the art of loving ; lord tewksbury

thirty-two

FIVE YEARS LATER

  Lord Viscount Tewksbury folded the parchment paper in his hands as delicately as he could, careful not to bend the edges or accidentally cause unnecessary tears. Laid before him was a small, white envelope, the flap on its back already flipped open and waiting for the Marquess to fill it with content. He slid the letter he had written minutes ago into the envelope, pressed the flap down and sealed it with red wax.

  It had taken him over two hours to finish writing it. He wanted to craft a flawless letter, one with minimal errors and just the right number of words. His eyes shifted from the final product he now held to the multiple crumpled balls of paper discarded at the foot of his chair. He would write, then pause for a beat, shake his head, then chuck his unfinished sentences to the floor.

  It was pathetic, he thought, to fuss over something as simple as a letter. It was pathetic to never be truly satisfied with something you've never even given the chance to complete.

  But he needed it to be perfect. He needed it to be perfect, for her.

  A knock on his bedroom door ripped Tewksbury's attention away from his train of thought. The twenty-one year old glanced up, and was met with the teasing smirk of a man he'd grown a lot closer to over the years.

  "What did those poor little pieces of paper ever do to you?" Grant Winters questioned, arms crossed as he leaned against the doorframe.

He had made the decision to stay behind, not having the heart to be apart from his sister. He had secured a stable job at a workshop in town and had been working as a carpenter for the past four years. Apart from that, he was also running an organisation supporting victims of abuse. With his father rotting in jail, Grant had nothing else to worry about.

"Nothing except becoming victims of my indecisiveness," Tewksbury quipped, a smile of his own etched across his lips. He crouched down and gathered the papers in his arms, stood up, and dumped them onto his desk. He would clean it when he got back.

  "Tragic," Grant said. "You know, it doesn't have to be extraordinarily good. It's supposed to help you channel what you feel. You shouldn't be overthinking it."

  Tewksbury nodded. "I know. But she always had a way with words, you know? She always knew the right thing to say. I don't want my mediocre letter to disappoint her."

  Grant's smile faltered at the mention of his sister. He lowered his gaze to the ground, but the words that followed were loud and clear. "She could never be disappointed in you."

  Silence ensued after. Grant raised his head and the two of them made eye contact once again. In that very moment, both boys truly understood one another. They shared a mutual vulnerability and a sense of grief which no one else outside their bubble would be able to comprehend. Such emotion only existed between two people when they have lost the one person who embodied the light in their lives.

  The one person, the same person, they both loved unconditionally in different ways.

  "We should get going, yeah? Dusk will fall any time now. We don't want to be lost in the dark," Grant spoke.

  Tewksbury nodded again. He tucked his chair into the desk, stuffed the envelope into his trousers pocket, and made his way out the door with Grant by his side.

***

  The walk to the cemetery was long, but Tewksbury and Grant had made the unified decision to do so instead of taking the carriage. It gave them time to mentally prepare themselves as they trekked through the woods, considering how neither of them had visited Daisy's grave in almost a year due to how busy they both were with their individual lives. Besides, the slight chill in the air was comforting, and it was refreshing to breathe in the smells of nature every once in a while.

  The sun hung just above the horizon. Soon, nightfall would come barring its teeth and engulf the whole town in pitch, black darkness. For now, though, the sky was a lovely, picturesque mix of oranges and pinks of varying intensities.

  It was a very beautiful day for the anniversary of a very beautiful girl.

  Before they entered through the gates of the cemetery, Grant spotted a few dandelions growing at the foot of the wooden fence surrounding the perimeter of the area. He bent down and plucked three of them from the dirt. He kept two for himself and handed one stem to the Marquess.

  They navigated their way around headstones until they finally reached the one they came to visit. Tewksbury swallowed nervously. His eyes scanned the name inscribed onto the grey rock, a name so sacred to him, which to this day, still made his heart flutter like a hummingbird's wings gone wild.

  "Do you think she knows?" he asked. "That we're here? Or why we haven't been back for a while?"

"I think she's always been watching over us," Grant answered as he made himself comfortable on a patch of dried grass. "She would understand. She always understands."

Tewksbury sat next to him and twirled the dandelion's stem between his fingers. Usually, they would sit in front of her grave like they were currently doing, tell her stories about what they've been doing, then made a silent wish before blowing off the dandelion seeds.

Today was no different.

  "You want to go first?" Tewksbury asked.

Grant nodded. The words flew from his mouth so quick, the younger boy could tell he had been dying to talk to his sister. He kept quiet and continued rolling the dandelion stem between his fingers, allowing Grant to speak without any interruption.

When Grant was finished, he stood up. He shut his eyes for a brief moment, clutching both hands together, then opened his eyes and blew on the dandelion's fluff.

  "You're leaving?" Tewksbury asked.

"I'll wait for you at the gate," Grant told him. "I think it's better if you had some alone time with her. To talk to her and give her your letter."

He took one last look at Daisy's name before turning and leaving the way they came.

"Honestly, Daisy, there isn't much for me to say," the Marquess admitted once he was alone. He retrieved the letter from his pocket and held it up to eye level. "A lot of what I want to tell you is already in here. I think I finally understand why you loved writing so much. It's so much easier to put words on paper than to actually say it out loud."

He smiled sadly, then placed the envelope onto her grave.

"It doesn't get easier," he went on. "I can practically feel the void in my chest and it grows whenever I think of you."

He could hear the waver in his voice. He could feel the bottom of his lip quiver.

"But we'll get better, I promise you that. You don't have to worry about us. You just rest easy, okay?"

There was no answer. Of course there was no answer.

"I wish we had more time together. One lifetime isn't enough, but I didn't even get to have that with you." At this point, the tears were falling. He let them fall, and he allowed himself to grieve. There was no shame in that.

"But I'm more than thankful for the time we did have together. So, so thankful," he whispered. "Maybe, in another life, we'll have more."

With that, he closed his eyes. Like Grant, he clutched the dandelion stem in between two hands and made his own wish. He blew on the dandelion.

Tewksbury opened his eyes. He wiped his cheeks with the bottom of his sleeve, watching the dandelion seeds float through the air as the wind carried them away.

Daisy loved stories. She loved stories so much, she ended up finding herself in one with a boy who loved her with all his heart. A boy, who unexpectedly fell for her the way she fell for him.

Love is complicated. Love is uncertain. Love will keep you wondering, but at the same time, make you want more.

That, was the art of loving.

Daisy and Tewksbury might have not gotten the happy ending they deserved, but there was one thing the boy was absolutely sure of—Daisy Winters had fill his pages with enough love and memories to last a lifetime.

And he would love her dearly, for as long as he lived.

  No matter what.