Chapter 1. Internal Strife.
The night was the coldest of the year, and the algid air contained an immense amount of frigidity. Infinitesimal white flakes fell indolently to the ground that had been hitherto covered with snow. The wind was ice, and the sky above was starless and sable. The commodious school stood silhouetted in a silvery fog as she walked noiselessly down the stone steps, a bag slung over her shoulder and her heart quivering with a certain anxiety that could only be caused by indecision. But she had chosen not to accredit her heartache to such a facile matter as that, just as she chose to affirm the fact that she had made a consummate choice. She held her chin high, for no one else but herself. Although the ground was benumbing to the average skin, she walked barefooted down the frosted steps, letting the cold overcome her tingling feet. Her shoes dangled lightly from her fingertips. Every breath she took formed a cloud of water vapor in front of her frost bitten cheeks that were tinged red from the cold. The most diminutive of sounds caught her attention, and she whipped her head around, causing her long blonde hair to whip around with it. The area around her appeared uninhabited, but she stayed rooted to the spot at the bottom of the last staircase. She sighed a soft and deliberate sigh, bringing her hand to her forehead, and breathed only a few barley intelligible words, as if talking to herself. "Joy and sorrow are inseparable…"
"You're going to quote Khalil Gibran?" The humor that was supposed to be present in the comment was eerily absent, as a young man, about 16 years of age, stepped out from behind a tall oak tree. His soft brown hair was in disarray and his light grey eyes were tired from the unauthorized late night football practice. When she didn't respond or look up at him, he began to talk again. "Angelina, please." His voice cracked as he uttered these words at a barley audible volume. He walked over slowly, stopping only inches away from her. She shook her head violently. "Joy and sorrow are inseparable," she reiterated. "How am I suppose to find joy if I don't go through certain sorrows to get there?" She avoided his eyes, knowing full well that if she concentrated too hard on the destroyed look on his face her confident facade would crumble.
"You have joy." He stated bluntly.
"I have content, not joy." She responded.
"You have a family that loves you." He said, his voice dropping an octave.
"I have a family that judges me, and expects me to be perfect."
"You have friends that care for you." He continued, his voice still quieting with every statement. It seemed he had come up with a never ending list why Angelina should stay.
"I do," was her only response to this. She mentally scolded herself for not have a witty repartee ready.
"You have me." He said, barley a whisper this time. He dropped his head, looking down at the ground.
"You are my best friend, and you know I love you, but-" She was cut off by a voice laden with anger and spite. A voice that contained so much animosity, and hurt that it sliced the brumal air and sent a sickening feeling deep into Angelina's very being.
"You love him more," he completed her thought. She was unable to answer for a few moments. She stood, watching the white cloud caused by her breath slowly disappear and reappear and tracing minuscule patterns on the back of her hand with her fingertips. The silent moments proved to be extremely awkward and agonizing. She finally found her voice and took a deep breath before speaking.
"I love him differently." She enunciated each syllable, thinking every word through thoroughly before she said it. At this point, she was almost pleading with him to let her go. But his face remained unchanged. His features seemed permanently etched with enmity and distress.
"Your family will never forgive you." He said, choosing to ignore what Angelina had just responded. He didn't believe it, it was mediocre compared to the feelings welling up inside his broken heart.
"And that's something I am prepared to live with," she lied. She knew she wasn't prepared for that above everything else. Her parent's, the most prideful of people, would be devastated when they found out. They had sent her to Dunwood, an isolated boarding school in London, to give her the most incomparable education possible when she was 8. And it had done so thoroughly in the 8 years she had been there, but she needed to get away from the exorbitant amount of people watching her every move. She loved her school and her friends and even her predominating family, but, because of her last name she was the target of all gossip when she would occasionally slip up. Her family was extremely proud and had worked hard to maintain the legendary family reputation. That is what everything seemed to come down to, without fail, every time. Grades below superb were simply repugnant, and would not be tolerated. Everything would always be organized to an irksome extent, and you were never to leave the house without being the epitome of supremacy. When you married, you married wealthy and illustrious, and nothing less. And that was another component, actually a very large component, that was urging Angelina to leave. Her heart belonged completely to someone her parent's would never condone there only daughter being with. What the boy standing in front of her didn't realize was that the love she felt for him, and the love she felt for this, in her parent's opinion, lesser person, were two completely different kinds of passion. They were antagonistic, and precisely inimical. They were equal in every way possible, but exact opposites of each other, and this boy was too moronic to stop and think about it from her perspective.
