In her attic, Elizabeth was very much enjoying staring at the ceiling. So much so, in fact, that she was almost disappointed when Wesley burst through the door, panting.
Almost. But not quite.
"I've come to convince you that you were not wrong about me, that I would never use your own principles against you, and that I love you quite a lot," he said by way of explanation. There was an awkward pause before he continued. "I wasn't planning on telling you this, but since you seem unsure about what to do next, you may want to use the example of how you responded when I imagined it in my head on the way over here.
"'I love you quite a lot too, Wesley,' and then you got off of your bed and ran towards me and kissed me properly on the mouth, and then you continued, 'In fact, I think I may love you more than you love me.' And then I said, 'Impossible. I love you to infinity,' and you said, 'Yes. I love you an impossible amount.' And then we kissed again, this time for longer, and floated up into the air and lived happily ever after. Not in that exact spot, of course, but in general, I mean," Wesley said very quickly.
"Um," Elizabeth said slowly, processing this. Yes, it had been desperate, needy, and, to a degree, creepy, but something about it was just so endearing. It was adorably awkward, and raw, and truthful; and, in all honesty, if Elizabeth hadn't been so stubborn, she would have done pretty much exactly what he'd just described.
Unfortunately, though, Elizabeth was very, very stubborn. So instead, she just said, "I'm stilled owed a proper explanation. Try not to be too insulted if I want to find out about your unreasonably attractive former fiancée who still seems to be very interested in you and in whom you still seem to be very interested before I profess my undying love to you."
"I didn't say you had to profess your undying love," he countered. "You just had to say you loved me an impossible amount, even if only in the moment."
"You're avoiding the question."
"Yes, yes I am. Anyways, the situation with Carolina is... complicated," he began. Elizabeth's jaw dropped. Either she'd been exactly right about the nature of his relationship with her, it was even worse than she'd assumed, or his choice of words betrayed a stupidity Elizabeth hadn't previously known it was possible for any human to possess.
"Sorry, wrong word," he said quickly, wincing. "Should I start from the beginning?"
"Better than stuttering about the middle," she replied dryly. He nodded vigorously.
"Yes, that's a good idea. Alright, then," he said, clearly trying to buy himself time. Elizabeth rolled her eyes. Did he even know what had happened?
"Carolina and I met about year ago. My mother, before she was murdered, was very good friends with Giselle, so they had us meet each other-"
"I'm sorry, what did you say?" Elizabeth asked, feeling sick. In all of the drama she'd completely forgotten that Liliana had died, and that Wesley didn't know how or why. In an instant all of the anger she felt towards him melted, replaced by a deep desire to comfort him.
"Our mothers introduced us to one another," he repeated sounding confused.
"No, about your mother being murdered."
"Oh, yes. I found her body yesterday morning," Wesley said without a hint of emotion in his voice. He must be in shock, Elizabeth realized.
"She wasn't murdered, Wesley," she said gently. "When I was at your house two nights ago, I heard sobbing in the next room. That was why I left you while you slept. I saw her holding a knife. I tried to comfort her, I really did, but I couldn't. She took her own life. I'm so, so sorry Wesley." Now Elizabeth broke down sobbing, and he came over to her bed and sat down next to her, taking her in his strong, warm arms.
Elizabeth knew how wrong it was that he was comforting her about the death of his own mother, but hugging him like that just felt so good, so right that she couldn't do anything but lean even closer into him and let him console her.
"You don't have to be sorry, Elizabeth," he said impossibly gently. "I can't imagine how hard that must have been for you to watch. I understand completely." At this point, Elizabeth had stopped crying, distracted by how perfectly her chin fit into his shoulder. He started to pull away, but without thinking she followed him, clutching him tighter. This knocked both of them off balance and they toppled side by side onto the tiny bed.
Wesley rolled over onto his side to look at her. He brushed a stray hair out of her face. "You really are the most beautiful thing on Earth, aren't you?" he said in a voice of pure astonishment. But Elizabeth couldn't enjoy the compliment, or even make a witty remark in return, because all she could think about was how he'd brushed Carolina's hair out of her face at Charles's house. She winced involuntarily.
"What's wrong?" Wesley asked, sounding genuinely concerned.
"It's just... you brushed Carolina's hair out of her face like that," Elizabeth pointed out. Wesley cursed unintelligibly under his breath.
"Right. I still need to explain about her. Anyways, when we met my first thought was that she was attractive. Because, you know, I only really knew the girls in my neighborhood, and they were like siblings to me, I'd known them for so long. And besides, before I met you, I didn't really know what it was like to be genuinely attracted to someone, so all I was thinking was, 'Oh, wow, here's this girl that doesn't seem like my sibling.' And as you could probably tell from seeing her earlier, Carolina is quite the flirt. As ashamed as I am to admit it, I was stupid, and naïve, and I let her seduce me.
