Emily

Chapter Seventeen

"Please don't say anything." She pleaded, and her desperation slipped from her like sand through her fingers. "Please. It already hurts too much. If we speak, it'll hurt more and I don't think I could stand the pain. Let us just be silent and dance one last time. That is all I ask of you." 

"Alright." Nate agreed, his grip on her waist tightening as his voice strained as he spoke. He pulled her closer to him, until their bodies were flush against one another's. She held on to his shoulder tightly, feeling the strong muscle beneath and wondering if she would ever see him again after she left.

She wanted to.

"I want to kiss you again." Nate confessed, whispering in her ear as he broke the silence she'd asked for. She didn't really mind, though, because hearing him speak to her like that again made up for it. He sounded like he had on the day he'd told her he loved her. Painful as it had been, it had also been one of the happiest moments of her life.

"We can't." She forced herself to say, no matter how tempted she was to tell him the exact opposite.

"I know." He admitted simply, as if he hadn't expected any other response. She wished she could say something else, anything else, but she didn't. They just danced together for the rest of the song and, by the end of it, she hoped that he would ask her to dance again.

To her disappointment, he let go of her and disappeared back into the crowd, leaving her standing right there, not sure if she could even move. A terrible sense of dread had pooled in her stomach as she had finally realised that things were starting to come to an end. She was leaving in three days.

She slipped back into a corner, from where her eyes caught Nate, who had returned to his siblings. Kit was missing, but Mary was glued to his side, and was latched onto his arm. Emily felt tears well up in her eyes but she blinked them back, focusing on the blaze of the nearest candle to keep her tears at bay.

As she stared without really looking at anything, there was a tap on her shoulder, and she swiftly turned, only to see Kit standing before her, with some champagne in hand and a sympathetic ear.

"Come on, Em," he said, not unkindly, smiling softly at her. "You can't wait here in the corner all night, hoping that he'll be braver than you are."

"We already danced." She informed Kit, whose smile only widened.

"Did you?" He remarked, the amused twinkle in his eyes telling her that he had meant something else entirely. She wasn't sure if she wanted to know what he actually meant. "Even so, you are going to drink this glass of champagne and then you are going to dance with me so that you might have some sort of fun tonight instead of simply pining away after the man you love."

"Love?" Emily spluttered, gulping down the champagne he offered her in a single gulp. "Who said anything about love?"

"You eyes." Kit answered nonchalantly, "You look at Nathaniel the exact same way I looked at Cass when I was still sighing over not having her from a distance. You're definitely pining over him."

"Fine." Emily conceded, rolling her eyes as she set her champagne flute down on the nearest table. "You just might be right, but only the tiniest, most diminutive bit right."

"Thanks." Kit laughed, offering her his arm, which she took with a grin. They reached the centre of the ballroom just as the next song began. It was the Scottish Reel, a fairly simple dance, which meant that Kit had enough time and opportunity to talk to her. He was one of the best friends she had, but he did try annoying her every once in a while.

"Do you remember," he began, a minute into their dance, "What you told me when Cassandra told me she wouldn't marry me after I'd asked her the first time, over two years ago?"

"Not really." She said, frowning, "I do remember, however, my barging unceremoniously into your study and ordering you about. That was a foolish thing to do, I suppose." She remarked in a reminiscent tone. A sense of nostalgia filled her, for that had been a simpler time. All she had cared about had been boarding the first ship she could find. It had all been so uncomplicated, so straightforward. Her mind had been made up and she didn't have second thoughts about every single decision she had made, unlike what was now happening to her. She was second guessing herself all the time now.

"Well, after the aforementioned unceremonious barging in, you sat me down and said to me many things that I shall never forget. Two of these things were exceedingly important. The first was to be who Cassie needed and not to give up on her, which doesn't really apply here. The second, however, I believe will fit perfectly and yet still be ambiguous enough to make you choose exactly what is right for you." At this, Kit stopped speaking, clearly waiting for her to egg him on.

She rolled her eyes at him for being exceedingly dramatic, but complied anyway, "And what exactly is this mysterious second piece of advice?"

"You told or, rather, ordered me to choose what made me happy and do exactly that. It was a simplistic bit of advice, if I do say so myself, but it happens to be the best advice I've ever received." He informed her, becoming more serious than she'd ever seen him before. She wasn't used to Kit being staid. He might have given the appearance of it when she first met him, but he'd soon transformed into the clumsy, good-humoured man she knew him to be now.

"And did it truly work?" Emily asked timidly. She expected the answer that was to come, and she knew what it most probably was going to be, but she was still grasping at straws. She needed some reassurance that she had been right, that she could apply such a thing in this situation, too. She wasn't used to being so indecisive, for she had always been quick to choose what she wanted and she remained faithful to that choice until the very end. To doubt her own self was something that took getting used to, and she'd tasted too much of it in the past few days.

"It gave me all I ever wished for." Kit admitted, "And it gave me a life better than anything I could have ever imagined. I have a wife, whom I love more than all the world and a daughter without whom I would now be nothing. I followed that advice and, if I hadn't, I probably wouldn't be where I am today. I needed it at the time, I needed that jolt of confidence to reassure me that Cass would come around eventually, and it was the best, most right choice I could have made. I believe the same will happen for you if you let it. Today, you need that exact same advice. Don't fight it. Go where your heart takes you, no matter where that might be. We have but one life, and what is the point if we aren't going to live it doing what makes us happy?"

"Thank you." Emily breathed, a single tear slipping past her eyelid and dripping down her cheek. She raised a hand to wipe at it, and no tears followed. "I think I truly needed to hear that."

"You're welcome." Kit said, before adding one more thing that she desperately needed to hear, "No matter what you choose, Cassie and I will always be there for you. You are a dear friend to the both of us, and we shall support you in all of your endeavours, even if they end up being pigheaded."

At this, Emily had to laugh, and was instantly even more grateful to Christopher for cheering her up. To have friends was a wonderful feeling, and to have so many good ones made it even better.

Now, she only had one thing left to do— she had to choose her happiness.