A Fiery Dalliance

VIII

"I want to try making things right because picking up the pieces is way better than leaving them the way they are." Simone Elkeles, Perfect Chemistry

---- 

VIII.

Perrie actively avoided Joe for the rest of the day, not that she would have seen him without deliberately seeking him out. Joe had been a different sort of angry in retaliation to her antics that morning.

He wasn't even angry; she did not think. Joe was hurt. And the guilt that Perrie felt in knowing that she had hurt Joe was very challenging to sit with. So much so that it had caused her to actively avoid him.

Perrie had never suffered guilt from one of her pranks before now. Often because Joe was right there to get her back immediately afterward. She could be merrily preoccupied with her rampant hatred for the boy, now man-boy, and not endure guilt.

But as she hid in one of the large armchairs in the library, Perrie felt terrible. All she could picture in her head was the sight of him collapsing to his knees before her, his face contorting with emotion that she had never seen before.

He no longer looked like a hateful wretch. He was a person with feelings.

And being a person with feelings herself, she didn't like to deliberately cause harm to anyone, not even Joe Parish. Perrie knew that the right thing to do would be to apologise. And she would mean it because she did not want to feel this horrid guilt any longer.

It would simply take time for her to be able to stomach the words.

Perrie did not understand why this had hurt him so much. Perrie had certainly done worse, and so had he. She then supposed that she had embarrassed him in front of her siblings and that probably would have wounded his pride.

But could that have hurt him to the extent that he would fall to his knees?

They had concluded their meeting in the hallway in their usual fashion of teasing the other with mild threats of death, but Perrie knew that she had done something terribly wrong.

Prior to having to articulate an apology, Perrie knew that she could begin to make amends by righting what had so affected Joe. She would clean his boots and mend his breeches. Once they had been fixed, they would be able to return to threatening each other with death without this horrid cloud of guilt. It would be as it was, and it would be perfect.

Of course, Perrie did not know how to do either of those things, so she would go and ask a woman who did.

She launched out of the armchair just as Lily and Alice walked into the library. Lily appraised Perrie with curiosity as she marched with purpose towards the door.

"Where are you off to in such a hurry?" she asked.

"I need to go and ask Mrs Hayes about butter and leather," replied Perrie in a huff.

"What on earth are you baking?" Lily exclaimed.

"Perrie can cook?" Alice gasped.

"Perrie doesn't know how to boil water," Lily giggled. "I wouldn't want to try whatever cake she intends to make."

Perrie hardly heard what her sisters were laughing about as she began to sprint across the entry foyer and up the grand staircase. Luncheon had come and gone, and so she knew her father and Joe would be back in his study by now. Perrie had skipped the afternoon meal out of cowardice. She returned to Joe's bedroom swiftly and quickly opened the door and shut it behind her.

She immediately spotted the boots that she had spoiled by his bed, and the breeches she had cut, as they were strewn across the floor. It appeared as though Joe had kicked them off when he had returned to his bedroom that morning to change. Perrie felt another deep pang of guilt as she collected the boots and the breeches, before she hurried back out into the hallway.