Except Love
By Kayinay
Her mother had named her Ami, which was French for "Friend," in the hopes that she would grow to be beautiful on the inside, and a dear, loving friend to everyone. The single mother had educated her only daughter to the best of her abilities, wanting Ami to have all the possibilities that she could not.
Ami was proud of her name. She thought it was sweet and reflected who she was inside and out. Until she met Camille and Claire.
Camille ("Perfect") and Claire ("Illustrious") lived down the street. Ami met the pair, who were already best friends, when she was thirteen—just becoming a woman and very impressionable. Ami knew that she had been accepted by two very pretty and very snobbish girls, but they were friendly to her and Ami had always been proud of her name. They had many fun times playing with each others' identical blonde hair, putting on makeup and their best dresses, and giggling about the cute boy down the street or the peddler that came through town that day.
Right from the beginning, Ami never really appreciated the small, "harmless" games Camille and Claire partook in. She found little joy in taunting the rough boys from down the street, or flaunting her assets for the simple country lads. She didn't think it entertaining to have middle-aged drunkards pawing at her and breathing heavily, staring not at her face but at her chest. Ami didn't like when Camille and Claire whispered demeaning things about the other women in the village where behind their backs, or telling the younger girls crude things and ripping their self-confidence away with well-timed insults. Ami came to dislike her only friends, who she was with them, and her cursed name as well.
When Camille, who was the only one of the three with perfect hair, perfect skin, and a perfect smile, discovered Gaston, Ami discovered something else. Gaston was, she agreed in a high-pitched squeal with her friends, handsome and strong and oh-so-brave. She followed her friends as the three of them stalked Gaston. She swooned with them when he turned their way. She made doe-eyes and lifted her skirts just past appropriate.
Ami cursed heaven and god and all that was good that Gaston's one infatuation (Belle) was so like herself. Belle could read, and write, and converse. And while near to no one had heard Ami do so in years, she rather fancied that she still could. But it was so clear that Gaston didn't appreciate the finer skills in a woman, and Ami went to any lengths to be someone that Gaston would marry.
To the village folk, Gaston was the epitome of a well-traveled and wealthy man. For Ami, he was a way out of the squalor of her life, and her escape from the hardships was a wedding with him.
Ami cried at Gaston's wedding that was not for her; then cheered silently when the strong-willed brunette threw him out, while cooing over Gaston with her friends.
/ / /
Weeks passed, Belle had disappeared. Winter came, and so did a strange guest. The man was stranded in the isolated village until the winter snows melted.
He wasn't strong, or brave, or particularly handsome. Ami's friends did not find him interesting in the least, as he spoke of business and shipping and cargo. Ami was entranced by his tales. When he spoke of his ships, she encouraged him to speak of foreign lands and strange people. He described countries that she'd only read about. He could speak another language, and she begged him to teach her.
He tolerated her, she knew. He had little interest in a village girl, regardless of her beauty. He was from somewhere bigger, more important. The first week, she had tried the same tactics that Claire used with Gaston, but the traveler was bored with her. Instead, she took to sitting near him quietly, listening. Speaking, rather than parading herself. Asking an occasional question. Ami wasn't sure if it was working, but he had stopped sighing when she sat next to him.
Slowly, she drifted away from her friends, as they trailed along after Gaston. They accused her of not loving Gaston anymore, of being a floozy and flighty in her affections, and she didn't admit that she had never loved him, not like they had.
She had come to realize, through meeting the traveler, that Gaston could not give her what she wanted. Gaston was a simple man: he lived in a poor village showing off his ordinary earnings and was no more than mediocre compared to the outside world. Her friends didn't see this, and they pulled her along for the final time. There was one last party at the local tavern, followed by a terrifying march to a mysterious castle, where Gaston never returned.
Her friends were heartbroken, weeping endlessly; she was a little sad, he had been the focus of her world for nearly two years and now he was dead. She didn't try and broach the subject with Belle at her wedding to Beast, but Ami had the feeling that Gaston might have deserved it, whatever had happened to him.
Two weeks later, Ami had enticed the traveler, hooking him permanently, and when he left with the snows he took her with him, to be wedded in his home city. Her mother came as well, and by late March she was married and comfortably housed in his mansion in Paris.
Ami, the youngest of the three blonde "silly girls" was the first married. She had married a man almost twice her age that she did not love. In return for her beauty and devotion, she lived in a mansion and enjoyed expensive, exclusive treasures. She had left behind the near-poverty of that isolated village.
Her simpler friends lived in the simple village. They quickly moved on from Gaston, plying their appeals to other men. They continued their simple lives and were happy in a simple way. They had never been tormented by the simplicity of their lives, or their complicity for it, unlike Ami.
Ami lived the rest of her life grandly in Paris and traveled often with her husband to the far off places that her mother had taught her to read about. She made true friends in many countries, kind people with similar interests but different languages, which restored her love of her name.