#tw grieving

It's my fault. Isn't it? Andrew would still be alive. Happy and in love. Married to some other woman, perhaps. Making her the luckiest wife in the world. Chatting over breakfast and giggling together as they joke their wake to work. She would get to admire his beautiful eyes and riot of freckles. He would write her terrible poetry.

They would be in love.

Alive... and in love.

But I ruined it. B-because I'm selfish. Right? That has to be it. Surely. It must be! B-because what else could it BE? He was healthy! It happened so fast! And now... now he is... is...

Sobs rip their way out of me, uncaring of the witnesses. My legs buckling under the weight of my grief. Who cares? Who CARES? So what if I kneel in the mud? He's gone! My best friend is gone! And it's all my fault! I deserve this! It should be ME!

I already lived once before. This was always borrowed time anyway. If it had to be one of us? It should have been me!

Someone kneels behind me, a shawl draped over my shoulders. An umbrella brought forward to shelter me from the rain. As though I don't wish to drown. Almost everyone else has left, now. But I can't. I just... I just can't. Leave me. Leave me to my grief!

This world was a Story to me. I escaped it. Selfishly thought there would never be a price for that. That quitely bowing out of my antagonists role to live quitely, humbly, with a good man, would never... would never...!

"Shhhhh....shhhhh.... It's okay. It's over now."

Over? Ha ha. How can it BE OVER‽ He's GONE! Another sobs wrenchs free. They seem unending. But oh, that voice. That cool, smooth, aristocratic voice. How is he even HERE‽ When I fled, I all but cut ties with my past. Traveled nearly two countries away. I am no longer the wretched, trouble-making daughter of a well to due man. The infamous leech, clinging to the grand-dukes unfavored first born son.

I am a bookstore owner's widow. Nothing more, nothing less. No royal dramas. No court intrigues. No otome game paths or thousand characters to remember. Why would he even look for me? How could he possibly have the time? With his brother the favorite to inherit and his father a cold hearted bastard. I was little more then arm candy. Vicious and childish arm candy at that.

Remebering, the person I was, before I remembered? I was a terrible, lonely child. And I took it out on everyone around me. I coveted the stars, because everything inside me felt empty. Because my family was cruel. Because the coin brought treachery and gilded chains.

Because I was terribly broken and hateful about it. Greedy for what I could not have.

I was indulged. Enabled. By this man, most of all. It only made me worse.

Of course I left. It was the only way to heal. To grow. And in the end? It made all the difference. Yet... he is here. How? Why‽ What part of that terrible brat of a child did he come for? That horribly broken thing? Our shared history is a shame to me. And it's not as though we were lovers. For all that the world certainly assumed as much. Did he actually consider us frien-?

"I always promised, I would marry you. When I became Grand Duke. Now we finally can."

The words seem to hang in the air like nooses. Full of unseen bodies that swing and creak, like silent horrors in the day's mild wind. Around us, the world was filled with a terrible hush. Rain muffling everything to distant, dull grey. And for a long moment... everything was cool, quite, and far away.

All at once, the world crashed back in. Like a wave crashing back in, after the tide receding before disaster. A tsunami of tiny things.

We were the last two here, I noticed. My in-laws, the neighbors, our... my social circle. All had left to give me privacy to grieve. The rain was cold. So much colder then it had seemed. I hadn't noticed. The wind whistling eerily through the near silent grave yard. As we kneeled at the foot of my husband's grave, the dark earth muddy. He... was he wearing cologne?

Kneeling in a wide open field... I suddenly felt cornered.

That expression. That... that was not the expression of a man who's feeling sorrow for an old friend. Not distant memories and what could have been's. That... that was hunger. A predator's patience. Was...? No. No, it could not have always been there. Right? I would have...

"You shouldn't kneel in the dirt, love. Not for him. He wasn't worth it." He murmured, soft and sweet as a lover. Eyes almost kind. "I'm here now. Here to make everything better, all right? No more worries. No more struggles. All the riches your heart desired. I got them for you. Isn't that nice? Let's go get you warm, hmm?"

I.. God, I wasn't an idiot.

What Did You DO?

You bastard. What did you do to my HUSBAND?! Ignoring the hand, softly held out, as though he had any fucking right, I grabbed the bastard by the front of his jacket. To shake him? Slam him down to punch until my fists break and bleed? I couldn't tell which impulse was stronger. It was like all my howling grief had turned to RAGE. As though my blood had filled with fire. My bones ropes made of live wires.

He has the audacity to smile. Fondly. Even as my white knuckled grip drags roughly at the fine fabric of his clothes, threatening to tear stitches. As I bear my teeth, unhinged like a mad dog. Wild around the eyes. I drag him closer. The bouquet, now made cruel mockery, that he brought, goes tumbling into the mud. Filth that he is, he sucks in a shuddering breath. Leans towards me.

"Ah, my love, you were always so magnificent in anger. You wear it like a queen."

Whispered towards me. Each word made obscene by the waver in his voice. The way he dares to roll it off his tounge! Another man's wife. You sick bastard, I was ANOTHER MAN'S WIFE! But you couldn't have that, could you‽ The shriek that howls free of me would put hawks to shame. I lunge. Hands clawing as I try to claw his fucking eyes out.

Shameless, he dares to have a laugh that is charming. How utterly practiced it must be! Effortlessly, he keeps my hands from his face, as I curse him. Holding my wrists as I struggle to maim. To avenge. Killer. MONSTER! I struggle to rip my hands free, so I can wrap them around his fucking throat!

The world spins. No longer am I pinning my husband's killer. The grey sky distant witness as I thrash like an animal. I have nothing left. NOTHING! He took everything from me! Andrew. My songbird. My everything! I won't let him get away with it. I WON'T. If it's the LAST THING I FUCKING DO. Screaming, thrashing, I try to get him off me. Clawing at the mud I can feel seeping into my back.

"Look at you... so broken." He said softly, like a confession. With an unholy reverence. "We always were so beautifully matched, weren't we? Two perfect little monsters."

His grip tighten. Painful at last. Bones grinding and bruises starting to bloom.

"But then you tried to run away, darling. Why would you do that? Were you scared? Afraid of loving me too much?" Furious at his audacity, I bucked and writhed. Get off. Get OFF! I'LL KILL YOU! "Shhh shhh shhh, it's okay, it's okay. I forgive you. I forgive you. My wildfire. My bride."

In the distance, the day's storm, long building, finally arrived. Thunder rolled as the rain picked up. The air biting.

"I'll take responsibility, of course. Who else could handle you? Knows you as I do?"