Jem held Tessa's left hand. The one with the ring on it. He smiled and said something, and she laughed, her whole face incorporated in the action. They didn't know he is in the library, sitting in a dark alcove by the unlit fireplace. Jem leaned in and whispered something in her ear, and she seemed to gasp a little before replying. Will read her lips, and felt something inside of him wilt. Jem gently brushed his lips across her forehead, and she looked up into his eyes, hers shining like two stars on a clear night. Will felt a certain kind of sickness well in his throat, and he wanted to turn away, but couldn't. He couldn't, so he decided to do the next best thing.
"Look at this! Right out in the open to! Dear God, Jem, and I thought you were a gentleman." Tessa sprang away like Jem had burned her, but Jem never flinched, simply looking at Will slightly exasperatedly.
"If I may say, William, you do not have much right to criticize after what I saw you doing with that...er... lady, you might say, last night." Will forced a jolly chuckle.
"I, though, have never put up the pretense of gentlemanly-ness, though."
"You certainly haven't." said Tessa. She had returned to hems side and was standing very close to him. Will glanced down to see their to hands brushing. Jem touched Tessa's left hand. The one with the ring on it.
"Ah, an insult war! I am incredibly good at these, however I am a bit peckish at the moment. May we continue after supper?" Will asked. He had to get away, had to be distracted from this gnawing pain inside him.
A few more words were exchanged and they went their separate ways. Except for Will, who stayed in the library. He crawled back into his dark alcove and stared at the place where Jem and Tessa had just been, and thought of the way the Jem could make her laugh. Will couldn't do that, not to anybody. He thought of the way Jem whispered to her, and how if Tessa was his he would scream it to the world, never be quiet or secretive or gentlemanly about it. He thought of her surprised gasp when Jem had said "I love you", and felt the desperate, hopeless longing for her to look Tessa to look at him the way she had looked at Jem when she had said "I love too." words he had never been brave enough to say with any weight to them. Walking though the Institutes hallways now, he felt the bitter pain of loss because he knew what they were going to say at supper tonight. And he hated, hated, hated himself for not wanting Jem to be happy.
"Tessa and I have news," Jem said as they descended the stairs to the dining room the night. Will looked up from his plate. Jem looked flushed and excited, and Tessa looked...well, mostly just flushed. But maybe that was his imagination hoping for something it would never get.
"Tessa and I are engaged to be married. I asked her, and-she accepted me."
There was a long silence. Will tried to keep his face blank. He had thought that he was prepared for this, but he hadn't been, because he was still clinging to the dregs of hope he had left, he hadn't fully given up yet. But he had now. He had failed to get the one thing that mattered most to him in the world.
He looked up at Tessa, and could see her begging the quiet room to say something. His eyes fixed on her face. He couldn't look away. He couldn't, so he did the next best thing.
"Congratulations, brother."
The smiled and laughed and joked and all the others in the room said their happy piece. All the while, Will stared at their hands, intertwined, hidden mostly from view. Jem held Tessa's left hand.
The one with the ring.
