a/n: inspired by 'The Prestige.' [as well as elements of Aladdin and Bruce Almighty, haha]
Caveat
She never could quite explain why she married him, when she knew he was less than in love and she was a—then—a successful and confidant woman, and she knew what she was worth and what she deserved—but then, as a young late-twenty something who'd never really been in love, she'd underestimated how consuming that emotion was when it struck. When he proposed to her—even though she'd sensed his feelings did not equal hers—she had thought—well, he must feel something; he must want me badly—and I can make him love me, one day, and he wouldn't ask if he didn't want me to—and she'd been so head over heels herself, so blindsided by the intensity of the infamous whirlwind of love—
She had married him, and years later, when they divorced brutally and bitterly, if her loved ones and their former wedding guests thought her foolish—she had the upper hand; she was the one who had looked into his eyes during their vows and seen how he tried to make the words mean something when they were empty; she was not in the dark, she had known there was work to be done. The difference was, when they had started out—she had been lovesick and hopeful, and by the end she was resentful and angry and—wounded.
She never quite regained that self-confidence and brazen security she'd been possessed of before him, because he'd so caused her to question her choices, and her morals, and the way she'd sacrificed her happiness to force him to love her—she should have known all the time that couldn't ever happen; wasn't that the caveat in every story of magic, fantasy, or whimsy?
Three wishes, but you can't make anyone love you. One day to play God—but you can't make anyone love you.
Cosmic power, divine power, hellish power—even in the stories, no single person had the power to make one man love a woman he couldn't.
The progression of her realization that he was monolithic in his—well, it wasn't indifference; he cared about her, but he was bad at showing it, and worse at pretending it was love—the progression was stark, and easy to see—
On the morning of their honeymoon, she'd been about to order room service—she'd lain naked and satisfied next to him, lazily twirling the cord of the phone, reading off options, and she'd stopped to say:
"Leroy, I love you."
"Love you, too," he'd muttered, kissing her. "Diane."
She stroked his bottom lip with her thumb.
"No, you don't. Not today," she'd muttered to him—and she'd seen the wariness in his eyes at being called out—but she'd smiled, and shrugged—because she'd been so hopeful, and so naïve—then.
Her determination to provoke love ended when he closed a serial killer case he was working, and when he lost his mentor at work, and stopped coming home—and then started training that new girl, the one with the bright, bright green eyes.
She'd said it one final time, towards the end, in the basement, toying with her decision to divorce him, not yet strong enough to tell him it was over—
"I love you, Leroy."
He had paused.
"Love you, too," he returned grudgingly—and there she realized it was always so mechanical, he never looked her in the eye, there was no feeling to the words—and she'd shaken her head and taken three steps back.
"No, you don't," she'd said sharply, this time reprimanding him for the heinous lie that had caused so much pain to them both. "You never will," she accepted.
She had left him, then, and poured her disillusionment into materialistic revenge—thinking of the caveat of magic and divine power: a woman could have all she wanted at the hands of warlocks, genies, and fantasy tales, but in no realm or reality could she make a man love her.
poor, destroyed Diane.
-alexandra
story #178