Persuade Me. By Ena
The modern Persuasion.
Author's Note: Ah welcome, this Persuasion fic has been getting a long overdue rewrite. With four years having passed since I began, I felt as though I could not leave it the way it was: unfinished and unedited. Updates are supposed to be slow (since I really should be focusing on my uni work) but knowing me and my procrastinating nature means I'll probably have this completely upgraded and finished within the fortnight.
So here it is; over four years overdue, Persuade Me. Redone.
don't forget to review!
I met Frederick Anthony Wentworth six years ago at university; he was studying engineering and I was a nursing student. The first time I ever saw him was in the East Wing's campus kitchen, where I had been helping my fellow nursing student Jane study before she repaid me with food. Even though dad had set me up in my own apartment, just a few blocks from the university, I found that I spend most of my days on-campus, either studying with friends, or hiding out in the library. My apartment was lonely, its designer interior was unhomely and although heated; it always felt cold.
The second time I ever saw him was the first time I spoke to him. We were once more in the East Wing's kitchen, but this time we were hiding from the pounding music of the Wing's annual pre-Christmas holiday party that was blaring in the next room. Although we weren't alone in the kitchen, the others paid us no attention – too busy as they were doing a range of activities, from holding sculling competitions to looking for a discreet corner to continue snogging in.
I was doing my utmost best to hide my own, free corner in which to hide. Although I had assumed someone as attractive as he already had a girlfriend, I let him get me a drink when he offered, not even caring if he was secretly a creep who was about to spike my drink.
From there on in, we got to know each other – not in the biblical sense, but we sat up on the kitchen bench for hours, ignoring the bass of the music and the noise coming from the mess hall next door. He was the youngest of three; he had an older brother and sister who both lived and worked in London. He was the same age as me, but we were from completely different worlds.
I grew up in the glittery world of the rich and famous; a world of old money and those who rose to their fortunes. Although I never saw the point to bragging about it, my family had long rubbed shoulders with royalty and long gowns and glittery jewels were worn more often than not. My parents paid for exclusive education for my sisters and I; it was a complete contrast for Fred, he went to the local comp, played football on weekends and was more likely to rub shoulders with factory workers and sailors than the rich and influential.
I didn't mind, in truth he was a breath of fresh air into my boring life.
But that was five years ago, and since I screwed us up, my life has been completely void of any fresh air.
0-0-0-0
Now, five years after that fateful evening where I met the love of my life, I find myself working part–time as a nurse in a small Doctor's surgery, completely alone and living next door to my widowed and remarried father, his wife Penelope and my older sister Elizabeth. Mum passed away from heart failure when I was halfway through high school. I think she died of a broken heart, in truth; she was never the same after my dad admitted he was having an affair with one of Elizabeth's fellow model friends Penelope – a woman the same age as one of her daughters, the same shallow, small-minded tart he went on to marry less than a year after mum's death.
My father, Penelope and Elizabeth still lead their overtly extravagant lifestyles, throwing wild parties and attending the fanciest of soirees our country can host. I am forced to attend with them on occasion, wearing one of the five dresses I was forbidden to sell. Despite all this, I know one thing about my family that no one else can see – they're bankrupt and very close to having to declare it too.
I managed to clear my own personal debts by selling off the dresses and finery I simply didn't need. Elizabeth was scandalised, getting rid of nice things always struck a chord in her, and she never accepted my reasons for selling off a whole pile of unwanted Chanel, D&G and Dior gowns. The funds I got from selling the dresses let me buy my own apartment, meeting my father's standard of living, whilst not being too expensive to live in.
The fact that it was virtually next door to my father and sister was just unfortunate – but at least I was close enough for them to come running when something was wrong.
My younger sister Mary lives on the other side of town with her husband Charles, and their newborn son Daniel. Charles' family owns an entire estate so both Charles and Mary live in one of the smaller properties on the estate, a cottage trimmed with honeysuckle and a flowery garden which once would have housed the pastor of the district. My younger sister is a slight hypochondriac, so I find myself over there more often than not.
Aside from my family and my work I have nothing, I am nothing. I live on water, steak and my anti-depressants, I go for runs at ungodly hours of the morning and nightmares plague the hours I sleep. My job is unsatisfying as it is monotonous and with every passing year I feel more and more of myself just giving up. I feel the pressure to be more than I am coming in from all sides, dad wants me to be rich, but not have to work, Elizabeth wants me to be her personal servant, Mary wants me to be her personal doctor and nanny, Penelope wants me far far away and Aunty Agatha wants me to settle down with a nice husband and give her lots of children to babysit on weekend.
