Page 7 of A Winter Awakening
Gael laughed again. “Everything seems so new and different. I’ve never left home like this. I thought I knew the Norend Mountains, but clearly I know nothing outside of Castle Evermore.” Then he kept laughing. And laughing. “I know absolutely nothing!”
Wetness slid down his cheek. Still, he couldn’t stop laughing.
“Sorry. Sorry.” Gael wiped at his tears. “I’m such a mess.”
“It’s all right.” Orteo placed a hand on his shoulder. “You’re safe now. Everything is fine.”
“No, it isn’t,” Gael said. “It isn’t fine. I’ve made a mess of everything. I’m such a fool! Such a dratted bumble-head. That’s what my sister would say. She’s called me that since we were children. She and I are so close. And now she will never forgive me!” He laughed.
“What was I thinking, running off like that? Now my whole family will be angry with me. And Alisa…”
His dearest friend. And he’d abandoned her on their wedding day. He hadn’t even had the courage to tell her to her face. He’d sent a note. Like a coward. Like a complete and absolute git.
“One moment, I had my whole life mapped out for me. I thought I was happy. Everything was fine.” The words spilled and tumbled forth, as if he had no control over them. “And then one day, I realised it wasn’t fine. Everything was wrong, and I couldn’t go along that path anymore.” Gael doubted he made any sense, but still, he couldn’t stop talking. “But I didn’t know how to make it stop. I knew I should tell the people I love, but how could I when it would just hurt them?”
Gael took a gasping breath. “So I just kept going. Kept thinking, ‘I’ll go through with it. After all, it can’t be too bad.’ But then I realised I couldn’t.” He swiped at tears. “So I ran. And then I almost got myself killed like the blasted numbskull I am.” Gael let out a sob. He dropped his head into his hands. “Everyone thinks I’m a moron. Pretty but dumb. That’s what everyone says. Turns out they were all right.”
“Why don’t you take a breath? Then tell me what happened,” Orteo said and squeezed Gael’s shoulder. “Slowly.”
Gael looked into Orteo’s kind eyes. “Today is my wedding day. I’m meant to be married by now.”
“I see.”
“But I couldn’t do it.”
“You don’t love her?” Orteo asked. He stroked Gael’s back. Gael leaned into the touch.
“I do. She is my closest friend. We grew up together. Our parents hoped we would get married. It seemed perfect we should,” Gael said. “We were so close, she and I. We never really got engaged, but somewhere around ten or eleven, it just became a fact. We’d get married someday. It made sense to everyone that we would marry.” Gael stared into the fire that crackled and popped. “Until it didn’t.”
A week before the wedding, he’d come across two servants in the stable. He’d come late at night to check on Daisy. She’d been behaving oddly earlier in the day. He’d thought maybe her stomach was unsettled.
Their gasps and moans had confused Gael for a moment. He’d thought someone was injured or hurt. He’d frozen at the sight of them tucked into the shadows of a stall. The maid had her skirts hiked up, the stable hand moving with gusto between her thighs. Not moans of pain but pleasure. When he’d realised what was happening, he’d fled.
He’d never seen such an act. Or truly considered it. He’d known about it in an abstract sort of way. But now the sight of it had awakened him to the reality. And the reality was that he’d need to do what he’d seen the servants do, with Alisa. And he’d need to do it in a week.
On their wedding night, he’d need to undress and slip beneath the sheets with her. Touch her. In an intimate way. Move with gusto between her thighs. Disgust had rolled through him as he walked back through the gardens. He’d stumbled into the bushes and vomited.
Alisa and he had been practically raised together. She was as much a sister to him as his flesh-and-blood sister, Gracie. And the thought of bedding Alisa repulsed him as much as the idea of bedding Gracie.
He couldn’t. He just couldn’t! It would be perverse!
And the more he thought about it, the sicker and more disgusted he felt. He could not marry her.
“I loved her,” Gael said. “But as a sister. Only a sister.” He stared down at his dirt-smeared hands. “What could I do? How could I break the arrangement? How could I tell her? How could I tell my sister? My family? They’d despise me and hate me.
“So the wedding crept closer. I’d decided to stay. To do right by her and the family.” Gael’s voice shook. “I didn’t sleep last night. Or for the past two days. I vomited anything I tried to eat. And this morning, I realised I just couldn’t do it.”
Gael squeezed his eyes shut. “I fled like a coward. I couldn’t face her and see the hurt there.” He gave a laugh. “I told her in a note. A note!” Gael pressed his hands to face. “What would she have thought reading it? I should have told her to her face. I’m a terrible person.”
Gael loathed himself. Completely and totally despised himself.
Orteo didn’t respond. But his hand still pressed against Gael’s shoulder. After several moments, Gael met Orteo’s gaze. He expected judgement and disgust. But instead, he saw sympathy.
Gael didn’t deserve that. He didn’t deserve Orteo coming to his rescue and caring for him without judgement.
But Gael would take it all the same.
Take it and cling to it.
