I woke up this morning with my head tucked neatly atop my pillow. My eyes slowly came to terms with the light of day as I opened them to observe my usual greeting. The space beside me was empty, if a bit askew. I watched that space for a moment, and I performed my morning ritual.

“Good morning, darling.” I murmured, imagining her face resting there on that pillow beside me.

Good morning, dear.

“Shall we put on a pot of tea?”

Yes, and let’s sit at the back garden while we drink it.

“Sounds lovely.”

I smiled to myself, though I wasn’t sure I had much to smile about. Nonetheless, I got up.

I came down the stairs to find again my expectations had been met, everything around me appeared untouched. The blue haze of morning’s yawn spilled through the windows, kissing the herb pots along the sills with the typical dreary English sun. The towels still hung pristinely, the sink was white and dry, dishes out of sight. Any evidence of life had been thoroughly wiped and scrubbed, polished away in the night. I wonder if she’d slept at all the night before.

The kettle clinked lightly against the hob as I placed it and filled it with water, then prepared two cups for tea whilst peering out the window. My reflection appeared in the dim light and I admittedly stared it at for a bit longer than was necessary. I’ll be due for a haircut soon, I thought, and absently traced my fingers over the stubble along my neck. Funny thing, stubble. For some men, like my father, it grows in the course of a day. For me, I was lucky to gain a five o clock shadow on Thursday, if I’d shaved Monday. My father always told me I would grow into it, I supposed I still may.

I can’t stand stubble.

“I know, dear. Don’t worry, it’ll be gone in a moment.” I sighed under my breath, but smiled still. I decided to pop into the loo and shave it off as the kettle boiled.

I washed my face when it was done, and I stared into the mirror. I was always a good looking lad, not to be crass, but everyone always said so. Girls followed me around, especially during practice. I was the school champion. I knew I wasn’t particularly manly looking, not like Victor or my friend Justin. No, I was a pretty boy; athletic and charming. Could’ve made a good career for myself as such, but I chose to work in the ministry.

Despite my boyish good looks, ever since our wedding day, I’ve wanted nothing more than to take a new face. Not that I needed a beard, after all, he never had one. He never had the chance to grow one, I don’t think? Frequently, as I did today, I stared at my chestnut colored hairline and visualized a copper tone coming through until it was just right. Maybe she would see it and- I don’t know. Maybe it would make her happy.

I will never love you, Cedric.

Those words rang in my ears far more often than I’d ever care to hear them. I realized I was holding the blade of my razor to my neck as the whistling kettle brought me out of my daze.

As I suspected, she was indeed at the back garden. She sat and stared off into the horizon with that vacant look in her eye and didn’t acknowledge me. I took the wicker chair beside hers, and handed her the cup of tea I’d prepared to her liking.

“Good morning, Violet.”

She didn’t say anything to me, didn’t even look in my direction. I knew she was stuck, stuck in that horrible place again. I sat our cups on our small glass garden table and came to kneel in front of her.

“Violet? Darling, come back to me,” I kept my voice soft, taking her hands from the arms of the chair and warming them in my own. Her hands were like river stones fresh from a frigid bank, no telling how long she’d been out here, possibly since last night. I clasped her hands together inside my own, gently sighing warm air onto them as I let the friction aid in warming them too. As heartbreaking as the scene was, her state every morning these last few months, there was at least the assurance that I could count on her to behave thusly. A strange comfort came in her consistency, even if it was due to her suffering.

“I’m right here, your faithful servant. Won’t you look at me?”

Her eyes blinked, but only wavered when I pressed my lips to her blackened fingertips. I figured that would spark her back to life.

“Freddie?” She whispered, then looked down at me. The disappointment in her eyes was more than I could take. I knew I was meant to handle her, to love her despite her wounds and her wishes, despite her lack of want for me. My hands trembled, and I pressed her fingers firmly to my lips so that my eyes wouldn’t give way the screams of my dying heart.

“No, Violet. It’s me.” I answered, and she nodded.

“I’m sorry, Cedric. I was-”

“It doesn’t matter,” I shook my head and looked up, putting my smile back on my lips for her. “Were you thinking about him?” I asked, knowing the answer.

“Yes.” She sighed, the tiredness in her eyes professing her honesty. This surprised me, as typically, she simply wouldn’t answer me when I asked.

The day our wedding had come, I don’t think either of us smiled. The day was grey and dull, and there hadn’t been a big fuss made about decorating the space behind my family home. A few flowers had been arranged by her brother, just at the ends of the chairs I’d lined up. I didn’t know who’d be coming for her side, she didn’t have any family besides her brother. Though as I peered out the window and saw the small crowd of red crowned heads, it certainly made me more than my fair share of nervous. Before I was due to stand at the altar, my father took me aside.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said, nervously tapping his hands against my shoulders as he typically did when he fussed and worried. That is when I smiled. “You don’t have to do this, Ceddy. You can call it off now, no one would blame you.”

