Chapter 4-
Do not go gentle

"And I have the sense to recognize that I don't know how to let you go"

Charlotte's POV

You stood there a long time afterwards.
Your whole body seemed to tremble and your lips still burned from his kiss.
You had thought that you had managed to remove every trace of him from your heart.
You were so convinced that your past had taught you to harden your heart that seeing him again would not affect you the slightest.
You had relegated him to the past after all.
You had been wrong.

You had come back to Sanditon all those months ago in search of a life beyond the confinement of your village.
But you also came to shed yourself of another.
You had not been prepared for Alexander Colbourne.
He came into your life at a time when you tried to find a way back to yourself again.
You found him cold and standoffish at first.
But as time passed he let you see other parts of him.
There were moments when he let you see glimpses of another man than the man that he presented to the world. He had a way about him that drew you in.
When he first smiled at you it had a devastating effect on you.
It changed his whole demeanour and made his eyes sparkle.
You saw warmth and softness in him that he kept hidden from the world.
Slowly and surely he managed to weaken your defence and find his way inside of that wall you had built and maintained since you left Sanditon the first time.

Something happened when he held you in his arms and danced with you.
Maybe it had happened long before that.
All you knew was that something inside of you was irreversibly changed.
Something you thought had died came alive and blossomed in your chest.
When he kissed you that night he ignited a fire in you.
Your blood heated and your spirit soared.
For a moment you let go of all your fears and doubts about the future and opened yourself up to the possibility of something new. You were ready to explore the feelings he evoked inside of you.
But once again you were not enough.

He dismissed all the things that happened between the two of you with a coldness that hurt more than anything else.
But as you stood there listening to his words a part of you felt ashamed.
You would think your past would have taught you to be careful.
But you had let him in.
You had opened yourself up to this person.
You had once again let yourself believe that this time you had found someone that you could give your heart to.
How foolish you had been.

When he came to you to make amends your instinct was to defend the remaining piece of your heart.
You took a stand and refused to give in.
It was a matter of survival after all.
You gave him nothing.
As you stood there in the parlour looking into the eyes of the man that had hurt you all you wanted was to show him that he wouldn't break you.
When you told him you were leaving you saw his expression change.
For a fleeting moment, you saw something there in his eyes that made you hesitate.
You saw pain and sorrow there.
But then it was gone and replaced with something else.
It was like he curled back into himself and retreated behind those huge walls he kept up.
A part of you wanted answers to the emotions that you had seen in his eyes.
The other part wanted to remove that part of you that still wanted anything from this man.
You wanted so desperately to erase that light that still flickered in your chest.
That light of hope that he would say that what you felt was reciprocated.
But he shut himself away and with a brisk bow he was gone.
The silence was deafening afterwards.
You let go and let all the pain wash over you.

You let yourself come apart after that.
You felt empty since the day you parted from him.
For a long time after you felt like a failure because he still managed to effect you.
It felt like you had lost your footing but you fought hard to find your centre again.
Slowly but surely you managed to shed yourself from your past.
At least that was what you told yourself.
You packed up everything you had felt for him and denied that they ever existed.
You started on a new path and you refused to look back on what had been.

Alexander Colbourne's reappearance in your life had shook you.
You knew that you risked seeing him again coming back to Sanditon.
But you told yourself that you were stronger now and wiser.
Meeting him today had proved that what you had built up since he walked out of your life had meant nothing.
His words and actions had brought your world to a standstill.
You had thought he had been indifferent you.
That the moments you had shared had been just that moments and nothing else.
You had scrutinised every part of your past interaction with him and you had come up with a truth that you clung to.
He had never felt the same.
As you stood there with his taste still lingering on your lips doubt found it's way inside.
But also a trembeling fear.
The simple truth was that he still held so much power over you.
You came alive when he was near.
He had the ability to lit a fire inside of you by simply touching you.
That power scared you.
The truth was that he had managed to rip out the stitches from your wounded heart in one single moment.
It felt like the world you had built and maintained since two of you parted was now held together with strings.

The man you had promised to marry was sitting in the parlour reading a book when you came back.
He rose from his chair as you entered the room and smiled at you.
"Charlotte."
"Mister Starling. Ralph."
"I came by to ask you to come for a walk with me. I was told you were out."
Shame poured over you then.
The truth was that you felt out of sort since the night of the ball.
"Yes. I was out walking."
"I came to speak to you about that it's time..."
"Of what?"
"Reading of the banns."
He took your hands in his and made you look at him.
You saw warmth in his eyes as he continued:
"I think it's time, Charlotte. It should have been done earlier. But..."
You nodded.
"I know."
You had been the one who had wanted to wait.
He had been patient with you.
"I want you to be my wife. I want our life together to start."
He was a kind man.
He would never hurt you.
He would give you a good life.
When he first kissed you all those months ago you tried ignore the fact that you felt nothing.
You convinced yourself that it would come with time.
That spark in your heart.
That fire.
But as you looked at him now you knew that fire was dangerous.
That fire another man had the ability to evoke in you by a simple touch had the power to consume you.
You had gotten too close to that fire two times in your life and it almost killed you.
You had been reckless and foolish.
This man before you offered you a safe place.
A home.
A good life.
You couldn't let that go.
So you smiled at him and said:
"I want that too. I want nothing else than to be your wife."
"I'm pleased to hear that, Charlotte. I will speak to the vicar in the morning."
He smiled back at you, brushed a light kiss on your lips and left.
You stood there with your heart racing in your chest.
You tried hard to not compare the feel of his lips against yours with the touch of another.
You failed.