This one's a bit different, I guess. Actually, the last two were a bit different, being as they were told as someone looking back on a relationship. This one, however, actually did take place in the books! Yeah, like the first one. It was hard for me to write, though, because I mentioned Simon in it and it's in Kartik's point of view and I was like OMFG YEAH YOU DID EACH OTHER DON'T DENY IT. Well not really. Just in the last chapter they did. Which took place after this by the way. And in a different universe.

Did I mention that none of these stories take place in the same universe unless I want them to? 'Cause that's totally true.

Okay, enough of my ramblings. Here's Story Four of Sentiments and I hope that ya'll like it.

Story Four

Title: Philosophy

Rating: K+ to T

Summary: Kartik didn't want to be in a relationship with Emily, although he really could have had her that way.

I used her, in a way. She never really meant anything to me, but she was always there—full of sympathy and a want to teach and be taught. She wasn't beautiful and she wasn't imperious and she wasn't socially above me. She wasn't a lot of things, but Emily was something very important.

She was there.

She came to me nearly every night that I spent in the stables of the Doyle residence. No, she did not come to me in that sense. She came to be taught to read, although I'm sure her motives weren't to increase her knowledge. I am arrogant, yes, but it is not arrogance that made me believe, or know, rather, that she was interested in me. It was the way she looked at me and moreover the way she looked at Gemma.

To Emily, it was obvious that my true affection did not lie with her. Still, she enjoyed spending evenings in the stables, listening to me read about Circe and Odysseus. I don't think that she enjoyed sounding out the words on the pages before her, but she did it to please me nonetheless.

We didn't just read, though. We talked about things, too. She always initiated the conversation by letting out a small yawn. "I'm rather tired of this reading, Kartik," she'd say. "The story is interesting, but listening to someone read always makes me quite drowsy." Then, before I told her that she better head inside and go to sleep, she'd look up at the stars and say with a sigh, "But it can't be that late yet. Perhaps we should talk for a bit."

I always wanted to talk about important things, but she preferred trifle conversation. I let her lead most conversations, but when I chose to talk about another subject, she rarely stopped me from doing so. If my ideas were too complicated for her, an uneducated girl, to comprehend, Emily would simply say, "But aren't there better things to worry about than philosophy, Kartik?" She said that even if I was talking about something much more concrete, as if everything out of her grasp was abstract and unknown and philosophical.

We didn't just talk, either. Our first kiss was on a cool December night. She'd been talking about purchasing some material to buy a new dress, and I suppose that I kissed her just to shut her up. I felt guilty about the kiss, partially, being as my heart truly belonged to Gemma, and my motives in kissing Emily weren't exactly noble. However, when I kissed Emily and she returned the gesture, I felt something in her kiss that I never felt in Gemma's. Gemma and I hadn't kissed too much, but whenever we did, there was always a question in it. In Emily's kiss, there was an answer. Her answer to my question, whatever it had been, was yes.

We kissed many times after that, despite my condemnations of Gemma's dalliances with Simon Middleton. I quite often pretended that I did not know his name, but I did of course. Emily, after all, adored gossip and talked quite often of his scandalous behavior with a housemaid of some family or another that she was good friends with. She said it with a laugh, though, as if she were making fun of them or did not quite believe the story.

I left the Doyle's residence after some time, and felt terribly guilty about leaving Emily behind. I'd never loved her or even been interested in her for a relationship. She knew that my heart belonged to another woman, yet still she sat with me nearly every evening and kissed me. Kissing isn't exactly the most sacred of actions, yet it is not something expected of proper young ladies. Kisses seem to be reserved for engaged couples, although no one really gossips about those who complete the action before that stage of their life, so long as it goes on behind closed doors. And I suppose that everything we did, as simple as it was, did take place when no one was looking, but what hurt me was that it didn't matter. Here I was sharing stolen kisses with Gemma Doyle, who would be forever shamed if anyone saw us together. Emily, on the other hand, could get away with our relationship, yet I did not want her at all.

Earlier I said that she came to me nearly every night, although not in a sexual sense. I'm sure she would have, though. Again, it is not arrogance that clouds my beliefs. Although kissing was not exactly scandalous, embracing me as a lover would have been frowned upon. And so when I left the Doyle's residence, I left Emily with many things that she didn't really want—a book, her virginity, and a broken heart.

I curse myself for it at least once a day, but everything I did in life brought me to my current situation. If I could go back and change it all, I don't think that I would. But I would change one thing.

I would have never tried to teach Emily to read.