AN: This story has been sitting among my documents since early December...I thought it deserved a chance to get out and see the world. :)
An Undiscovered Paradise
Prologue: The Surface Deceives
The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself ~ Anna Quindlen
I'm what most people would call a lucky man. I guess that's right if you're looking at the surface. The shiny, polished, flawless surface of my life. My family. My wife. My job. My house. My friends. All perfect. Shiny. Flawless.
But that's just the surface.
They say only about ten percent of an iceberg is visible, the rest is hidden away beneath the shiny, polished, flawless surface of the water. But the ninety percent that is hidden, well, that's the most dangerous part.
People think they know me so well. But they never bothered to look behind the surface. I'm hiding ninety percent of myself: my thoughts and my needs and my sins. But people are content with flawless surfaces. They don't question them. Assume they're germ-free...uncontaminated.
But people are so, so wrong.
I'm a bad man, but don't judge me before you know my story. I should hate myself, but I don't. You will want to hate me, but you won't.
Some would say I ruined my life, but I would disagree. I just knocked down what was already crumbling. By doing what I did, I didn't ruin anything: I made something. I gave myself freedom and happiness. You cannot fault me for being selfish once in my life.
For ten years I had sacrificed myself, which is worse than anything else, I realise that now.
My wife always tried to paint over our problems, like our life was some sort of flaking family portrait that could miraculously be saved by a drop of paint here and there. But marriage isn't a painting.
I never understood why she tried so hard. Why polish the brass on a sinking ship?
I loved her. My wife. I really did. I still do. But I hate her for what she turned into. No, she didn't become a monster, she became the opposite. She was my best friend. My lover. My angel.
She was my soul mate...my other half. Until she changed, of course.
Daphne turned into perfection. Exactly the thing I hate. I don't like flawless surfaces. They're too perfect. Too innocent. It's suspicious: nothing in nature is perfect, and anything that tries to be is perverted. Just plain wrong.
So when I saw - or rather met - the opportunity to escape the eerie perfection, who can blame me for taking it?
AN: Chapter two is still in its early stages, so it may take a while until I upload it. However, summer holidays is only two weeks away, and then I'll have plenty of time to write :) Review peeps of the world...there may be a brownie as a reward ;)
-alicerosemalfoy xxx