Dear Meredith,
Kade just left the room. I think it is a good thing you are not here to see me like this. I am quite a mess. I will admit that I am angry. But underneath that all, I am hurt. I am confused. I am unsure.
And I miss you.
There have been so many times since you told me earlier today, that I have felt that perhaps this was all just a nightmare. That it was not real, and that I did not walk away and leave you standing there, in the snow.
But I know that I cannot escape the fact that it is real. Even drunk, I can close my eyes and picture you exactly, as you looked, just before I turned away. You looked so small, standing in the deep snow. Your hair was loose; I made a mess of it when I tried to put it back up earlier, with that yellow hair ribbon. The snow had just started falling, and flakes of it were landing in your hair. I think you were cold; you must have been, because you shivered.
It was your eyes I will remember the most. Such sadness; sadness such that I had never seen before.
I have lost loved ones, Meredith. I lost my mother. I lost my father. I thought I lost my brother.
None of that can ever compare to how I feel now, Meredith.
I do not just feel broken.
I feel empty.
-Antony
***
Dear Meredith,
I ran into you today, in the hallway. I had just come up from paying my brother a visit.
Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to look at you? How every feeling from yesterday converged within me once more, and all I wanted to do was run the opposite direction?
When you asked me to take care of your family, no matter what I chose to do to you, and I asked you what you thought I would do to you...and you said that I could, at the worst, kill you...
I just want you to know that it never once crossed my mind to kill you, Meredith. No matter what you did, no matter what you said...
I loved you too much to ever end your life.
And did you know that I watched you, Meredith? As you went out the door? I couldn't not watch you, as you left after begging me not to take any anger I had towards you and wield it towards your family.
Meredith, always selfless, always putting your family first...I saw you cry when you thought I was not looking.
-Antony
***
Dear Meredith,
I counted how many times you danced with Lord Andrew.
When Isabella called me out on it, I told her she should mind her own business. I also denied her that I was blind, a fool, and an idiot.
I am all that and more. She was right.
In case you wanted to know, you danced with Andrew five times. You danced once with Lord Davenport. You danced with Kade as well, when Isabella danced with me.
-Antony
***
Meredith,
I just want you to know that, no matter the things that occurred tonight...
You were beautiful in your dress this evening.
I apologize that I was not able to give you more reassurance of Isabella's safety when you asked me. You have no idea, the guilt I carry, and will always bear, in knowing that she left the room tonight because she was angry with me.
-Antony
***
Meredith,
It's funny...but as I ride out with the army today, I feel as though I am poised on the edge of something. Leaving for a fight...preparing for a fight...One may begin to question their mortality. There is no question. One day, I will die. I just want you to know that, if it happens on this trip...
I still love you, Meredith. Maybe I'm a bloody idiot. Maybe I'm stupid for loving you still and doing nothing about it.
The fact still stands, though.
-Antony
***
Dear Meredith,
Do you ever feel as though you would rather not get up in the morning? As if it would be easier to remain asleep than to get up and face things? To face missing Isabella. To face searching for her. To face not knowing whether or not she survives.
To face missing you.
I still feel guilty every day for knowing that Isabella was angry, and rightly so, with me for what happened with you, that night when she left the ballroom.
She was right to be...
I am angry with myself.
-Antony
***
Meredith,
My nightmares have returned.
I lose you...every night, I lose you. In a hundred different ways.
I don't want to lose you, Meredith, and it's my own fault that I have.
-Antony
***
Meredith,
The thing I regret most about that night, the night of the winter gala, is that I did not tell you. I was not the one to tell you about Evan. I was there as he took his last breath. I should have been the one to tell you.
But I left you to find out on your own.
I am so sorry.
-Antony
***
Dear Meredith,
I hope that Nash is doing well. Last I saw him, he was doing quite well at adjusting.
He certainly is a sweet little boy. Do you know that, before everything, he gave me his permission to like you?
I miss you, Meredith. I think about you and your family every day.
-Antony
***
Meredith,
Isabella has been gone for quite a while now. With her absence, comes your absence. You spend more time at home, rather than at the palace.
I suppose I understand. You probably do not want to see me.
It is probably for the best, anyhow. I cannot have you, so it hurts me to see you. It probably hurts you too.
That is, if you care for me anymore.
Who knows...I could have hurt you enough that you never want to see me again.
-Antony
***
Dear Meredith,
I want to thank you for being there for Isabella upon her return. I know how much it meant to her.
She trusts you.
I am glad that she found a friend in you; before, she did not really have anyone. Now that she has you, she has been happier and I can tell that having you for a friend has done her good.
I am glad that you are here for her in her moment of need, and that you were there for her when she returned, even when Kade and I could not be.
-Antony
***
Meredith,
I am sorry.
You gave me your trust: your greatest secret, and I proved myself unworthy of that trust you had in me.
I wish I had that day and all the ones after it to do over again.
-Antony
***
Meredith folded the last letter and slid it back into its envelope.
She closed her eyes and hugged them to her chest, tears trailing their way down her cheeks as the breeze from the open window tugged at her hair.
When the sun rose, and Jonathan left Antony's room, Meredith made her way back down the hallway and into the parlor, where she crossed to a writing desk and retrieved a pen and a piece of paper.
She flattened the paper and wrote:
Dear Antony,
I forgive you. And I love you.
I will always love you.
All my love,
Meredith
***
I hope you enjoyed this chapter (both parts). :) Because it is in two parts, you get double the media! :D
Media for this part is:
Picture: Antony
Song: "In My Veins" by Andrew Belle
Hope you enjoyed this extra long update! ;D
-Abbi
