Here is a tale that stops the madness before it begins. I hope you enjoy it. Please review!
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Without Him
Jo lay on her side, alone on her bed, not moving. She had not moved for half the day. The pounding, passionate piano music issuing from the neighboring house still rang through the summer air, even though evening was closing. She stared at the wall as the shadows lengthened, gradually obscuring her familiar furniture and books.
"I swear I'll be a saint..."
She bit her lip. She knew Teddy could never keep that promise--or any of the promises he had made. They would drive each other to madness, they would irritate each other so badly, and neither would ever live up to the other's expectations. She had been right to refuse him. She knew she had been.
The piano suddenly crescendoed. She winced, certain that he would damage the instrument. He had been playing for so long. A dart of worry passed through her. His hands must be in pain.
She remained there, her hands tucked up by her cheek on her pillow, unmoving but settled, grimly determined to see this night through and get on with the next day. Teddy would realize how right she was, in the end. She had done what was best for both of them. They could not make each other happy.
Her eyelids became heavy as the distant notes whirled all around her; angry, passionate, but steady. The melodies and harmonies filled the room, and she almost paid them no notice; they had been present and constant for hours--soon she would be able to ignore them and go to sleep, escaping this nightmare.
When complete darkness had fallen, her eyes finally eased closed, she sighed deeply and began to turn over.
Hands slammed down on the keyboard, sending a bone-jarring, chaotic chord banging through the night. Jo froze. Then there was silence.
Nearly a minute passed. She began to shake, and abruptly she sucked in a panicked breath. She had not been breathing. But she inhaled as one drowning, who had only managed to resurface for a moment before being plunged beneath the dark waters again.
She sat up stiffly, going cold.
Nothing moved outside, and no one within the house beneath her stirred. The night was utterly quiet. Teddy had left it.
Trying not to start shaking again, Jo lay back down on her bed, consciously making an effort to regulate her breathing. She shifted her shoulders. She lay there a moment. Not even a nightingale twittered. She took her pillow and tossed it on the floor. It made barely a sound as it hit. She swallowed, then rolled over on her side. The sheets tangled her legs and she kicked at them, but they kept imprisoning her. In fact, the entire bed felt as if it was suffocating her. Jo's heartbeat began to race and she sat up again, angrily flinging her covers off and setting her bare feet on the floor. She sucked in another deliberate breath and bent her head.
It was not the bed. It was the silence that was suffocating.
Her fingers clenching around the sheet, she tried to shake whatever-this-was off of her. She just was not used to lying in bed all day--that was all. She needed something to occupy her.
Jo arose, began walking, then stopped. Her legs felt shaky. She paused a moment, gathering herself, then lit a candle, took it over to the bookshelf to search the familiar spines, her skirt swishing.
The room felt ghostlike, empty, and after a while she realized that her eyes had wandered over the books several times without reading the bindings. She shook her head, forcing herself to focus. But still no title jumped out at her. Until she reached the last one on the end.
Pride and Prejudice
She stared at it suspiciously. But finally, she drew it out, feeling its rough cover against the skin of her palm, and went back to sit on her bed. Gently, she placed the candle in a candle holder on her nightstand, and rested the book in her lap. But she did not open it. She just stared at the cover.
She had read it many times; she could almost recite it. She knew she did not wish to start at the beginning--it was not as exciting, there--and so she flipped to a place near the middle, not certain what she was searching for.
Her hand paused. Her eyes narrowed. She had caught sight of the incident where Elizabeth had just learned of Lydia's running away with Mr. Wickham, and Mr. Darcy had now come to visit her. The scene drew Jo in and then captured her, as it never had before. Raptly, she read how quietly Mr. Darcy listened, how vulnerable Elizabeth felt. All of Jo's knowledge of Mr. Darcy flooded through her; how disagreeable he had always been before, how contrary and sharply witty and superior--and to watch how attentive he was in that moment, how considerate and gentle...
Jo's heart squeezed as Mr. Darcy rose and headed toward the door, giving Elizabeth a quiet farewell. And then Elizabeth came upon the sudden realization:
I shall never see him again.
Jo's hands suddenly tightened on the book.
"One day you'll meet a man. A good man. And you'll live and die for him," Teddy's words resounded through her, though she tried to shut them out by squeezing her eyes closed. "You will. Jo, I know you."
The vivid memory of his his dark, eloquent eyes filling with betrayal, and twist of his brow displaying such stinging hurt and deep, aching disappointment, sent a breathtaking knife slicing through Jo's chest.
"And I'll be hanged if I stand by and watch it."
He was leaving.
She jumped to her feet, the book smacking to the floor. She covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes widening.
She could not remember what life was like without him. Ever since the night they had met at the ball, it had been as if an old life had ceased and another had begun--one in which she was awake and alive, like an abandoned garden whose gates had at last been opened. He had filled the household with laughter, had teased her, talked with her, challenged her, imagined with her, comforted her, and--
"I have loved you since I first clamped eyes on you."
Jo began to pace, nerves racing up and down her back and legs. She wrung her hands.
He had loved her.
She had done nothing to seek that, nothing to purposefully encourage it--and yet he had given it unsought. Just like Mr. Darcy.
And if Teddy had loved her all that time, there could be no way that he would stay here, in such proximity to her--it would give him too much pain.
She was going to lose him.
Her throat suddenly closed, and she stopped walking. All day long, while the piano music had still rushed through the air, she had been worrying about how he would get through this; how he would manage to heal.
But now she was stricken with a devastating thought: How will I survive?
She started toward one end of her room, then whirled around and paced back to her bed, then back again. She pressed her palms together, then put them against her lips.
Yes, they bickered and taunted and challenged and argued--but was that so terrible? Was that worse than never, ever seeing him again? Was that worth severing from his sparkling eyes, his welcoming smile--his soft, understanding touch? She closed her eyes. If he left, life would always be just like that moment after the piano had abruptly stopped--emptiness and silence.
Good heavens--she needed him.
She halted again as an odd and horrifying thought came to her: if she had tried to express such sentiments to him, to tell him that she needed him, needed him with her always, and he had looked at her right in the eye and essentially said "Do not speak that way. We argue too much. I care for you, but you really are not someone I want to spend my life with"...how would she have felt?
Tears stabbed her eyes, catching her off guard, her gasp echoing through the small room. She turned and stubbed her toe against the book she had dropped. Angrily, she picked it up and shoved it onto her night table. But in the process, she knocked off another book: her Bible.
It slammed to the floor and fell open. Distressed, she fell on her knees to pick it up. It had fallen open to Song of Songs--and her eyes caught a verse in the middle of the page.
This is my beloved and this is my friend.
Now the tears blurred her vision and the pain increased, deepening down through her whole chest, her whole heart--and now she knew how he felt. Hours earlier, she could not have comprehended it at all--she had been completely unaware of the travesty she had committed, of the powerful hurt she had inflicted upon his dear heart. And now it was consuming her.
Rising to her feet again, she swiped at her face, and she wildly glanced toward the door. Her fists clenched. For a very long moment, she just stood there, staring at the exit, a mighty struggle ensuing within her gut.
"Why not?" she demanded, her voice quiet but tight and barely controlled. She snatched up her shoes and shoved them on with trembling hands, biting her lip. Had she not always longed to do something wild and unconventional? This was her chance, then. Taking a deep breath, she got off her bed, and, without staying another moment to think about it, headed out the door.
TBC