Expectations (wlw)

Epilogue

The grass was wet with morning dew, but I was wearing dark trousers so I didn’t care as I sat there on the ground next to my parents’ grave.

December brought cold winds and I was grateful for the jacket I had over my shoulders. If I touched the marble, it would feel like the cold stone that it always felt like. I laid a hand against the rock nonetheless.

My eighteenth birthday was months ago, and it brought me incredible peace. I never heard from Aunt and Uncle since, and I never will have to ever again.

In the distance behind me, I heard footsteps. I knew who they belonged to.

The night after the Founder’s Ball--well, after I had left the Founder’s Ball in a heartbroken rush--Fairul chased after me. But she couldn’t outrun a car--whose driver I begged to drive, just fucking drive--or a plane, for that matter.

I had headed back home that same night, overwhelmed. Henry had been surprised, which was an understatement. I knew, as I collapsed into my childhood bed--having torn off all of my clothes--that I would regret running away.

I’d come so far by then. I had reclaimed my home, had set the gears to take back control of my life in motion. I supposed that things were going too well or something stupid like that. Old habits die hard.

Perhaps it was my saving grace that Fairul was equally as stubborn.

The morning after, I had woken up to faint screaming from outside my window. After dragging myself out of bed and slipping into a robe, I went to take a look.

Fairul was outside--outside my house--screaming vaguely at the walls. When she saw me, peeking out of my window, she doubled her efforts.

“You,” she had yelled. “How dare you leave me like that!”

I slept horribly and thus had a pounding headache. At this point I thought I was dreaming.

“If you didn’t want me, if you didn’t want to accept my offer, then why did you kiss me?” Fairul had shouted up at me, I think I had my hands over my face.

Henry was there too, I noticed late, standing beside her just wringing his hands and looking the most concerned I’ve ever seen him.

“You are making a scene,” I had hissed, as loud as my headache would let me.

“There’s no one here!” Her voice dropped to normal volume as she turned to Henry. “Except you, sir.”

I had her brought up to my room so we could talk. She waited as I went to soak in a bath where I certainly did not attempt to drown myself. When I emerged into the room, still dressed in a robe, Fairul and I agreed to delay the talking to make time for other things.

Anyway.

I wondered how she got past my gates. Henry would later tell me that he recognized the hair and the eyes both, and that she was offered a room, but Fairul had declined in favor of yelling all the rooms of my house, because surely I had to be in at least one of them.

She had been determined to follow me, her flight only hours behind mine on account of her parents trying to convince her to sleep on it. She hadn’t.

So she fell soundly asleep in my bed, just a little while after she had me pinned down against it, whispering her name.

I had held her, then. Had looked at that face at rest and had known I wanted to see it--and see it in joy, in anger, in mirth, in grief, and in every possible human emotion--for the rest of my days.

So when she woke up, I told her.

Presently, Fairul had reached me where I sat on the grass. She had cut her hair some time ago. It had begun to grow again, and now locks of dark hair fluttered in the breeze.

I threw my jacket on the ground for her. She was in a navy blue dress, and her skirts fell midway her thighs as she sat cross-legged beside me.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you in this before.”

“You haven’t. This thing was rotting in the back of my closet so I might as well wear it before it disintegrates. And I thought you might like to see me in it.”

I did, and I told her, and she put my hands in her hair and kissed me. Her hair was soft as I ran my fingers across her scalp and then she opened her mouth and one of my hands fell to her thigh and--

“Really, Samantha, in front of your parents?” She gasped as she said it.

I laughed and fell to her and we tumbled onto the grass, arms around each other. “This was all we did last December.”

She grimaced. “We had to clean up tinsel. And there was The Mess.”

“And The Mess, yes.” I nodded. “Remember when I told you I loved you, and you screamed?”

She put a hand over my face. “You are grossly misrepresenting the situation.”

But she held me tighter and whispered to the skin where the column of my neck met the angle of my jaw. “I didn’t think this could be real, that I could have you.”

“Likewise, darling.” She smiled at me in earnest.

Fairul straightened to a sitting position and laid a hand on the marble. “Speaking of which, I actually came out here to talk to your parents about it.”

“About what?”

“About having you, of course. I want them to hear it from me first, that I’ll marry you.” I pulled her back down to the grass.

“Too early?” She teased, poking at the backs of my hands that I had put up to cover my face. “Are we not at a marriageable age, Samantha?”

“We are,” I hissed, peeking out at her from between my fingers, “if you’re a dirty little aristocrat who’s marrying for power.”

“Ah, but we’re both dirty little aristocrats, my sweet.” I had removed my hands, and she put her lips against my cheek. “Marrying for love.”

I turned so our lips met. When we broke apart for air, she said: “How about when we’re twenty-five? The day you turn twenty-five, I’ll propose. I won’t forget.”

And she really didn’t forget, because on the day I turned twenty-five, when I knelt before her with a little velvet box in my hand and asked her to marry me, she had--in tears--fallen to one knee, produced her own little velvet box from her coat pocket, and tried to hit me with it.

I took that as a yes.

END

And we're finished! I had fun writing this one, especially because I had an actual plan for it.

To my loyal cabal of readers, thank you for joining me, I do this for you. And also for myself because I am nothing but self-indulgent.

There's more stories of course (there will always be more), so see you on the next one! I've released the intro to my next project, it's called Saturninos, it's on my profile as well. Hope you like medieval fantasy!