𝕄𝕪 𝕃𝕠𝕧𝕖, 𝕄𝕪 𝕃𝕚𝕗𝕖 - Theodore Laurence ✅

15

Amy is looking through her paintings and sketches and has a disturbed expression on her face. Laurie enters. His lot in life is always to be apologizing to one March sister or another, and he looks truly contrite.

"Hello, Amy!" Laurie beams out the best of all his energy to his favorite March sister. Amy carefully trails her eyes on the male, a frown clear on her forehead as she caught a whiff of something, "Are you still drinking?" Laurie simply rolls his eyes, "Only a little, and it's 4 pm, you can't be too hard on me." He grins, showing his full set of pearl-white teeth.

Amy chooses to ignore the statement, although she did mumble under her breath, "Someone has to do it." Moving her attention back to her painting as Laurie plops himself on the nearest comfortable couch for a chat. "So, when do you begin your great work of art, Raphaella?" He dramatically and sarcastically spoke to her but he notices the ashen worry traced on it. "Never it seems."

Laurie sat up straight to that statement as Amy carefully spoke in a grim tone about her thoughts, "I'm a failure. Jo is in New York, being a writer, Meg has become a wonderful wife and Cathy will soon follow her path. We don't need to look at Beth, she has a career in music soon and I am a failure."

"That's quite a statement to make at twenty." Laurie chooses to feel a pang of hurt when the mention of Catherine being a wife to Wayne one day, soon even. He wasn't certain if he was ready to hear those words, she was so close to being his, and he doesn't like to hear that she was moving on.

"Rome took all the vanity out of me. And Paris made me realize I'd never be a genius. I'm giving up all my foolish artistic hopes." Amy continues her ramble, unknown to her friend slight shift of mood at the mention of her sister.

Laurie quickly cut her out before she begins something Laurie knew will take the whole day to stop her, "Why should you? You have so much talent and energy. I keep hearing Fred praising you to any walkable being near him!" Laurie points out the window to state his claim, "In fact, I saw him just talking to a rabbit about your latest work."

No matter in what gloomy mood Amy was the thought of her fiancé being so supportive and not a once shame of her likes and hobbies did put a smile on her smile. It's true by a look, Amy March was deeply in love with her man and Laurie is glad to see that.

"See," Larue smiled at her, happy to note the slight hope in her eyes as she stares at her painting, "You shouldn't give up that easily if this society refuses to let a woman be what they want then be the first to do so." Laurie sighed, resting his back against the couch as he stares at the ceiling, "those you love and love you back are supporting you."

Amy carefully places down her painting, obviously noticing Laurie's brief shelf problem ever since his chat with Catherine. She notes how Laurie would flinch at the mention of the girl and drink off in the middle of the day. Slowing thinking of a way to get Catherine's name put in their conversation in other to understand her friend, she spoke up, "I always knew one of my sisters would marry the rich. I don't get why people just would whisper about it."

Laurie glanced at Amy, not understanding where this conversation is going but went with it anyway, "Are you ashamed of that?" Amy quickly shakes her head, "There is nothing to be ashamed of, as long as you love him." A clear angry look has bestowed on Laurie's face at the image of Catherine loving someone like Wayne.

Although this topic wasn't specific to Catherine his mind made it so. "Well, I believe we have some power over who we love, it isn't something that just happens to a person." Amy scoffed at his statement, not believing an ounce of it. Laurie is a closet romantic, he believes in love, destiny, true love, and all that. He tries to tell himself that he believes in the opposite. "I think the poets might disagree."

"Well. I'm not a poet, I'm just a man. A kind of man who doesn't have a say in his love as he would soon be married of to his family's choosing." Laurie and Amy shared eye contact, Laurie holding every emotion in him looking like a blank canvas while Amy glinted ready to laugh at him.

"No, that's false. Mr Laurence would never put you on a spot like that." Amy giggles at the image of the old goofy kind man, "I bet, he is waiting for you to introduce him to a woman you've fallen head over heels for." Laurie thought carefully of her words, he didn't deny that his grandfather might be doing as so, "What? Someone like Jo?"

Amy hiss in a breath, as much as she loves her sister Jo, her name didn't sound right in this talk, "Look, Jo is my sister and I adore her but the kind of love you have for her isn't right. Everyone at one-point fall in love, haven't you heard that you fall in love at least three times before you discover your soulmate."

Laurie chuckled, "I believe you read too many romantic books, Ames." Amy slap his arm as she took a seat beside Laurie who now grew interested in this topic, "So what type of love did I have with you sister Jo?"

"Your first love. You were young and it was an idealistic love. The kind we dream about when we're children and would read hundreds about in the fairytales. The relationship everyone adores and your family would just approve. You would think, 'Oh, there is nowhere I'm not ending up married with a person like her,'" Laurie rolled his eyes as he laughed at Amy's attempt to mimic him, "But it eventually falls and you must then accept that."

Laurie nods his head in agreement, Amy's words are true, and he remembers the times he was fooling around with Jo, "What about my second, I don't think I've fallen in love again after that."

Amy feigned a gag, "Oh, please," She made Laurie sit up straight to listen carefully to her words, "All those women you see and play with are your second love." Laurie felt slightly uncomfortable at this but listened anyway. "It's called a formidable love. You think you're making different roads but you are not and it teaches you a lesson. You'll learn to know who you are and how you want to be loved. Sometimes you repeat the same stories hoping for different endings than yours and Jo's."

Laurie quickly changed the topic, "Then I'm guessing this third love is the one that's gonna be with me forever," He laughed and said, "I don't have a third love. That I can assure you." As much as Laurie place those words to forget someone, the look on Amy's told him that she was going to make him realize it again. He wanted so badly to get up and leave but his heart wanted to hear this, especially craving the name he knew will appear.

"Cathy," Amy spoke carefully, "Catherine March is your third and last love." Laurie stood up on his feet but he wasn't going anyway, merely pacing around, he knew what he felt but to hear it from someone but this weird confirmation in him. "You never saw it coming," Amy said, standing up before Laurie, placing her hands with his as she spoke and gazing into his eyes to make him see, "the way you've come to love her."

"It comes so unexpectedly, yet it is so easy to fall back in love. You cannot explain it, but it just feels right. There is no need to change anything about each other, as you both accept and have fallen in love with it."

Laurie closes his eyes; his heart is burning with emotion. "It feels weird to know that you are right."