remember when it was. I don't remember when I decided to tell you. Five, six hours?"

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winsome_wizard
2011-11-21 07:21 pm UTC (link)

Cael tried his best to not notice the faint glimmer of the object that had fallen from her hands when she used them to cover her face, knowing what it was, even though he wished more than everything it was just a figment of his imagination. He looked away from her again, staring down at his shoes as she answered his question, eventually lifting his own hands to massage his temples, eventually dragging them down his face before letting them drop limply to his sides. He watched her from where he was standing before letting out another breath, stepping forward to round the bed and take a seat on the mattress near her feet. He was still staring at the floor between his legs, knowing that he should be saying something to try and make all of this better, like he promised he would, but he was still trying to wrap his head around the reality of the situation.

“So…what did they say to you, exactly?”

The question was asked with an air of caution, finally turning to look at her. She looked so empty, like a girl who had lost all hope, and his heart went out to her…but at the same time, he too was hurting, but she definitely got the worse end of the deal. She was going to be forced to marry a man she didn’t even love, didn’t even know, and he was losing a girl he had grown to care deeply about over the course of a few months. Perhaps one day he would be able to move on, and find someone knew – maybe a girl who didn’t have parents who despised him because of his bloodline, but it wouldn’t be the same. She wouldn’t be Cecilia Hooke, and the idea of it all was maddening.

Was everything they had been through for nothing? Did they take so many steps forward just to be pushed back even further back than where they started?

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cecilias
2011-11-22 05:07 am UTC (link)

For some reason, Cael's question came somewhat unexpectedly. It was a logical question to ask, of course, but somehow she didn't think that the terms of the arrangement were something he would want to know. He wasn't exactly getting a good bargain out of all of this either and it seemed to her as if asking a question like that wouldn't be a bit masochistic.

Or maybe it was just that she knew her parents far better than he did. Had it been her, she would not have wanted to know. In fact, she wished she didn't know, just about as much as she wished she didn't have to tell him any of this.

Removing her hands from her face, she laid them one over another atop her stomach and stared up at the ceiling. Cecilia was really sure that if there was anywhere she wanted to be looking when she said all of this, it would not be at his face. "They said there are arrangements in place for a month and a half from now," she began, not having it in her to sound anything more than tired at this point. "They don't trust me to not do something drastic to ruin things, I'm sure, so it makes sense... They want me to move back home until then--I think they suspect that I'm not simply staying with a friend, and.. I don't know." She sighed deeply. "It's a bit of a blur, to be honest."

This was so like them. So dramatic and so drastic. They had probably meant it to be a shock, to hopefully render her useless for what to do until she just took the easier path and gave in. A bitter laugh slipped past her lips and she shook her head, finally turning her eyes towards the man at the end of the bed. "I guess this means they've forced my hand. This is the end," she said. Then, before she could even think it; "I'm just not sure of what."

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winsome_wizard
2011-11-22 06:22 am UTC (link)

Maybe it was masochistic, asking that kind of question, knowing that the answer was going to hurt no matter what answer she gave. Still, maybe it was the Gryffindor in him, but he had always bee the type of person who would rather know what was coming so he could prepare for it, than be left in the dark and caught blindsided. It was just…better, for him to know. Otherwise he’d be going crazy, wondering what arrangements had been made. Wondering how much time he had to try and keep that promise he had made to her.

And then she told him that the wedding was scheduled to take place in a month and a half, and he felt like he just got punched in the gut.

“Christ…”

The word was murmured beneath his breath as he looked away, lifting a hand to rub at the back of his neck, once again staring down at the carpeting beneath his shoes. He felt light headed, like all the blood had rushed from his head. His eyes closed as he tried to find his bearings, only opening them to shoot another look in her direction when she spoke again:

”This is the end,”

He wondered if there would be more to that, or if she was saying what he momentarily assumed she was saying. He didn’t want to assume the worst, but considering what he was being told, but then she finished off her thought with something very unexpected. He swallowed thickly, frozen in place for a while longer before he turned, lifting his leg up onto the bed so that he could face her.

“…I know I’ve asked you this before…but what do you want, Cecilia? Because all I want for you is to be happy…but I know it isn’t as simple as just making one choice over the other. Either way, no matter what you decide to do, you’re going to wind up losing something…and that’s so unfair, but it all comes down to you figuring out what you want. And I'm not just talking about whether or not you want to marry this guy to keep your family ties, or stay here with me, I'm talking about the big picture. I'm asking you what you want for yourself in 10 years...5 years..."

