"Have you been feeling alright, Emma?" Cordelia curiously eyed me as she served the two of us some tea in the receiving room of our apartment.
My stomach dropped. "Has my rather tumultuous thoughts, as of late, been that obviously plastered on my face?" I wondered, as I shifted in my seat to get comfortable.
I had thought that I had been doing quite a good job of hiding all the stress and gnawing anxiety I had been gathering during our stay at the palace. But with her abrupt question, she made it rather clear that I had been wrong in my assumptions.
"I am fine, though what makes you ask?" I really was quite the opposite, however.
I had not been able to sleep since my entanglement with Thomas, two days prior. That was no fault of his own, but of mine. How I had so foolishly come to feel so strongly about Henry after all the droning on and on I did about wanting to only be friends with him, I did not know. But I was, frankly, rather annoyed and upset with myself.
I was nothing more than a hypocrite. Pushing Thomas away because I was insecure of mine and his relationship, all the while using me not being the only one he had been courting as an excuse to justify my lack of confidence in myself. When in fact, I had been doing the same thing and with his brother no less.
And when looking back all the times I had spoken with Henry, it was obvious that I had been friendlier than I should have. Yes, dancing with him at the ball was completely out of my hands, however I, despite knowing it was wrong, continued to entertain him on more than one avoidable occasion. Even fed my minuscule feelings until they grew into something untamable.
I had become fully aware of the fact that I was not ready to court a man, let alone a prince. I had, like many of the others, gotten swept up in all of Thomas' complements and flatteries, so much so that I allowed him to take control of the reins. Now he was the one seducing me, and I had been helplessly allowing him to do with me as he wished.
Yet I had the audacity to judge some of the others who had given in to his seductive ways much sooner than I had.
I was vastly too under-prepared and grossly too ignorant to have actually thought that I was a match for a prince. A prince who had, most likely, never in his whole life been told no.
I mean he was well known for his flirtatious nature, amongst other things, yet for some reason I thought joining him in his game would have ended in me winning. However, it was clear, I a novice had been pit against the likes of that of a master and I was severely outmatched.
The sound of one of the teacups softly colliding with its saucer pulled me out of my drowning thoughts.
"You have just seemed distant, as if you are elsewhere in your mind. Though, I do not blame you. With everything they have you doing, I too would be exhausted, mentally and physically." She sat down on the love seat across from me. "Going from being locked up in that dreary house almost every day since you were born, to leaving the room daily to converse with people that almost certainly have ulterior motives, would drive anyone mad. But you are also trying to prove your worth, all the while doing what you can to win the love of a very confident and touchy prince who could, at the end of the day, simply choose someone else."
Hearing it come from her somehow hurt more than when I had said all of those things to myself. I usually just brushed away those kinds of thoughts, deeming them as nothing more than my nerves talking. But having someone else say them out loud, someone that I knew only had my best interests in mind, did nothing but make me feel worse.
"What I am trying to say is," I could tell she noticed how much her words had affected me, so she tried to salvage what was left of the conversation, "that if you would like to give up, for the sake of your health and sanity, then I would understand."
"I cannot." I choked out. "I would rather suffer such trivial hardships here than to have to return home and face her. You saw what she had done to me at the ball. How deep she dug her claws into me." I snatched off the glove on my hand to reveal the little crescent shaped scabs left in her wake, while a tear made its escape down my cheek, despite my internal protests, "I fear that I no longer have the strength to withstand her abuse like I once did. Being here, being away from her for what has felt like years despite being only, what a month, has weakened me. For, now I know that her abuse is escapable, and will only long harder for the freedom that I have only just begun to taste."
"But," She spoke up after a moment of silence, probably trying to carefully plan her words, "what if the boy your father promised to marry you off to is better than. . ."
"Better than Thomas?" My voice shook, "I suppose he could be. But that would only matter if what father said to me was true. Though, my gut tells me otherwise." I sat my cup down, then stood, my nerves had started to run wild, and I found my self no longer able to sit still. "Cordelia, I know it is hard for you to watch me suffer, but right now I am more willing to die than to return to that house. Because I know mother will not let me live in peace, especially after everything that I have done to oppose her, and fathers will."
Just the thought of having to face her again mortified me, and she had been quiet for far too long. With the number of girls that were left in the courting dwindling, mother was sure to come.
And when she did, I feared what she was capable of once she realized that I had no intentions on meeting her demands.
. . .
As Thomas' birthday grew closer, I became more at odds with myself. And the more uncertain I became, the more I grew ill.
Then, as if I had not been suffering enough, the attacks came. But only when I found myself alone.
One moment I would be fine, the next, my heart would feel like it was going to burst, and my breaths came so quickly that my head would begin to spin. Often times I'd find myself doubled over a bucket, retching up what little food I had managed to get down earlier in the day, or dry heaving what I hadn't.
I felt crazed as I would mumble to myself with tears in my eyes, while I stared off into nothing. And the topic of the mumbling? It was always something along the lines of, I cannot go back or what if he is worse.
I kept it all inside, all to myself. And I knew I had to tell someone, or I was going to get much worse before I got better.
Though, who could I confide in? Who would understand my mental plight and not betray me after. It would only worry Cordelia and she was already worried about me enough. Despite my trust in the cousins, I was not comfortable with sharing something so damning with them. Because, at the end of the day, they were still the competition and I had only known them for such a short amount of time.
So, if I could not tell Cordelia, then I had no one who could help, and that thought alone was enough to trigger another attack.
My eyes locked onto nothing, everything in the room blurring out of existence as I hollowed out. My breathing became erratic as my heart tried to match its pace. I started shivering as if I were cold, teeth chattering as my mouth moistened all the while I started to get hot.
I cannot do this, I cannot do this, I cannot do this, I cannot do this. It's too much, It's too much, It's too much, It's too much. What do I do? I'm so scared. What if he is worse? What if she shows up, what-what should I say? I cannot go back. I cannot go back, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I cannot breathe. Why is this happening, why does this keep happening to me? I cannot take this anymore. What if she tells? What if mother tells the queen? What if she already knows?
I felt like I was going to vomit.
I cannot breathe, I cannot breathe. No, no, no, no ,no ,no, no, please, please, please, please, please, please let it be a lie, let him be a good man, let him love me. I cannot go back, I will not go back, but what if he sends me home, then what? Where will I go, what should I do? What should I do?
I was hysterically crying, body crumpled into a ball, rocking back and forth as I muttered. I felt like I was going to pass out, but I was sure my heart was going to give out before then.
May-maybe H-H-Henry. . .
I quickly broke out of my trance long enough to make it to the bucket, beside my bed, right before I threw up hot burning bile. As it came out, I accidentally inhaled a little bit of it through my nose, which burnt so bad that if I had not already been crying, I surely would have teared up at the abrupt pain.
I laid back on the cold hardwood floors, staring at the painted ceiling as I tried to catch my breath.
Why had these attacks only just found me after all those years of enduring mother's wrath? Why had I gotten so weak after standing so strong against her for so long? I did not understand it, and I hated myself for it.
Out of all the times for my resolve to have faltered, why had it chosen the worst time to do it?
Maybe it was the uncertainty of it all. Because, back then, I knew what mother would have done to me, said to me, no matter what I had or had not done. But now? There were so many things out of my control, out of my ability to predict, that scared me to death.
I needed some semblance of certainty back in my life, something guaranteed, before I completely fell apart.
I wanted to hope that maybe something good would happen, that perhaps someone would appear and give me another, better choice.
But, despite my attempts to be optimistic, I knew such hopes were most likely going to crumble with time.