Chapter 35- Ever And Ever After

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Gently brawling down the turnpike road,
Sweetly noisy falls the Silent Stream -
The Moon emerges from behind a Cloud
And darts upon the Myrtle Grove her beam.
-

"Lucy!" Edmund called, stepping down from the last step on the staircase that led to the entrance hall. No one had called him down, or anything- he was just going to tea. He was late, because he had been stuck on an infernal math problem for the past hour. Oh, how he dreaded trigonometry.
Why did he even have to study trigonometry? It wasn't like he would be asked the value of sin, cos, or tan, in court!
"What are-"

"Oh, Edmund." Her face was creased with emotion, as she turned towards where he was coming from.
As he neared her, he couldn't help but notice that- not only was she frowning, but her expression seemed close to crumpling. Lucy was about to cry- or she had already been crying.
Edmund reached his sister, and took her hand, and that prompted her to speak shakily, "Susan sent a letter-"

"To you?"

"To both of us." She said, and then looked around- the hall was almost empty, because everyone else was most likely at tea. Still, she did not feel comfortable speaking about it when she knew others were so near. "Come outside."

A letter so personal that it had to be read outside?
There went the worry again. At least the trigonometry had let him focus on how subpar he was in maths, instead of his anxiety about Cambridge and everything else.
"Isn't it raining?"

"No," Lucy pulled him out the door, uncaring of the fact that her brother probably ought to get permission to leave, "Sanya said it won't rain until after supper."

His heart fluttered at the mention of her name- he couldn't help it. It had been about a month since the 'it's a date' incident- and things had started to grow for a bit, before regressing spectacularly back to 'just friends who had sex'.
But they still held hands now, even in front of others. And when someone inquired whether they were back together- usually with a tinge of disapproval or curiosity in their tone- they'd look at each other first, and then shake their head.
Yes, they were friends, they had both agreed to that- twice- but the holding hands was something, right?
Yes, he knew they were both pathetic.
"What a handy ability that is."

"Please, be in love with Sanya later. This is important." With that, she held out the letter. "Read it."

Edmund was having exams, and he had made a pact to not read anything except study materials until the exams got over the next week.
But Lucy's face- her tone...
He took the letter, unfurled it, and began to read.
And with almost each sentence, his blood boiled or chilled, and he wished there was a chair somewhere in this courtyard.

Dear Lucy,
Forgive me for beginning so abruptly, but I must ask you to show this letter to Edmund, too, when you can, Lu. I know his exams are going on, and he shouldn't be disturbed, which is why I'm writing only to you. Let him read the letter after his exams end.

I don't know if you've spoken to Peter in the past few days- but I'm going to assume you haven't.
He came home last weekend, as he usually does. We don't talk much nowadays, and since you two are at school, we talk even less. Still, we did chat, and it was fun, for a while. He was talking about this internship he's up for- it's unpaid, apparently, but he says that the work experience will be worthwhile later on. I wished him all the best in getting it, and then there was silence.
Then he asked me if I had any plans for any such thing. I laughed, and told him that I had no interest in the medical sciences. He said that that wasn't what he meant, and I knew it. I tried to tell him to not get involved, that I'd manage something, and that I would not be a burden on our parents forever- but, alas.
He started getting angry- you know how quickly Peter gets angry, but there was just no reason to be. Then he started talking about how irresponsible and flighty I've become, and that I need to 'get off my arse and put in the dance pumps for work oxfords', and all that. I know and accept that I'm the nag of us four- but he put me to shame.
But all that was pretty much what Mother and Father have been telling me, though certainly not as explicitly as my dear brother did.
Do you think it make me a bad person to have fun? To enjoy my youth, to live?

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