𝐎𝐇 𝐎𝐏𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐀 ; lord tewkesbury

XX.

As complex as my mind made this situation seem, in actuality it was anything but such. Most people wouldn't have dragged it out for as long as I did, or think twice about the decision at hand.

I love him. I know that's true, so why does the thought of marrying him make my skin crawl? Why can't it just be so simple, why couldn't I tell him on the beach that I would stay for him?

Not even I knew those answers, and obviously no one else could tell me. I'm probably going to die never knowing what truly scared me. Why he truly scared me. But it most likely because he was the only person ever able to see who Ophelia Brookings really was, and that terrified me.

I had always made a spectacle of myself, but the truth was it was all an act. Perfectly crafted to execute my grand plan of escaping the Brookings, I had thought about it since I was quite young.

What it would feel like to see their faces while I lie in riches even greater than they could ever imagine. While I know it sounds like I'm being callous, you have to remember this plan started development when I was only a young child, and I wasn't the most serene person. That's probably where Florence gets it from.

So I followed through with it, I left home in search for something greater.

I'm not going to apologize for making my own decisions, no matter what anyone says. Even though they may have been wrong, they certainly weren't foolish. At least to me they weren't. I was able to dim the fire some, which wouldn't have happened if I continued at home.

I needed to leave.

It had to happen.

I don't mean to be ungrateful, and I didn't mean to hurt him. Because I know I did. It was a hard blow, knife to the chest kind of hurt. I had left his soul to die and all I could do was make up excuses to help ease my own pain.

In regards to Arabella, a tragedy in itself. I didn't mean to cause harm to her either, truly. Even though she had made school a nightmare for me perhaps she was just struggling with the same thing Lilia was. The first born in a family of two girls. She found an opportunity and she seized it, morally it may be wrong but that doesn't mean it isn't the right thing to do.

But how could it ever be fair to Tewksbury.

He deserved to be truly loved. He deserves everything. Some of which I am not, and could never be. But it's the life he should get.

I thought back to a time not too long ago I waited on the front steps of a small cottage near the sea.

"She's so big already," I looked at the small girl in disbelief.

She ran on the grass, stumbling over her feet every once and awhile. Small giggles emitted from her mouth, they carried in the warm summer breeze.

Her hair moved gently in the wind, the same color as fresh peaches. Her mother carried the same hair, same face as her.

My father's genes didn't even seem to touch the young girl. Perhaps she'd grow to look more like him with age. But for now she was a direct copy of her mother.

Her mother was a stern woman, smart as a whip, moody as a bull. She was young, a few years my senior. Progressive in her thoughts and actions, and she spoke them freely. They called her Tilly, short for Matilda.

She seemed to balance my father out, she wasn't afraid to scold him as most wives were to their husbands. I admired her for that.

She told me that he stopped drinking soon after our meeting. The man I first saw had vanished into a happy, family man. It did make me relieved when she told me this information.