Because I Love You ~

Ch 4 - 3

Olive and Heather moved to a small town in northern Minnesota, far from the city, to become simple farmers. I goaded them about wasted potential (truly, what opulent paupers they were!) but they were content with their humble lifestyle. Heather worked alongside an odd doctor who was oddly fond of puppets; Olive tinkered with contraptions and renovated the building systems of the town. At first, I visited often. It was a much nicer place than I had expected, quaint and lively, pleasant save for the consistent mat of overcast clouds.

Our trio drifted away as the company grew. In the sullen grips of loneliness, I wallowed in work and drowned in vast pools of expectations littered with coffee. Thinking of rejoining my friends upon retirement, I carelessly bought a mansion on the northern part of that village, stricken by the grandeur of the backyard (a prominent promontory jutting between two vast mountains) but forgetting it in the face of work's endless stream of interruptions.

Three years passed like this. My little dinghy had become a grandiose Titanic, expressing the greatest regalities as I bobbed back and forth through the endless seas of despair. The company had bloomed spectacularly and my every material greed was catered to, but I felt more impoverished than ever. Memories of late-night experiments with Olive and careless strolls with Heather would enrapture me, leaving me sickly and pained. Lost in a swarm of meetings, interviews, and the like, I hadn't spoken to them for years and was beginning to expect never to again. Sometime in the depth of my menial self-imposed torture, a pretty blue envelope showed up at my door. It was a wedding invitation. The two of them looked so picturesque in the frame, so whole without me, that the thought of skipping the wedding gnawed within. A bitter laugh was all I could express. To what depths had I fallen?

I attended the wedding as the best man, greeted like family and showered with hugs. They held the ceremony in their new home of Akrasia along the shores of the northern boundary; it was extravagantly simple, the decorations plain yet pretty, the venue brusque but decadent. I caught myself staring forlornly at my dream woman displayed in a veiled pedestal just an arm's reach away, poised elegantly and gracefully, the crest of her bosom rising rhythmically with deep breaths. A flood of emotions consumed me at that point: a bitter, wrathful jealousy; an awful, wonderful flush; a proud, pained reluctance. She appeared differently in the bright sunlight than she did in the deep crevices of my mind, gleaming with bodice exposed and willingly succumbing to every lascivious fantasy imaginable. I chided myself bitterly for my lack of restraint. Had I not gained prosperity above all? Fame and riches? What good could have possibly resulted from loving a precocious peasant who cannot even fulfill her own worth?

But I knew I was lying to myself. If I went back, I wouldn't hesitate for a split second. For her, I would have given up anything.

Before I knew it, the wedding had finished and the parties had ceased. Soon, all that remained were the tattered decorations strewn across the altar, a strenuous litter of drunken derelicts, and my old friends, buried in my arms as I cheered congratulatory phrases, cheerful at the rebirth of our trio. Heather's voice is as sweet and tender as I remember, startlingly similar to the one that had resided in my mind, a playful plague I looked forward to as crepuscular skies surrounded. A brief notion shot through my head: as long as a Heather lived within my head, I would never be alone. She could always be by my side. Even for just the few hours of recumbency each day, Heather could be mine and mine alone.

My fears, albeit justified, were immediately quashed by irrefutable reason; why would I fear Heather's disappearance from my life when she stood so close to me? Did I really fear loneliness so much? A little voice told me that I didn't. Or maybe, I thought as the glittering amber eyes catch mine under the muted haze of the silken veil, my feelings had never been simply lust but something deeper instead.