“Dad, I’m doing it,” I told him, and took a breath as his lip quivered. “I want to do this, I love her, Dad.”

“She doesn’t love you, Ced! She’s a fine girl, a-and I know she’s been through a lot, Cedric. But that doesn’t mean you have to marry her! She’s- well she’s, she’s-” he stammered, and I couldn’t help but feel rather defensive.

“She’s what, dad?”I’ve never felt defensive of much in my life, much less against my father. I think it caught him off guard, actually, I know it did. Because then, his face turned red, and he blurted it out.

“She’s bloody barmy, Ced! Outright mad! I can’t allow you to go through with this insanity, she’ll pull you right to the brink with her!” I don’t think I’ve ever seen my father angry, not this angry, and certainly not with me. It was a strange feeling to have him telling me off for the first time in my life, as I was just twenty-five years old that October. Deep down, I knew he was just worried, and deep down I knew he had a right to be.

“Dad, I’m scared too,” I admitted, and tears flushed from my eyes as I shakily took a breath. I was building up my bravery, something I’d never felt so short of. “But she saved my life, and I made a promise to her.”

“She’s not that girl anymore, Ced! We’ll always be grateful for what she did for you in that graveyard, but she’s long since changed. I don’t know why you’re so insistent on her, she’d turned you down for two years solid now!” It wasn’t the first time I’d seen my father cry, for goodness sake I think I’ve had to have seen him get weepy over sporting events. He’s a proud man, my father, but he never saw any shame in crying like my friends’ dads. This always made me proud of him too.

But his tears were of no use. My father’s tears, his pleas, even tears from my mother who came in later to join him didn’t sway me. Loyal to the end, what other way was I meant to be? I put on the jacket over my suit, sucked down a bit of brandy, and out I went.

I married her, tears in my eyes as I thought rather selfishly about my fate. I didn’t need to look at her to know that she’d been weeping too.

I knew she didn’t love me, and I knew her first fiancé was her only love as far as she was concerned. I didn’t blame her for that; he’d put in tremendous effort to help her get better after she escaped. She was never really mine, even during that brief stint when they’d been fighting, and I knew that. As I promised her, she never had to love me. She never even had to like me, all I could ever ask was that she allow me to love and provide for her.

The boards of the porch beneath my knees creaked a bit as my weight shifted before her. I was disarmed, yet strangely, I didn’t mind it. A part of me in some small way was entirely thrilled in the shadow of that despair.

“Will you tell me about it?” I asked her, my hands tightening around hers. The breeze picked up, and for the first time I saw her skin pock against the feeling of January’s biting cold.

“One day.” She nodded slowly, and against the backdrop of our cottage back wall I saw something. Her eyes glinted, those powerful and deep blue eyes glinted with… Well, something. So fast I nearly hadn’t spotted it.

“Alright, Violet. One day.” I nodded in return, feeling that part of me that was so thrilled reach through me like warm and loving arms of an embrace. We looked at each other for a while, a moment I didn’t realize I had craved so strongly. A moment where her attention was mine, and she saw me without so much misery clouding her eyes.

“Are you meant to be heading off?” She asked, her hands resting in mine like a pigeon I’d captured. Waiting to be released, but not fighting for freedom.

“Not for a few more minutes,” The dress she wore was the same she’d claimed to be going to bed in the night before. Little rosy flowettes in the pattern which reached all the way from collarbone to ankle. As my elbows straddled her lap, the soft fabric brushed against my forearm.

For just a moment, I wondered what it would be like to take handfuls of that fabric. I remembered our school days, kisses shared by the lake and in the common areas when it was mostly empty. What a fantastic year. When I refocused my mind, her hands were out of mine, and she sipped her tea as though she hadn’t wished to hear the sounds of her own innocent giggles and satisfied sighs playing through my memories. “Is your tea still warm enough?”

“Yes, thank you.” She nodded through a deep sip.

“I can pour you another cup?”

“No, I think.. I need to sleep.” She shook her head and pressed her palms to the arms of the chair. I stood quickly to help her up.

“Would you like me to stay?”

“No.” She shook her head again while turning away, I tried not to let it show how my heart felt like a dried balloon trying to inflate in my chest. Cracking and whining for her to just try to see the longing within me. I watched her retreat into the cottage and shut the door behind her, leaving me like a dog out in the morning cold.

“Okay, I’ll see you when I get home then,” I muttered to myself. “I love you.”

I love you too, Ced.