Aunt Agatha is the splitting image of my mother, but she possesses the same confidence that graces the rest of my family with the exception of my mother and I. Mum knew for many years that dad was unfaithful to her, but because she loved us kids so much she never left him. Agatha takes great pleasure in trying to run my life, which I've never minded so much, but there was one decision she 'helped' me make that I'll never forgive her for, and that was to end things with Fred.
My family never liked Fred, even when I brought him home to visit them for the first time. Despite his physique, which one him a point in my father's eye, he still didn't come from our social circle, and that made him an unacceptable match for me.
Elizabeth and Penelope turned up their noses at him, Agatha disapproved entirely and my father nodded along sagely with whatever reasons Agatha provided.
He came from a poorer, working class family.
An engineering degree wouldn't lead him to riches.
His upbringing wouldn't have included the refinement that was included in ours.
He wasn't right for me; I wasn't right for him, we were just wrong for each other.
Those words still sting even years after they were spoken.
I left a box of my old stuff from my uni days in the attic room of Dad's house. Full of my old diaries, letters, a few photographs. I couldn't bear to keep them all in my house – the memories associated with them are too painful, but nor can I bear to throw them away; so into my old room at the top of the house they stayed. I thought it fitting, that was the room in which I was last happy, so all the things that reminded me of those happy times should stay in that room.
0-0-0-0
Right now I'm awake, three hours early for work; having awoken early from my usual nightmares. I chow down my bowl of fibre-rich cereal as I put on my running shoes – ready for my morning routine. I slurp down my daily anti-depressants with the last mouthful of milk in the bowl. It's not much, but it's a routine, and I take what I've got and literally run with it.
I pound the pavement for a good hour and a half, getting a good few kilometres in. I return home just as the pre-dawn frost happens. I don't know why it happens, but the half an hour before sunrise the air is coldest and it sucks to run in – so I always try to go before then. The ice has begun to settle on the cement underneath my feet so I make sure I'm careful as I climb the steps back to my front door.
A quick shower and a second breakfast later I turn on the early morning news as I dress for work. There's some piece on about a bridge that's being built and they're interviewing the planning team behind it.
I pause, skirt half-zipped up as a very familiar voice graces my ears. It's him. Five years after going cold-turkey, I can see him, I can hear him. I grab the remote and turn the volume up as loud as I dare and grab the sides of my television with my hands. Even heavily pixelated, I feel like he's here with me. I recognise Fred's brother-in-law Adrian, a senior engineer lurking in the background of the interview, gesturing to building plans and the like as Fred talks about how the world is increasingly finding the need for pedestrian bridges. He goes on to talk about rope suspension bridges found in South America and some Pacific islands and how he studied some of them to incorporate into new designs for proposed London cross-Thames pedestrian and vehicular bridges.
This is news to me, whilst I spend most of my days helping elderly ladies get up out of their seats and into Doctor Berry's office and then back out to the pharmacist next door to help them fill their prescriptions – he's been travelling the world, seeing all the sights we once talked about seeing together. We used to talk about going to live in places we were needed; places I could help train nurses and provide vaccinations, places where he could help build homes and shelters. Places in which we could be together.
My own stupid decisions ruined that future, and karma is making me pay for it.
0-0-0-0
By the time I realise I've been sitting on the floor for five minutes, staring blankly at the next few news articles, the sun has started to properly rise and it's almost time for me to leave for work.
I've never been late to work, as a general rule for myself, I'm not allowed to. I have a few rules like that – I'm not allowed to be late to work, I can't forget to take my morning medication and I'm certainly not allowed to go on dates. They're little things, but they keep me going, and as for not dating, well... it's not as though there's anyone who wants to date me, so moot point.
I rush out the front door just as a limo pulls up outside my dad's house. Another all-nighter for Elizabeth, dad and Penelope, who stumble out of the backseat ungracefully and blunder towards the front door, still drunk from their wild night.
They don't even acknowledge me as they pass by, far too eager to seek out the comfort of their own beds. Last night was the 155th annual Royal London Charity Gala and thankfully I got out of it by claiming I had to work late. I've been to half a dozen of the Royal Charity Galas over the past and they are the same monotonous drivel each time. A few speeches, a pile of DJs and lots of alcohol, lots of it, and the culture of rich middle aged people making a fool out of themselves after the paparazzi retires for the night/morning.
