Ambriella
Seventeen times through the night I think I can see her trying to talk to me. Seventeen times I have to splash my face with cold water and convince myself that she's not real. But oh—how much more sense would it make if she was?
I'm heavy, and not in the good way. I swore to God and myself and the ghosts that surround me now that I'd shove Lucia's head into her asshole when I had the power to. I still want to. But what good has it done? I'm here now in this big empty house and…what happens now?
Come on, Ambriella. How did you fail to think this far ahead?
Edward tucks into the raspberry tart I've placed before him. He's gaining weight. I can tell because he keeps adjusting his trousers like they don't fit him right. It's these pies he's been eating. Look at this kid. You've changed his life. Why can't someone come along and change yours?
But someone has. Rainier has. And so has this boy. How stupid could you have been not to see how they've changed everything for you? Edward is probably going to live to at least thirty now that he's not as risk of starvation.
And Rainier…maybe he's become a better person now because of this. I know what I saw in him when he came to see me last week. Something has grown within him, some new hope and it feels like he's going to be fine.
So what about me?
Well, what have I done? I've been patient and good and exactly as I should have been. I've gotten what I wanted, but it's not at all how I thought it would be. But now that I think on it, I never imagined what it would be like once I had this place. All I could ever think about was claiming it as mine. And by this point it's become too corrupted and polluted with this awful hate for me to be able to stand it anymore. Rainier was right—I'd been so obsessed with making it this far that I've lost myself getting here. Every slap hardened me, every crack of a whip froze me, every cruel word and tossed heirloom and soiled memory poisoned me and now I'm not even sure what's left of me.
Maybe when you're floating through the in-between space once your life's mission has been accomplished, it's easy to look to the future. But what kind of person doesn't at least glance back? I glance back every day. I glance back at the space in the hallways by the painting of Madame Delbois where Father and Mother used to hide their love letters to each other, but I notice now that in the past few years I've only ever seen that space as the place where Lucia first hit me.
I glance back at the drawing room where Mother used to arrange her flowers, but it's been so long since I've seen it as anything other than the place where Anastasia first splashed tea on me.
I glance back at the garden where Mother used to read, but how long has it been since I've actually remembered her reading there instead of planting pumpkins to piss off Lucia?
This house stopped being home to me a long time ago, when I stopped seeing it as a sacred place with my memories in it and instead started seeing it as the ultimate prize, my tool to destroy my enemies.
It seems like Lucia and Anastasia and Drisella have lost the game at last, but no one's lost more than I have. What's worse—I feel like I lost it all by myself. I didn't even need their help.
Here stands the ever great Lady Ambriella Allendale, and all she commands in this queendom of hers is a hate she can't carry anymore.
I know that I'll never be able to forget it, much less if I'll ever forgive it, but there's a truth to Rainier's words. There is a promise of a better way of life.
So maybe I've been wrong to handle myself like this all along. And it's not easy to admit it—not even to myself—but it's the truth. And admitting it to myself isn't even a big deal. But to back away for a minute and see my reflection in the mirror, to really look at myself, to see how much I've changed—that's a big fucking deal.
Okay, Ambriella. So you went on a hateful, angry tangent. So you didn't turn out to be the perfect, happy little girl that Mother and Father would have wanted you to be. So you lied and you plotted and you waited for a dark miracle. So you stumbled. I guess everyone stumbles on the tracks every now and again. So you turned a little sour. So you hid from the light and what relief it could bring you because your hate grew too strong when you were the most afraid of being weak.
But you protected the name of your family. And you made yourself a blessing to Edward and Louisa and Jane. And you haven't been completely destroyed and you haven't completely lost hope and you haven't completely been depleted of willpower. Because if you had, then you'd have taken that step off the railing. And you didn't. You're still here. You're still breathing. You still have some chance to make yourself better.
Don't be mistaken though, Ambriella. It's not going to be an easy road. Because forgiveness isn't easy to do and letting go is the hardest lesson that life can teach you. It's easy to hate. It's easy to let anger and pain and grief consume you—easier than you could ever have imagined. But if you carry it for too long, it starts to wear you down. And then you're left at rock bottom on the balcony railing, wondering why you can't find it in you to get away from the ledge.
Forgiveness is tough, too. It's tougher than trying to get away from the ledge. It's tougher than hitting rock bottom and it can hurt more than the moment that you realize that you've become so weak that something as black and ugly as hatred has overpowered you. And forgiving the last ten years is going to take a while. A long while. Longer than ten years. Not an easy road at all.
There's no real way for me to tell where that road might end, but I can at least guess at where it starts. It starts in the parlor, at the seat of the grand piano. I blow on the dust and press a finger to a key. The sound plucks at an old and distant memory. For just a moment, I can see her there. Mother. Smiling beside me, her fingers gliding quickly across the keys.
Inhale. Keep going, Ambriella. Breathe. In. Out. Good girl.
Now play.
Keep playing.
Keep breathing. In. Out. Good girl.
Now live.
`.
The song she plays: Child of Light OST- Pilgrims on a Long Journey: watch?v=u3o5YtTPvJ0
