The Little Dove #3 ✔️

39. No More Lemon

"Can you really promise that? If I told you everything about myself, the most darkest moments of life, every bit of it and you wouldn't look at me differently. Whether it be pity, disgust, heartbreak-do you think I want to see you look at me that way? I've never once in my life felt like this, the way I feel with you, what I want with you, lemon. If you knew what I'd done, what I've had to do to get here, you wouldn't love me, you wouldn't even want to look at me and leaving me at your dorm showed me that telling you right now would be the worst decision, I watched you walk away from me and so many have walked out of my life, so many I didn't invite in. You are the only one I want to stay, but I know you won't if you saw the abuse, the scars, my world-it's darker than you could imagine, lemon and I want you far away from that part. I only want a happy start, a happy future with you. I don't want to reveal the rest." He murmurs, I close my eyes, dropping my head on his chest his hand entangles in my strands.

He embraces me with robust arms.

I squeeze my eyes shut when my shoulders begin shaking and he freezes above me, "Lemon?" He whispers, scared, shocked, maybe more.

I begin crying.

The bitter tears lodge stiffness in my temples, a clogging in my throat, numbness in my limbs, he pulls back, hands on my shoulders, my lips tremble, as he lowers his head, "Melanie..." I watch him struggle with his words, with his meaning.

I look up at him, wiping my eyes, I hold the casing in my hand, I hold it out to him, "When you are ready to talk to me, to trust me with the truth, Edmund, I will wear this with high honour and respect, but until you let me in like I have done with you, then I cannot stand here and act like everything between us is alright, that we're in love when love doesn't just mean progression with a grand future together. Love doesn't just mean us, it means the whole package, the good and the bad. I don't care if you have demons, Edmund, we all do. I just want you to reveal to me that no matter your past, every detail of it, that I will still want your arms to be the ones holding me in the end, Edmund. I am in love with you, too. I need you to put your trust in me this time and I'm giving you time to do that, Edmund." I tell him, slowly handing over the necklace.

He doesn't take it.

He stares down at me, "No." Is all he says.

I close my eyes, "You have lied to me since day one-"

"I know, Melanie. If I could take it all back, I would. Fuck sake, I would. Watching you leave me over an argument was...I couldn't stand the sight of it, lemon. Keep the necklace, because I'm not leaving you and giving that back to me shows how much I've hurt you, just seeing you cry, lemon. I promise to do everything in my power to make it up to you, baby. I know what I've done and what I've said sounded deliberate when I lied, I have lied all my life, I wish I didn't with you. I have held so many secrets. I don't want to do that with you and I won't anymore. Lemon...the Fitzgerald Brotherhood is where I mainly grew up, it's where I met men and women very much like myself, but we were all different." He whispers.

I purse my lips, it was like pulling at teeth, he was being vague, whether he was just starting with the story, I move out of his arms and turn my back to him as I take a few steps back down the bridge. He follows.

"I didn't grow up like you did, with a family, a loving family. The orphanage I was practically born into, I never met either of my parents before I turned nine, that's when I ran from the orphanage and...found Oswald, who turned out to be much worse than I could ever imagine." He whispers.

I slowly turn to him, "Why did you lie to me about this?" I ask him, for probably the tenth time now.

He looks at me, a distant sound in his eyes, his fingers moved in concentric circles along his palm, a relaxing technique I recognised well, he just stares at me, "I didn't want you to know about those, I never did."