I shake my head at them as they leave my sight, my today begins just as their yesterday finishes. Fitting, since we live polar opposite lives. I reach the doctor's surgery just as Doctor Berry arrives in his car. I walk to work most mornings and I don't bother with my car most days, much to the bemusement of my boss and my family. Aunt Agatha always frowns and purses her lips whenever she mentions having seen me walking, she thinks it's unladylike and that my car should be put to good use, after all I'm not a pauper.
Today's agenda is to keep the patients rolling into Berry's office and to get them back to their cars safely, prescriptions in hand. After the last patient rolls out of the door for the day, Doctor Berry and I make house calls until we're done. Then when it hits about six-thirty we're done and he drops me off at the surgery on his way home to his wife, whom he adores and three teenage boys that attend the same school I did growing up.
I walk back home from there and make myself dinner, watching through the window as dad's housekeeper cleans up the kitchen after the chef has finished preparing their usual elaborate French fine food dinner. On the occasional weekend dad makes me come over and spend the afternoon with them, listening to their drivel and the never-ending name-dropping. Most weekends though I get off scot-free, usually getting a call from Mary begging me to come over and make sure she wasn't getting a fever or conjunctivitis or to just make sure she wasn't dying.
At least Mary and Charles were fun to be around.
0-0-0-0
A week passes by in a blur after seeing Fred on the television, my regular routine continues without fault; eat, morning run, work, home eat, sleep, repeat.
Without that routine I fall apart. I've fallen apart before, about six months after I broke off our engagement. It's not a pretty sight and I'm doing my utmost best to make sure I don't let that happen again.
Most people think that others who are in despair usually just cry themselves to sleep every night and mope all hours of the day. But nineteen year old me was a little more dramatic, going absolutely crazy and doing a few regretful things. Of all the things I stupidly did, trying to take my own life tops it. In a haze of illegal substances I bought off the local university dealer I tried hacking into my own skin with a kitchen knife in the bathroom of the apartment dad bought for me to go to uni.
Unfortunately in my drug-addled state I had forgotten that Aunt Agatha and Elizabeth were due to visit me that day. Finding me in the bathtub covered in my own blood and completely out of my mind was probably not the best way to start a shopping trip. For a trip to the psych ward however it was the perfect opening line. After months upon months of endless counselling sessions, I was finally allowed to go home, back to the real life nightmare.
For the first couple of years afterwards, the challenge was trying to juggle uni and the fact that my entire family swept my mistakes under the rug with the words 'you lived, didn't you?' Their blasé attitude didn't bother me as much as how easily they managed to go on with their daily lives as though someone related to them didn't nearly just die a tragic, drug-addled death.
If the situations were reversed, I would have at the very least shown some concern.
I don't dwell on it though; my family have never been one for sentimental things.
0-0-0-0
I spend my weekend with Mary and Daniel whilst Charles is away on a business trip. We talk all afternoon, and I decide that out of my two sisters, Mary's definitely my favourite. She reminds me a little of mum, her maternal nature towards Danny always makes me smile. Although Mary and I were both fairly young when we lost her, I still think Mary's has all of mum's mannerisms. She also inherited mum's grace and quiet confidence, something that missed me completely in the genetic makeup.
As I'm out getting groceries to make us lunch with, my phone rings; dad's called me to let me know that he, Penelope and Elizabeth are moving temporarily to Milan for the fashion season and that they're renting out their house to a couple for six months. This doesn't bother me too much, but then dad goes on to inform me that I have to remove my junk from my old room as the couple would use my old room as a spare room for the woman's brother when he came to stay. As I'm trying to decide whether to get Iceberg or Cos lettuce my father drops the biggest bombshell and I nearly drop my basket from the shock. The tenants that dad has accepted are Sophie and Adrian Croft, a lovely couple – but it's my previous tentative connection to them that has my entire being shutting down.
Sophie is Fred's older sister, whom I met a couple of times when Fred and I were dating. That's not what worries me, living next door to the woman who may or may not remember the girl who broke her baby brother's heart half a dozen years ago; it's the fact that he'll be coming to stay with them for an unknown period of time in the next six months and very likely sleeping in the very same room in which I broke his heart.
I'm sure there's an ironic statement in there somewhere, but right now I'm trying to not drop my phone, the shopping basket and a handful of lettuce leaves that I picked up.
Fred's coming back into my life and I'm definitely not prepared.
AN:
yay! thanks for sticking around, this is the first redone chapter, so if you read on and it makes no sense, that's because the next one isn't up yet (so don't freak, it's not far away)
many thanks, don't forget to Review!