the art of loving ; lord tewksbury

twenty-four

"Are you going to answer me or stand there dumbfounded the rest of the night?"

Chapter Twenty-Four

TEWKSBURY

  She didn't remember.

  They kissed, and the memory had been wiped clean from her mind.

  Splendid.

  Tewksbury flopped onto his bed, a huff leaving his lips as his back came into contact with the plush mattress. Thoughts saturated his mind. He mulled over each and every one, trying to separate them and decipher them individually since doing so collectively proved to be futile. It felt as if his head was a never-ending maze. With every sharp corner he turned, he would only be met with a dead end instead of answers which would guide him to an exit. He was confined within the ivy-coated walls, but instead of the usual evergreen vines one might stumble upon, they were replaced with confusion snaking its way around and covering every inch of exposed area in his mind.

  In simple terms, things were...complicated. It seemed as though he could only float on the surface of what had happened whereas anything else below was incomprehensible. He couldn't get past the barrier dividing them, which meant he couldn't dig deep into the layers of the events which had unfolded in the past few hours. He had no clue how he should be interpreting them. He had no clue how he should react. On top of it all, he had no clue where his relationship with Daisy now stood.

  The only thing he could be certain of was that he had to start detaching himself from her. After they had cleaned up the storage room and put everything back in its original place, the both of them had briefly gone through the escape plan. It was still incomplete, with a lot gaps and key details yet to be discussed, but the foundation of it had been laid out and sufficient for Daisy to raise her concerns. She had admitted it worried her that things would go south, that some kind of intervention would disrupt its flow. To appease her unease, he assured her they would be meticulous in planning their next move and that things would go accordingly. Deep down, however, he fretted over the same concerns and tried to mask it with a confident facade. Whatever happens, he would make sure it didn't get in their way. He would make sure she got what she wanted with as minimal complications as possible.

  Which reeled him back to the dominating thought he couldn't get rid of—what if he was the complication? As much as he convinced himself—well, tried to convince himself—that he had to let her go eventually, how could he? He had grown so fond of her over the past few weeks, it wasn't a surprise he found it a challenge to resist her. Everything about her was just so infatuating. The way the corners of her eyes would crinkle up whenever she smiled. The way the tips of her ears would turn a bright red whenever she was flustered. Her little habit of tugging her lip between her teeth whenever she was deep in thought.

And God, her laugh. Her laugh was the most contagious thing ever and he truly couldn't get enough of it. If he could, he would bottle it up and get drunk on it every night because that was how she truly made him feel. Drunk. Ecstatic. Carefree, head empty with no thoughts about anything but her.

  The kiss they shared didn't do much justice for his swelling admiration either. It had been his very first, and he was sure it had been Daisy's first as well, which made it all the more special. Fresh and engraved in his memories, the mere remembrance of it was enough to send his heart into a frenzy.