A/N: OKAY. So. This is short and angsty and I haven't posted in until now, because I was feeling inadequate (I've partially gotten over this, which is why you're now reading this unnecessarily long author's note). There are a lot of good writers here who command language better than I do and are able to write more than 500 words at a time, which boggles my mind. I apologize if my sentence structure annoys anyone. I am often rambling and disjointed, which I have the leisure of being able to hide under the heading of style choice. I'm sometimes unconvinced that my style really lends itself to writing GWTW fic, but ah. Such is life. Anyway, thanks for reading!
Heartbreak is humbling to Scarlett in a way that idle gossip never was. True heartbreak, or what she perceives to be; this ache is not the crocodile tears of misspent youth. With Ashley, perseverance was the cure to the slow fragmentation of her heart. She could spend her life lovesick as long as he allowed her the thrill of the chase. Clandestine meetings in countless nondescript places. Hope. With Rhett, the cure lies in the acquisition of her prize. The fight is exhausting and unsure. She'd trade a million years of Ashley's windswept romance for one quiet evening of assurance with Rhett. But what has she ever known of love?
If one were to ask Rhett, he is the only person to ever experience love or feel the bitter pain of its lack. In the history of longing he is the sole author of its drawn out epic. He has walked out of the woods with his wanting and traversed over mountains, seas, invading armies, all for love. His love. The love he possesses that she can never know, because he refused to allow her the pleasure.
Sometimes Scarlett thinks about the Charleston girl whose brother died defending her honor. She thinks of Belle Watling and the countless other unnamed women who have shared her husband's bed, are sharing his bed, will share it. Their years of acquaintance have made it glaringly obvious that Rhett, not Scarlett, is the wartime veteran of their skirmishes of passion. He has the numbers and the successes that give him the confidence he so desires in telling her that no, she has never understood love. She will never understand his love. His love makes up the fabric of Heaven and Earth and hers, Scarlett's, is broken and imperfect. A fool's love. Wrong. Scarlett thinks of these women and the way their eyes light up when Rhett enters the room (like hers never did, like they do now), their fawning and preening as they drape themselves over his midsection, eyes lowered and heavy. Then there are Rhett's eyes, amused and detached, lusty, and the way he uses these women and passes it for romance. Momentary love to fuel momentary needs. What has he ever known of love?
Perhaps they have spent years arguing over a word without qualifying its definition. Misunderstanding wrapped in semantics locked in the chambers of their uncompromising hearts. Miscommunication. Deception. And above all else their constant companion Regret, who lingers at their throats and sucks all of the oxygen until there is nothing left but to choke.