𝑰𝑵𝑲 • 𝑻𝒆𝒘𝒌𝒆𝒔𝒃𝒖𝒓𝒚 / 𝑳𝒐𝒖𝒊𝒔 𝑷𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒓𝒊𝒅𝒈𝒆

Convince Me

"What do you mean you've been 'promised'?" He stomped on her trail, exasperated and out of breath. He was baffled, desperate for any sort of explanation, and she was seemingly unwilling to give him one. I couldn't possibly have been gone for that long.

"What do you mean 'what do you mean'?! It means I've been promised! That I'm getting married!" Florence was getting frustrated, she didn't owe him an explanation and he just would not stop following her. He was determined, that much was clear.

She could hear him behind her as she stormed through the fields, hoping, praying that if she walked fast enough or marched hard enough he would simply disappear. But the echo remained, a footstep following hers and someone replying to her sentences. She wasn't alone but god, did she wish she was.

"But you're only 16 and- and I was only gone for a few months- how...?" Rambling on and on about her predicament, and so immersed in the conversation, he failed to realize where they were headed.

"I agree, its young but- there's nothing else for me. No extended education, promising career, lavish lifestyle of travel and culture..." she got lost in the list, talking to herself rather than the boy, her situation and the reality of just how narrow her options were in life making her feel trapped all of a sudden. "And my mothers been planning this for years, you leaving was just the final push." And the last thing necessary for me to agree to it. "I grew up T, this is my life... this is my lot."

It was a depressing truth but the truth nonetheless, And it smacked Florence in the face. She and the boy restlessly chasing after her led completely different lives. He had the world at his feet, everything he could ever want. Anyone he could ever want. Meanwhile she could get married and then die, or just die. The odds were stacked against her and the double standard shining bright and clear in her mind. Oh so if he doesn't get married he's an eligible bachelor all fancy and posh, but if I don't then I'm a spinster? Stupid, country and their stupid twisted views.

She halted by the waters edge and turned to face him, nowhere left to go, and no way out of this unpleasant exchange. The boy caught up to her and joined her on the small dock that had been constructed at some point during his absence. He approached her aggressively, embittered and highly discontented at her constant avoidance and dodging of the questions which he so desperately longed for the answers to.

His target was set, everything else around them vanishing from his mind. His focus solely on her. Her running feet, cowardly shoulders, lying eyes, and sweating hands. 

"If I hadn't asked about your bracelet, would you have told me?" He pried, leaning into his slow steps towards her. His eyes shifting around her face, finding an answer, but not the one he had hoped for, relying on her words instead. But she remained silent.

"Would you have told me? Answer me!"

He lunged at her, reaching for her arm, but she saw it coming. She twisted to the side, shuffling on her feet and taking one fateful step back. Her foot never met the ground, having reached the end of the dock. Florence fell into the center of the lake, causing disruption in its long unbroken surface, and plummeting into its depths.

Tewkesbury stood there for a moment, breathing heavily and taking in what had just happened. Calming himself down and descending from the rage that had been building up since their conversation the previous night. He finally became aware of his surroundings. The clear sky, birds migrating south for winter, the cool dark lake and rippling water.

Water.

No Florence.

Florence can't swim.