"What you probably couldn't tell from seeing her earlier is that Carolina is a complete narcissist. Not only that, but she's manipulative, and I'm not positive she experiences emotions. I still don't know why, but for some reason she wanted to marry me. She lied to me and said that her father was going to arrange her in a marriage to someone wealthy if there were no proposals by her twenty-first birthday. She came to me crying crocodile tears and said we were doomed.
"I said he would never let us get married. She said he was desperate. I asked Icarus for his blessing, and believe it or not, he said he would consider it. The next day, I received a letter inviting me to dine at his house the next night. I came expecting a celebration. Instead, he ridiculed me shamelessly. He talked about how poor I was, how unable I would be to provide for Carolina, and how men like me always end up unfaithful and abusive.
"Carolina, who had said she'd wanted to marry me, who had vowed to love me unconditionally, smiled. She smiled. She thanked her father profusely, saying how right he was, how she'd always suspected I would turn out that way and he'd saved her life. She kissed him on the cheek, looked at me like she'd just been informed I was already with another woman, and ran upstairs to go to sleep.
"Icarus couldn't even find it in his heart to ask me to leave with words. Instead, he just pointed to the door. And now, only nine months later, Carolina clearly wants something - again. What you saw today with me returning her flirtations was the product of my immaturity - I couldn't pass up the opportunity to make her think she still had me wrapped around her finger only to reject her later. I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry!" Elizabeth shouted as if that was the most ridiculous thing she'd heard in her life. "She deserved worse than that! Thank you for telling me." She rolled over to turn away from him so that she could nestle her back into his chest. She smiled as she felt his heartbeat, and sighed as he wrapped his arms around her.
"I don't think she wanted to marry you in the first place," she said thoughtfully after a moment's consideration. "She probably said what she did to get rid of you."
"Probably," Wesley agreed. For a while they lay there, Elizabeth listening to the music of his heartbeat and even breathing, and then she felt him shift ever so slightly behind her.
"Now is it time for professions of dying or undying love?" he asked. She could practically hear him grinning. She turned around, now pressing her forehead to his drinking in the perfection of his smile.
"Yes, it is," she said with a joy that probably surpassed even his. "I, Elizabeth Conway, hereby profess my love to Wesley..."
"Brown," he finished. Then, arching an eyebrow, he added, "Unless there's some other Wesley you'd like to profess your love to that I don't know about?"
"You don't know about Wesley Stansbury? I thought I told you about him," she asked, trying her best not to laugh. She drank in the disappointed look on his face for a second before giggling. "Relax. I'm only joking. I, Elizabeth Conway, hereby profess my love to Wesley Brown."
"Can it die?" he asked seriously, as if it was an official matter.
"Yes," she said matter-of-factly. "But I promise that it will always come back to haunt you." And with that, she closed her eyes and memorized everything about that one moment in time so that even when it ended she could bring it back.
"The best things do," he whispered. A scream rang out from downstairs. They both shuddered. "No offense, but your house is really creepy."
"I hear there are ghosts in the attic," she said with a smirk.
"Are they attractive?" he asked innocently.
"What do you think?" she responded, genuinely needing to hear his opinion - her self-esteem had been taking a serious beating ever since she lay eyes on Carolina.
"I think that one of them in particular is the most exquisite thing anyone, alive, dead, or otherwise, could ever hope to have the pleasure of laying eyes on," he said in a voice that was so painfully honest, so devoid of flirtation, that it made Elizabeth's breath hitch.
"Unfortunately, you're wrong," she said in a voice that she struggled to keep sincere. He frowned.
"Oh?"
"Yes. The most exquisite thing anyone, alive, dead, or otherwise, could ever hope to have the pleasure of laying eyes on is a stableboy by the name of Wesley Brown," she said seriously. He grinned, relieved.
"For a moment there I thought you were talking about your Stansbury fellow," he teased. She nodded in mock appreciation.
"Yes, of course. I forgot about Stansbury. Him, too," she giggled. He took her in his arms again, and there was more wonderful silence before the next scream.
"You know, as much as I like it here in your attic, maybe we should spend more time at my house," he suggested. Elizabeth nodded instantly.
"Let's go right now, please. This place even gives me the creeps, and I'm literally the one that haunts it." And with that, they left her attic and began towards Wesley's house, hand in hand.
"How did you find me?" Elizabeth asked quizzically. "Didn't my father stop you?"
"Let's just say he was otherwise engaged," he said in a voice filled with disgust. Images of Tabitha flashed in Elizabeth's mind, and she decided she neither needed nor wanted to know with what he had been engaged.
"Oh," she said for lack of anything else to say, and they walked the rest of the way through the town in silence. But that was fine by Elizabeth, because to continue holding hands without attracting attention, she had to stand so close to him that their shoulders were rubbing against each other, and she really didn't feel like going to the trouble of making up some excuse for why she didn't just choose to not interact with him. Then again, she suspected that he wouldn't want to hear one.