"I'll never forgive you." His statement was grave, and clear. The words cut deep into Angelina's heart, causing an immeasurable amount of pain and leaving a wound so momentous she didn't know if it could ever be repaired. Without warning, the warm salty symbols of despondency graced her eyes, and flowed wildly down her face. Skipping right over the tingling sensation you get behind your eyelids and the choking feeling in your throat that served as warning before tears were about to fall. It was astonishing how these four words were able to so successfully mutilate the carefully woven facade of complete confidence and utter indifference. Just those four words escaping his thin, cold lips in a tone of such desperation and woe as well as undeniably forced malevolence had sent her carefully constructed wall crashing down in a most devastating manor, leaving nothing but broken parts and useless debris behind.
When he looked up to see the unmitigated beauty that so often caught his breath marred by tears, his whole mind was thrown into utter chaos. The tears that fell hadn't made her resplendence lessen, instead it had enhanced it to a point where it was astoundingly bitter sweet to watch the relentless tears caress her porcelain skin. He knew the words he was saying to her were no more truthful than the fables read to little children at bead time. These words and actions were his last feeble attempts to keep his sanity with him, and were being done out of pure desperation. Ever since he had met Angelina, she had been his pillar, his foothold, his support. She had done nothing to hurt him and everything to alleviate him of bad circumstances. But the most important thing was she had been there. She had never left, never threatened, never taunted with childhood fantasies of leaving this place behind and him with it, until now. When she was gone, what had he left? A few people he could trust with nothing but his most frivolous flaws, and meaningless secrets. No one he could truly talk to, explain his real quirky dispositions to. No one to never judge him for opinionated rants he had grown so accustomed to letting out when he was around her. More important than his own demise that would inevitably be a result of her departure, was her own. Who would be her somebody to lean on? The man she claimed to have given her absolute fidelity to? But that man can't protect her as well as I can, He thought. She was much to fragile to be thrust into this alleged romance with no one but a contemptible fabrication of one's heart that had been overcome with this disease people to often labeled love. A horrifying thought crept through his mind, quickly taking possession of all of his thoughts. Was he the one who had fallen ill with this disease? It was quite possible he was being plagued with these delusions that this abnormally dauntless, unbreakable girl before him had become fragile by none other than the infamous love. She had never needed his shoulder, although it had always been there ready to be used. She was much to strong for that and somewhere in the back of his mind he knew it. Terrifying himself with the battle going on within his own mind, he was at a deadlock, with no one other than himself. He had forced the calamitous thoughts back into the depths of his own mind when she had first enlightened him about her secret ambitions, and was fighting his whole self trying to do it again. But one simple look into the tearful eyes of a pleading Angelina shattered every chance he had at dismissing the idea. Finally, the anger in his eyes vanished, and it turned into that of begging. The sincerity of the whole moment, the fact that both of them were completely vulnerable and exposed to the whole of their hidden emotions, was altogether intimidating.
"You can't do this to me, Angel." He managed a stretched, breathy plead. He didn't know what else to say.
She collected herself best she could, tears still running livid down her face. "If you really cared for me, as you say you do, you wouldn't be doing this to me." Her vocal cords had been brutally affected by her bawling state, and what was supposed to be in a serious tone came out in a rough, raspy voice.
"You don't have the right to say that. You're leaving me, remember? I'm the one getting hurt." He said, anger growing in his voice but his eyes stayed clear of all rage.
"You don't think this is hard for me?" She yelled, stepping closer so he could feel her warm breath on his freezing face.
"If it's so hard for you, don't go! No one is making you do this, you're choosing it for yourself! If it's so bloody hard, than just walk back up those steps and pretend this never happened. Because it doesn't have to happen, and you know it." He hissed at her, avoiding her eyes and looking down at the ground after he was finished.
"I can't do that…" Her voice trailed off. Her voice sounded soothing, almost therapeutic, as if she was trying to convince herself that this was her only choice. She had thought and thought, and to still be unsure was simply not acceptable.