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cecilias
2011-11-22 06:52 am UTC (link)

What did she want?

She knew what she wanted. She wanted to go back in time to two years ago and stop Evan from walking out the door that morning he went off to his death. She wanted to live with him and grow up and marry and have children with him and have her friends and family all there, loving her and living in peace at the end of the war. She wanted everything to be like it was supposed to be, and not this hellish nightmare she seemed to be unable to wake up from.

Everything she wanted was nothing she could have, but there was no second place to fall back on. She had spent so long mapping out her life as it should have been with absolute certainty that this was how things were going to work out, because that's what she had been told all her life. Everything had begun to fall so perfectly into place when her world had come so unexpectedly crashing down around her. It had left her breathless and confused, even now.

Looking at Cael across the bed, she knew she could never explain the true answer to that question. She could never explain to him that she just wanted to be dead, and to be free of the chains of her dead-end dreams that she had been fighting against for so long. He wouldn't, couldn't understand. He was from a different world entirely, where things just weren't done the way they were done in hers. And yet more, Cecilia didn't think she could bring herself to hurt him by telling him that, even when he coaxed a smile or a laugh, such a large part of her was still somewhere miles away with a dead man.

"There's no answer," she settled for, finally cutting through the tense silence. "I don't want anything. I don't remember what having a sustainable happiness is like, so I don't know." Cecilia closed her eyes, feeling a familiar choking sensation in her throat even as no tears came. She imagined she couldn't have much left. "I just want out."

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winsome_wizard
2011-11-28 05:58 am UTC (link)

His eyes searched her face as she answered, that feeling in his chest getting even tighter at the answer she gave. He didn’t know how to help her, and that feeling of uselessness was hard for the Gryffindor to deal with. He just scooted closer to her on the bed. He felt something hard beneath him, causing him to lift up from the bed for a second to grab the small item that he had felt against the back of his thigh. Lifting it up to examine it, the wind was damn near knocked out of him as he took in the size of the diamond ring that was between his fingers. Again, he swallowed thickly, his other hand reaching out to cover hers atop her stomach, turning the one above the other so he was holding it.

“…I don’t want to lose you.”

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cecilias
2011-11-28 06:41 am UTC (link)

In the midst of the silence Cecilia had gotten quite lost in thought, so she was mildly startled when Cael grabbed her hand. The shock, though, came partially from the sensation of his touch itself, and it seemed for a moment as if he was reaching out and personally pulling her out of the maze of self-pity she had made in her head. Her eyes went up to his face and refocused on his features, searching him as he spoke that one heavy sentence, and she felt her heart clench.

"I don't want to lose you, either."

It was absolutely the truth. While she was going to be always tied down to Evan and what she felt had been stolen from her in the past somehow, Cael Gray was the one single person who had been able to make her feel even a semblance of happiness. He was the only one who had managed to make her forget, even fleetingly, about everything terrible that her life had turned into. While she didn't know what that meant, she did know that the idea of never being able to see him again terrified her.

But if she didn't, that was all she would have to comfort her. Her family would be gone. Her money would be gone. Her few friends she had left would be gone, and-- and wouldn't she be disgracing Evan's memory, too? It would have been a lie to say that the idea of an arranged marriage didn't appeal to her in the slightest, just for the security and normalcy it would bring to her life. If she went through with it, everyone would accept her again-- but would she even be giving herself a chance? And would her husband ever make her laugh or smile the way Cael had managed to? Would every touch and look feel acted and meaningless? Would her children be born out of love, or out of empty obligation?

Which of the two was the worse option? If she left her family and this relationship fell through, could she make it on her own? Or would she no more than hate herself for doing what was easy and living a life trapped in a cage as she had been? It was too many questions and uncertainties.

"I think I need to talk to-- my brother." Cecilia didn't remember if she'd told Cael about her family or not, if she had brought up Nick in any conversation. While he was alive, Evan had done his best to help her forget about him and finally stop referring to him as family, so she knew she hadn't made a habit of thinking about him in a very long while.

"If he'll speak to me, I mean. He-- married a Muggle, and so he's... I just don't know if he'll talk to me." She didn't think she had to say much more to give him an idea of why Nick might not be interested in speaking with his former sister.

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