InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Hello Arlene"

Beauty (i_tame) wrote in we_coexist,
@ 2012-08-23 19:16:00

Entry tags:

honour bellaforte, ted earley

The Answer That You Endorse (Ted)
The entire day felt like a weight. Once the books were properly shelved, the rest of her hours at work stretched impossibly long. Errol was up in front, researching something... a topic too familiar for her tastes. Honour retreated to the rare books room - which was as far away from the front of the store as she could get - and spent the rest of the day pacing or restlessly changing positions in one of the bookstore's upholstered chairs. There'd been only one chime from the door, and she'd avoided coming out for that. She tried reading, but ended up going over the same two paragraphs again and again. Nothing was sticking, and she couldn't get her thoughts straight.

Something gnawed at her ruthlessly, and she was doing her best to hide it -- or at least hide away until she mastered it. When it came time for the end of her shift, Honour uncharacteristically rushed through closing duties and hurried out the door with hardly a word to her colleague. It shouldn't have been so difficult to be around him, she reflected, but she'd stopped meeting his eyes when they happened on her.

The warm early evening felt like a blanket around her. She hurried home and went to the room that felt the most comforting - her new library. Again, nothing seemed to take her mind off things; nothing helped at all. It was useless, all these attempts to distract herself. But maybe...

30 minutes later, Honour knocked on the beautiful doors of a friend. Over one arm she carried a basket filled to the brim with apples and carrots. When she dropped her hand to her side again, she tried plastering on a smile, but it felt so awful that she let it slide almost immediately.

(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)

i_tame
2012-08-29 02:14 am UTC (link)

Her fingers were fastidiously brushing non-existent dust away from the skirt that had fanned out over her and her couch cushion. "Maybe," she admitted. But all of that seemed so... so hopeless. Lestat, on the other hand. Lestat wanted her around. Lestat smiled at her. Lestat invited her out. Lestat wanted to be with her. And Beauty was sure that she only needed to spend more time around him to feel the same. After all, it didn't all happen overnight... Only now Ted was making her re-think what she thought was right.

"Sometimes I can't speak. My throat gets... and it's hard to breathe. Sometimes my skin hurts because all I want..." She couldn't talk about this with Ted without turning bright red, and she was well on her way to it. If it were Megan, she might have had a better chance at saying more. Instead she stopped, then clasped her hands tightly in her lap and stared at the floor. Somewhere close by, she heard the steady clomping of hooves on tile. She lifted her head, then, and looked around. Ah, yes, there he was.

"I'd like to give Lestat a chance," she said at last. "He's been so, so good to me. I just never thought about him the same way as... I just never thought about him the way you think about Jo. It never occurred to me."

From Ted's expression, Honour imagined he wasn't going to understand this. But still, she'd at least gotten a different perspective. Was she being unkind? She hadn't thought so at the time. Maybe she was wrong. "I think I need to think more about this," she finally said to him, and took a breath, and stood. "Thank you, Ted."

She was so earnest and so sincere with her gratitude, all the more so when she hugged him quickly. "I can let myself out," she said against his side.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

(Read comments) -