BEAUTIFUL FLOWER | MATTHEO RIDDLE

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

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I like to sit and think about where I am, wherever I am. I'll pause, and I'll take a forced moment of my own time to look around me; I'll look at the people, the birds, if I'm outside; I'll take in the smell of the atmosphere. I'll make note of how alive it feels to be in such an environment, or I'll try and accept how small the entire aura of it all makes me quiver. This thing that I do, this dull-witted thing, is what helps me to remember that the soul which inhabits my very body, belongs to a beating heart.

        It is two entirely different things to feel alive and to be alive. For feeling alive is perhaps one of the most gratifying assurances that comes with the beauty of life, and the honorability of those that have been blessed with the truest representations of themselves indulge in it. And simply are there those who wish nothing more than to crawl out of their own skin, fleeing from what they fear they are going to become, or for others, the mindless animosity of what they fear they won't.

How I miss the feeling of being alive.

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MATTHEO

        "Why must it be tonight? Surely you can wait."

        "No, my son, I cannot. Everything is set, what is planned to happen will happen, and it will happen tonight."

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CALANTHA

        I could feel it, something was wrong. My intuition was telling me something, but I didn't know what; I couldn't put my finger on it. I got this feeling, of course this wasn't the first time, but it wasn't often. Though, when it was I made sure to be extremely careful with everything I did. Last time I got this feeling, only moments later was I being escorted home, only to be told of the loss of my mother.

Still, I hadn't gone to classes, I very rarely left my room, only because I didn't need to. Kassandra and I still weren't talking and I told myself it would have to be her that apologizes first. She was in the wrong, and I know that.

Draco, still unheard from, was keeping me looking behind my shoulder every few minutes or so, holding onto the hope that he'd walk through the door so that I could be reassured of his safety. All I wanted to do was hug him.

Mattheo was gone again. He said he'd be back later on in the night, that he needed to visit a sick family member, but I knew all too well that it was a lie. The small twitch at the corner of his mouth gave him away, perhaps, that was his only weakness.

While he was away, I took time to myself, sitting in my room, sometimes in the library.

Epiphany was almost unseen around the corridors, and I'd suspected she'd finally found some friends, or I hoped she did.

        Everyone was vacant. Very rarely when I'd poke my head outside of my door and peer around the hallway would I see a busy common room--it was almost always empty now. The corridors were silent, the quietest that they had been for centuries, or so I assumed. Even my dorm, which I occupied usually alone, seeing as Kassandra was staying with Niccolo and Mattheo continuously left to visit his sick relative, was boring me.

        But I'd taken the time to think, or to try and wrap my head around everything that was going on. There were so many things that I'd pushed aside, and all of them were now coming back to me. I was forcing myself to withstand the entirety of it all, no matter how much I tried to bargain with the small voice in my head, telling me to keep going, to accept it all and to learn how to deal with it, it wouldn't go away.

        The acute jingling of my doorknob grazed my attention, I turned my head toward the door to see Mattheo graciously barge in, completely unfazed by my surprised reaction, and shut the door behind him, walking past me.