"Exactly. So don't blame me for hurting you. You're hurting yourself." He was still looking at the ground. Angelina wished he would look up so she could look into his grey eyes, those doors straight to his soul, and tell him how sorry she was. She wanted to collapse into him, let him lead her back up the frosted stone steps, and wake up tomorrow safe in her four post bed. That was undoubtedly the easy way out. But the next night, she would regret it. She would be repulsed by herself for giving in, and would live to hate herself and whomever would try to judge her even more so because she had had the chance to escape it, and had chosen to stay subject to it. Angelina was looking down at her own shoeless feet now, noticing her tears landing in the immaculate looking white snow. She felt something warm under her chin, pulling it forward so she was looking straight into the crystal pools of emotion that had so often brought her comfort. His jaw was set in an odd sort of way, and he was searching Angelina's blank eyes. They held nothing. The brown abysses that were her eyes held no gateway to her hidden emotion, and that was something that had bewildered him from day one. The only way you could possible identify anything about this girl, was the set of her lips. An odd thing to translate ones inner feelings, yes, but it did it's job. Her lips were full, spread apart slightly to let out soft sobs that had refused to stop since they had made there first appearance of the night.
He breathed loudly out through his nose before saying something that he hadn't intended on saying at all. "Go." Something in Angelina snapped then, and she couldn't control any part of her body. Every fiber of her being told her to go before he had anymore objections, but her feet wouldn't listen. When she didn't move, he dropped his hand and gestured toward the obstacle free path ahead of them. "Go." He repeated. A sensation that was so aberrant it caught her off guard began to overcome her whole body, and mind. The unrecognizable reaction that had all of the sudden consumed her was overwhelming, to say the least, and she didn't know quite what to make of it. Without really thinking anything, words came from her mouth. Muffled by sobs and ruined by tears, her hoarse voice spoke quietly.
"Goodbye Seth." With not one glance behind her, she began walking and eventually broke into a run when her mind happened upon the option of turning back where Seth was still frozen at the bottom of the stairs.
She didn't know what she felt. It was some sort of deviant mixture of every emotion she had every felt in her whole life. When he had said go, he had given her everything she had ever wanted, and at the same time nothing. It had broken her inside to here the indifferent word, although forced it may have been, allowing her to walk away forever. Was she so desperate to be wanted that she was willing to hurt people to make them realize how much they needed her? Ironic, really, since she knew unquestionably that she was the one who needed them. He would never know how immensely formidable it had been to make the choice she had, and it's then when she remembered why she was leaving to begin with. That boy, that one who owned her affection, was waiting for her. The thought did well on its job, numbing the pain of losing someone she loved with the thought of gaining someone else. Her feet bare and her eyes still a bit wet, she focused on that one divine thought and let it lead her forward, despite her feet that were willing her to turn back. But like the adamant, stubborn girl she was, she let her mind take possession of her feet as well. But see, the heart cannot be manipulated by the mind, nor can it be evaded. That is why as she was walking away, her heart was screaming with objections, and her whole being was in turmoil.
He didn't know what he felt. It was an assortment of any and every emotion he had ever come across. When she had walked away so artlessly at his invitation to leave, his last attempts were shut down and she was gone. She was gone. He knew she would never come back, that much was certain, but would he ever see her again? Not even he knew how he would react if he ever came upon her again. Part of him thought he had been so deceived that he would be fuming with haughty words and be cruel to his former best friend. But the other part of him knew he would let her fall into him and treat her with such tenderness and brotherly love he could muster up, because that's just the affect she had on him. The way she was fascinated him to no end. Tearless and noiselessly, he walked lambasted back up the steps, trying to turn off his peregrinating thoughts. He didn't want to feel anymore. He was spent, and the desolation that was clinging to him tightly was subsiding as acrimony fought for it's rightful place in the situation.
The school seemed peculiarly different now, he thought as he walked through the big wooden doors. As soon as they had closed behind him, he regretted it.
In all the chaos that was his mind, he had forgotten to take the secret passage way that him and Angelina had navigated so many times before. The noise of the doors inevitable slamming echoed through the hall, and were accompanied by hurried footsteps. He was caught, and he felt too numb to even come up with a story to keep him form detention. The professor led him upstairs, back to bed, where she sternly informed him that he had 2 weeks detention to look forward to.